Cinematography for Actors

Doing it Scared & Faking it ’Til You Make It with Writer / Producer Jason Shuman

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Hae chats with Jason Shuman, a film industry veteran who’s transition from the bustling world of production to the contemplative realm of writing offers a rare glimpse into the intricacies of storytelling and the crucial interplay between departments in the industry.

Explore his trajectory as a young, determined filmmaker finding his voice amidst the chaotic yet thrilling landscape of Hollywood. Jason shares how his strategic educational choices and early career steps, including pivotal internships with industry giants like Joel Silver, and Arnold Kopelson laid a foundation for success. His anecdotes paint a vivid picture of how educational freedom and real-world experiences converge to shape a unique creative identity, highlighting the importance of not just learning, but living.

He reflects on the significance of networking, unexpected success stories, and key lessons from selling TV pilots. Through personal stories and professional insights, Jason underscores the symbiotic relationship between writers and producers and the necessity of understanding screenplay structures. This episode is a treasure trove for aspiring filmmakers and storytellers, offering practical advice and inspiration to navigate the ever-changing world of film.

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Cinematography for Actors is a community aimed at bridging the gap between talent & crew through our weekly podcast & community events. Our weekly show supports the filmmaking community through transparent, honest & technically focused interviews with the goal of elevating the art of effective storytelling.


Bridging the Gap

Speaker 1

It turned out to be genius because Friday night there was no other movies to see Kangaroo Jack, if anyone remembers, that was basically the only other movie out. So somehow teenagers with nothing else to do flocked.

Speaker 3

This is the Cinematography for Actors, podcast More than a podcast.

Speaker 2

Cinematography for Actors is a vibrant community devoted to bridging the gap between talent and crew. Each week, our show offers transparent, insightful conversations with industry leaders. We unveil the magic behind the scenes, from candid discussions about unique filmmaking processes to in-depth technical exploration. Join us in unraveling the intricacies of filmmaking, one episode at a time. It's more than just cameras and lenses we aim to inspire, educate and empower as we peel back the curtain on the art of effective storytelling. Now on to the episode. Hi everybody, this is Cinematography for Actors podcast, and I am your host, haley Royal. I'm very excited today to have an esteemed guest with me.

Speaker 1

But neither an actor nor a cinematographer.

Speaker 2

No, but wait, I'm going to get there with you, hold on, it'll all make sense. Jason Schumann everybody you know him from lots of movies, a large handful of number one box office winners, contestants and all amazing other things. Hello, jason. Hello, thank you so much for coming here today.

Speaker 1

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2

Before we jump in, I will tell you, to make it apparent why you're here.

Speaker 1

Okay, good.

Speaker 2

We love to talk a lot at Cinematography for Actors about bridging the gap.

Speaker 2

It started out as bridging the gap between talent and crew Because Indiana, my co-founder co-host, is a cinematographer and I'm an actor, and we realized that there were a lot of communication and collaboration gaps between those two departments and so we set out to bridge those gaps by offering context, by teaching talent and crew how to socialize with each other through workshops, community building, things like that. And then we quickly realized that those gaps exist between every department, especially the. It feels to me like the more budget you get, the more closed off those departments become from each other and the less context everyone has. So I brought you here today because you are a very wildly successful producer who bridged the gap between producing and writing, because you then became a very successful writer and I want to talk about that and how that worked and what you found that you would have liked to have had from a producer as a writer and vice versa. And also I want to know about your life, because we met and I told you my life story.

Speaker 1

She did, she told me her whole life story.

Speaker 2

You were so gracious and you listened and you were excited to hear about me and I walked away being like, oh, I don't know anything about that person. So you're here to tell me your whole life story and also those other things.

Speaker 1

All right, all right.

Speaker 2

Let's get into it. Let's jump in. You were born, a small infant.

Speaker 1

Quite big.

Speaker 2

Big infant, then I shrunk.

Speaker 1

Yes, I was born in Detroit, Michigan Okay For any Michiganders out there. And then we moved to Cleveland, Ohio for any of those Ohioans.

Speaker 2

What age was that move?

Speaker 1

When I was four.

Speaker 2

Okay, Okay, so you'd you were kind of, you'd done a little bit of school, but not enough to be like solid, I don't remember.

Speaker 1

I mean my whole family's from Michigan Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. So, I have a lot of memories of Michigan, just not living there, but my mom was such that she hated that we had. My dad was a clothing salesman, so we were constantly moving and my mom made this deal with my father that she could take me and my sister back to Michigan anytime she wanted.

Speaker 1

No matter what so we were always being pulled out of school like always just going back to Detroit for long periods of time, that you know at the end of the school year when they give like perfect attendance awards my mom would always say you will never win that award.

Speaker 2

Don't worry about that award. It isn't for you. How did she skirt truancy laws to be able?

Speaker 1

to do that. Are there such things oh?

Speaker 2

yes, oh yes, as a wildly absent child myself. Police will come to your house to check on why you haven't been to school. So she must have. Well, not to?

Speaker 1

brag, I was a very good student. Okay, I cared about grades. Uh, my sister not so much okay, so we were very different and she's very successful acupuncturist now, but we were very different back in the day, yeah, and so I don't think there was a worry for me, maybe, maybe for my sister okay, um, but the teachers were like.

Speaker 2

You know, he gets it, he's good.

Speaker 1

I used to get. I went to this very preppy private school and I had to wear a suit and tie and uh, maybe that's how we skirted it, because it wasn't a public school yeah and, uh, my mom liked the idea of me having long hair, so all my pictures in these like suit and ties. That's me looking like Prince Valiant or something.

Speaker 2

How long?

Speaker 1

She, would you know, like that.

Speaker 2

Did she ever like pull it back for you? Were you ever also in? You know how in the?

Speaker 1

olden days.

Speaker 2

No ponytail. You know what I'm talking about. The ponytail with the ribbon. Yeah, I always found that incredibly attractive in those old movies, like a period drama and a guy with a ponytail and a bow. For some reason that bow is very masculine oh but, only in that case and never a brave.

Speaker 1

Maybe she was thinking that, no, she just, she just thought that that's how I looked good. And then I mean, one day I probably asked to cut it, and then I probably cried, because isn't that what kids do? They get their hair cut, they think it's a good idea, and then they cry because it's going to take a year to grow back.

Speaker 2

Well, you know, there's so much pressure too, because you've become a new person, almost Like when you cut your hair off, you're a new person, and I don't know if a child is ready for that to embody the new person. And they realize that when they're looking in the mirror and they're like, how do I do, how do I stand up for this? Like, how do I become this? I, I get that. That happened to me a number of times where I'd go long from long to short wow.

Speaker 1

But then we moved to the bay area, we moved to San Francisco and that's where I feel like I had my true teenage years childhood yeah. So I was already moving west.

Speaker 2

Yeah, okay, and I did a little research and I heard that you had a special note from your mother to get into R-rated movies.

Speaker 1

I had a lot of notes from my mom.

Speaker 2

It sounds like your mom was kind of a badass and a rule breaker.

Speaker 1

Well, she was just loved being a mom. Okay, so anything that had she was like. She was happy to coach the soccer team, happy to do PTA stuff, happy to carpool, happy to it was her dream to just have kids and be a mom.

Speaker 1

So, I always had like the best lunches with cool notes inside about how great I was. And so, yes, like if I wanted to go see an R rated movie, it was just a kinder gentler time back then where she'd give me a note and I'd go at 12 years old, I just walk up to the thing and they would accept it back then, Just quick thing. Like my mom knew very early on that I wanted to be a storyteller of some sort and um, so when, when a movie would come out that I wanted to go see right away and I had a bicycle, I would just ask her if it was okay if I ditched school and go see the movie.

Speaker 1

And I have to say it's so I don't know. I know rule breakers are cool and edgy, but for me there was something nice about like I'm at a 1230 show for a movie and my friends have all ditched school and their parents don't know and they could come home to angry parents.

Speaker 2

They would come with you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and I would be like so relaxed thinking like my it would come with you. Yeah, and I would be like so relaxed thinking like my mom's already approved this.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's totally fine Well and as a parent too, I'm sure, like you, would rather know that your child is at the movies, yeah, and not be thinking they're like, just in case anything happened, you can be like it's okay, I know where they are, and just that, like that freedom to be able to be like mom. I am going here because you probably would have gone anyway.

Speaker 1

I would have gone anyway, but I just enjoyed it more knowing I wasn't gonna get in trouble when I got home maybe that's an unedgy part of me, I don't know. It just was better, and but I did something like senior year I was I did play baseball. That was like a big sport for me and I was captain of the baseball team, and which is not saying much. It was not some big public school team, it was a private school it was a private school we have.

Speaker 1

We have learned that this was a private captain of some fancy high level team, but we went on a like a spring break trip and someone brought a bottle of Southern Comfort. We all passed it around the motel room. I did drink it somewhat, how the principal found out, and all our parents were called and brought in.

Speaker 1

And my mom pissed the principal off because my mom was like so what? It's a bottle of Southern Comfort and these kids are like one year away from going to college, these kids are going to start drinking anyway, come on. The principal, mrs Schumann. That's not Mrs Schumann. The rules are they are underage and they're not supposed to be drinking. And my mom was like I was doing much worse when. I was my son's age, so that's just the kind of mom she was.

Speaker 2

She just respected you as another human being oh, that's nice it sounds like she's like. You have your ideas of how you're gonna live your life yes, my job is to support you and growing get out of my way honestly yeah, fantastic. So you had this note.

Speaker 1

You got to go to movies I went to a lot whenever you felt like it r movies.

Speaker 2

I just love that story. And, yeah, that fed you and then you went to film school.

Speaker 1

Yes, I was sort of like well, I was kind of USC do or die. Okay, there was a time when I was 16 and I thought I wanted to go to NYU and my parents God love them were like, well, maybe you should go to a summer program at NYU. So I went Wow, they just dropped me off in New York City. Think about this there weren't cell phones back then, so there was a pay phone in the lobby of the dorms and I was supposed to call on Sundays between 5 and 7. And that's it.

Speaker 2

That's it.

Speaker 1

That's all they knew of their 16-year-old.

Speaker 2

They're like. Mine is off at camp.

Speaker 1

I'm like oh my God, would that happen today? I don't know. No.

Speaker 1

No, but I didn't. No disrespect to NYU, I didn't love it. Ok, I didn't love being in the city. I kind of wanted like a big old school campus feeling. So after that experience I was like like all or nothing to USC film school it was. If I didn't get in there, life was over to me at 16, 17 years old, thank God you got in and when I got in I honestly I thought like the heavens had parted. Yeah, and I was. I'm the anointed one You're the chosen one.

Speaker 1

And then you get to orientation and you realize so did everyone else that got in think they're God's gift, and so I was like, OK, it's time for me to like get off the high horse and get to work.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and you. You realized that immediately.

Speaker 1

Pretty quickly because I was. I didn't love high school. I thought a lot of the courses just in high school the physics and it just didn't interest me. I did what I had to do to get a good grade but I was so much more interested in history and literature and storytelling that it was a lot of the courses just were like I have to deal with this, you know, because it's part of high school curriculum. But getting into film school, not only that, but then meeting all these like-minded people, it was heaven to me right away. Yeah, I was like. All these people were like little me, from Tennessee, from Pennsylvania, from all over the place. There were me versions of me and we all became like instant friends and forget having to get a note from my mom. We would be like we'd have a test on like a Tuesday night and everyone would be like come on, let's go see the new Tom Hanks movie. We'd be like I don't have to ask anyone.

Speaker 2

I can do whatever I want.

Speaker 1

So we used to laugh to like our version of like freedom and everything was not going to a party and getting drunk, but it was like all going to Westwood on a Wednesday night To Westwood To see a movie. Very safe.

Speaker 2

That's amazing. So you realized that you had to get to work. And we have a lot of listeners who are in this area now, who are, you know, first or second year of their undergrad. They're realizing that they want to work in film. So what did get to work mean to you? How is it different than just like, oh, go to your classes and do have the experience and then graduate? How are you getting to work before you even graduate?

Finding Your Voice in Hollywood

Speaker 1

It's a great question, I mean, to me it's twofold. One is well, I'm 18 years old and I have to acknowledge that, even though I've watched thousands of movies, I know nothing right, and so I need to sort of soak in all these classes photography, film history, editing, uh, the class where you make short films I have to go into it just feeling like don't think that, don't assume I'm just some young Spielberg or something Like. Let's just start from scratch and try to see what I think. Maybe I gravitate toward more what I feel like I'm good at, what interests me. Am I even good at screenwriting? Am I even good at whatever? So that was a lot of it. Also, trying to take classes like reading the classics and then back. The great thing about university as opposed to high school is I could pick my classes. Oh, world War II class, that sounds interesting.

Speaker 1

Oh, a mythology class. Well, those are where stories come from, or mythology.

Speaker 2

So you're realizing that you can pick and choose even your general courses to fit what you're looking for on a large? I think a lot. I don't realize that. A lot of kids don't realize that there are options that don't just pick something like I have to do this damn class, like I'll pick this one, but like look for something that's going to fit into your overall career goals.

Speaker 1

Well, that plays into the second thing I was going to say, which is finding your voice. Like, as I'll be honest, as a just kid growing up and say Northern California and being on swim team playing baseball, it was part of the community living up North. I don't know so much down here, but I felt like I had to find my voice. What is it? What kind of stories do I want?

Speaker 2

to get us back on track, sorry.

Speaker 1

I see like coming before me. There were people like John Singleton at USC and this was like a kid grew up in South central, popped out of college with boys in the hood script right, had a strong point of view, right. I didn't have that life yet. I hadn't really lived a life, to tell stories other than my imagination, which is worth something. But I kind of felt like it was time to start, I don't know, without going overboard. I'm not saying like do a bunch of drugs and go crazy.

Speaker 1

I felt like I had to start to live life, so I could figure out what kind of stories. I wanted to tell or where my imagination could go.

Speaker 2

There we go Beautiful. Then you finish school and you have kind of an enviable. I'm sorry I'm leading this so much, but I just I'm proud that's your job as the intern. I know, sometimes I like it. I would go to ramble, though, but you had kind of the dream transition into career. You finished school and then you had an internship that led to a job, right yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

And that's. I feel like it's so smooth. It's so smooth and just like clear that that's what was meant to happen. Thanks, I guess. Did you feel that way?

Speaker 1

I'll give you the intricacies, so it doesn't seem so easy-ish. I felt like I'm in Los Angeles. I feel like if you're in college, I don't care if you went to USC, if you went to community college, afi, ucla or any of the surrounding film schools, which are all Occidental, what's the one? Chapman?

Speaker 2

What does Occidental mean?

Speaker 1

I think it's a college.

Speaker 2

Oh, it is a school. I was like what does that mean about colleges? I'm using big 50 cent vocabulary Wow.

Speaker 1

Apologies. I felt like shame on me if I didn't do some internships while I'm here. So the only thing you can do at that point is look up people that you like or movies you like, and so I did internships. Because I loved Lethal Weapon, so I got an internship with this producer. Joel Silver at the time had kind of a bombastic reputation and it was fun, you know, making copies in the copy room, listening to him screaming right right um, which those kind of things led to, like a summer job being a PA.

Speaker 1

So one summer I'm here, I'm living in the dorms and I'm like running around being a PA on a TV movie, and the TV movie ended up being produced by this guy named Arnold Copelson.

Speaker 1

I don't know why he was doing this tiny TV movie, Because he had won an Oscar for Platoon. He had had the Fugitive come out and he not only was at a gargantuan blockbuster, but he got nominated for a second Oscar and I got asked if I wanted to do an internship once school started back in. So I was sure yeah. So then I went every Friday to his office on the Warner Brothers lot to do an internship there. Now I could smell the cigar smoke wafting from his office on Fridays, when I would be there Again just making copies or answering phones or doing whatever coffee, and the year was coming to an end.

Speaker 1

I was about to graduate. I would be there again just making copies or answering phones or doing whatever coffee, and the year was coming to an end, I was about to graduate, I had planned to, I had like my first grown up girlfriend like adult related. Like man, I have a person I can call my girlfriend. We were going to have a fun summer, and then I was going to take life seriously once the fall came. Um, I didn't know what that meant, right, and then?

Speaker 2

but isn't that's how we're like raised to think, though it's like. All right, it's summertime and then we'll get serious in. August. Like I love back to school I even though I can't do that anymore, I still think like May 17th graduation day should not be like May 20th.

Speaker 1

I'm supposed to start life.

Speaker 2

I know very weird. No, no, no, you need a break so you were going to become an adult in August yes, after that summer.

Speaker 1

so I was ending my internship and, uh, the, the, the company, arnold's company, was having a movie coming out that summer, big Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. They invited all the interns to come to the movie premiere, which is fancy for like a college kid, that's so nice. Yeah, so because I would smell the cigar smoke, I went to some store in Beverly Hills and I bought two Cuban cigars which you can get at the fancy if you just kind of be like wink wink.

Speaker 2

You're like please, it's for somebody. There's some Cubans in the back room.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and so at the premiere I saw him, arnold, and Arnold Copelson, and I said thank you for the internship. It's been a wonderful year. It ends in two weeks and I got you these as a thank you.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

That is wise, beyond your years, to be honest.

Speaker 2

Kiss ass not, not real, like it's just, you were being appreciative I was, and you were paying attention, you know you could have gotten him like a coffee gift card or something but you, you multi-millionaire yeah, here's a five dollar starbucks gift card for you.

Speaker 1

Thanks, but this is where some luck came into it, because, as I'm giving it to him and he won't accept them, he's like jason and, by the way, uh, I don't even I'm making that up, I don't think he knew my first name yeah I think he was just saying thank you young man I can't take these from you and I said I bought them for you.

Speaker 1

I also enjoy cigars and I can smell them from your office. And as he's trying to tell me he can't accept them, literally Arnold Schwarzenegger walked up not to me, to him and said oh, oh, those are good, let's take them, let's go, let's go to the parking lot and smoke them. So they took them. Yeah, they did not invite me, but they went off. And two days later I got a phone call from his office saying we heard you're graduating. We want to offer you a job. Wow, so now it puts my whole plans, my whole summer plans in tailspin.

Speaker 2

No beach days.

Speaker 1

No.

Speaker 4

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Speaker 1

So I got some good advice which was like this is a good opportunity for you.

Speaker 1

You can always quit if it's not for you. Cause I had kind of thought that I was going to do this thing where I was going to go, like in the fall, I was going to start writing this amazing indie script and then I was going to do this thing where I was going to go, like in the fall, I was going to start writing this amazing indie script and then I was going to scrap together some money and I'm just going to go direct it and cast it and I'm going to do like mall rats kind of thing, clerks, and just go make an indie movie. Well, what about that dream? What about that? What about my movie? But people wisely, were like Jason, jason, why don't you just ride the roller coaster for a minute? Why don't you just take the job and see where it goes? You can always quit. You can always do that a year from now.

Speaker 3

And.

Speaker 1

I thought that was good advice to me, so I did, I quit and it was very working girl-esque for those who don't know the movie Melanie Griffith is an assistant and at the end of the movie Melanie Griffith is an assistant and at the end of the movie she gets a job. But she thinks she's going in to be an assistant. And I thought I dressed in this awful vest and shirt and I went in and I checked in at the front and they showed me to my office and so I was not an assistant, I was a junior executive oh, oh, my God.

Speaker 1

And I had literally just graduated. Thank, God, you accepted that job, so I went from intern to junior exec, which I acknowledge now is not, is very rare and very lucky because I skipped having to be an assistant, which I know people can spend years, years waiting to get off that desk, which was great the moment, but also tough in the in the job because all the assistants hated me yeah yeah, they thought they were gonna get like how did this kid?

Speaker 1

I've been, I've been on this desk for years, but I was literally the intern who came in on fridays and would do stuff for the assistants, and now I'm what them.

Speaker 2

And all it took was two Cubans, and then, and then you had a fantastic career as a producer.

Speaker 1

I will skip that. I'll give you the abridged version. I did that job.

Speaker 2

We might have to make two episodes.

Speaker 1

I did that job for a couple of years. I then got lucky where I teamed up with a wonderful producer named William Sherrick. We were the same, a whole other story but we got this movie. We went to Australia for nine months. Now I'm going from being a junior exec to leaping to being a studio producer, so I took some big leaps.

Speaker 2

Do you feel like you were prepared for the work? No, not for the position, but like it was the work scary and hard, or were you like.

Speaker 1

I know how to do it. It was constant fake it till you make it.

Speaker 2

Constantly fake it till you make it. Listen up, everybody. Constant fake it till you make it.

Speaker 1

So we go make this movie. It's called Darkness Falls. We come back. The studio doesn't think much of it. It's kind of like a scary movie. But way before scary movies were sort of super in vogue. Anyway, it came out. It was number one at the box office. So all of a sudden, in a very short span, I went from an intern to a junior exec to number one.

Speaker 1

And that got us a big movie deal at the studio and that started kind of like what I say, like the 80s montage of my life, because like for the next 10 years, all I was doing was producing movies. Suddenly I'm 26, 27, 28 and I'm flying all over the world like on the set of my own movies yeah it was very surreal yeah, and really, really cool, let this kid do it.

Speaker 2

He's got. He knows what he's doing. By that point, I was.

Transitioning From Producer to Writer

Speaker 1

I was feeling confident. Now I didn't have to fake it as much Was Darkness Falls.

Speaker 2

Was that the release that was very strategic on Super Bowl Sunday? Yes, okay, will you tell a little bit of that? I mean, I'm sorry, I ruined the. I said the punchline, but tell us about that strategy and who like, how and why did it work out so well?

Speaker 1

There was this brilliant guy, tom Sherrick, who passed away years ago but he was very much mentor, godfather figure to me at the studio when we were there making these movies and he was like let's put it out on Super Bowl Sunday and everyone around him was like that's a dead weekend.

Speaker 2

And nobody done that before.

Speaker 1

Right, no one. People always scared off of that weekend because it's essentially a two day weekend. So it's the opposite of a holiday weekend. It's a weekend because Super Bowl Sunday is. No one goes to the movies.

Speaker 2

No one's going out.

Speaker 1

So you basically only have Friday night and Saturday, and that's it. It turned out to be genius because Friday night there was no other movies to see Kangaroo Jack, if anyone remembers that movie that was basically the only other movie out, so somehow teenagers with nothing else to do flocked to go see darkness falls, for whatever reason they cut a great trailer. So even though we only had two days, we somehow made a lot of money in those two days and it changed my life.

Speaker 2

Tom Sherrick should have been a hedge fund manager.

Speaker 1

He was already very successful man.

Speaker 2

He knew, he knew how yeah, he knew how to sell low, no, sell high. Buy low, sell high. He knew how to do that with movies. Okay, so then you decide to make a career change. Yes, and this is the gap that I made in that 12 years.

Speaker 1

I made over 20, 20 movies and, um, I loved it, I had the best time. But I never forgot about the true passion, the true itch I had, which was to write, to write and direct my own stuff. And I felt like I had learned so much as producing. I'd worked with so many great writers. I had sat there for thousands of hours helping writers work through their story. It was now or never. It was now or never. And so I just up and it was a guy named Danny Strong. I don't know if you know who that is. Look him up if you don't. Danny Strong, wildly successful actor turned writer, showrunner, director. He had moved to New York and he told me like get out of LA. You're never going to get into the writer's mind being in LA doing your day to day as a producer.

Speaker 1

I see you had to escape the people who knew you as one thing and to get out of my routine.

Speaker 2

And to get out of your routine. And to get out of your routine.

Speaker 1

I see. So I went to New York and just started writing.

Speaker 2

How long did you stay in New York?

Speaker 1

Four years.

Speaker 2

Okay, you moved, yes, for a long time. Was that the plan, or did you think you would go for a little bit?

Speaker 1

I had no plan except I want to be a writer and I want to be a great writer. I don't just want to. For those listening, I have a lot of friends who also are trying to be writers and I think the mistake they make is they spend a year on one script. Don't do that.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

Don't think this is your opus. I was just trying to hone my craft. I was writing a script every four to six weeks and then throwing it away.

Speaker 3

Whoa.

Speaker 1

I was writing a script every four to six weeks and then throwing it away. Whoa, I was giving it to friends getting notes and then I'd throw it away.

Speaker 2

Throw it away meaning never look at it again. Yeah, like don't you're not.

Speaker 1

I'm evolving as a writer.

Speaker 2

I'm evolving. You're just letting him go.

Speaker 1

I'm not spending hours tweaking and obsessing on that one script.

Speaker 2

When you're throwing a script away, are you also parting with that story?

Speaker 1

and never telling it again.

Speaker 2

You never know.

Speaker 1

Maybe 10 years from now like when John Hughes like was John Hughes. He started taking scripts off the shelf that he had written in his 20s.

Speaker 2

And you're like well, I have this one here, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

But I was trying to hone my craft, trying to evolve as a writer, not trying to put all my eggs in one basket. Yeah, okay, trying to evolve as a writer, not trying to put all my eggs in one basket.

Speaker 1

Yeah, okay. And so after two and a half years, I felt that I was at the level, that I felt confident. That I felt because, in the real world of writing, once you sell something, the demands on you, the ability to have to take notes and turn them around, are huge. And if you've spent a year plus obsessing on one script and, let's say, you sell it, and then the producers in the studio are like great, we're so excited about this, here's our notes, we need it in four weeks, how are you prepared for that? You're not, because you're so obsessed. So then you're going to freak out and then you're going to look bad. Anyway, it's just from experience of a lot of my friends. I wanted to avoid that.

Speaker 2

So you feel like, you feel like it helped you. Not, you know, be so precious about things, don't? Be precious. Because, you were like okay, you don't like this one, I'll write another one for you in a month, don't worry, okay, yeah, that's very good advice.

Speaker 1

So advice, so again, giving you the abridged version. Yeah, I, after two and a half years, I felt like I had a writing sample. That was good and I sent it out. I got signed by CAA. Uh, it was a tv spec sent it out, meaning what?

Speaker 1

I changed my name, I wasn't sure what my reputation was in the business, and by reputation I didn't mean good or bad reputation, I just I didn't know who knew me or didn't know me, right, right, but I just didn't want that to cloud the read. Right? Oh, jason isn't he a producer.

Speaker 2

Isn't he a producer?

Speaker 1

yeah, so I just put a fake name, sent it out, but then when I was sitting there with the CA agents, I immediately said my name's not whatever. That was my name's Jason Schumann, I don't know any of you. So I feel like this is a start starting from scratch.

Speaker 2

It's safe for us to start here with real names. I see.

Speaker 1

They didn't seem to care. They loved that I had a producing backdrop and I said I really want to show run, I want to be a TV show runner, and so I hope that my background as producer and now my newfound thing as a writer can and it did.

Speaker 2

You deciding to change your name and just send it in on merit and not. It's almost like you know how sometimes people who have parents in the industry are like no, I don't want to like ride on their coattails, I'm going to do it just because I'm good. But you did that with yourself and your own hard work. You were like no, I'm not even me, you don't even know me for the good work I've already done.

Speaker 1

Well, that's strategic, because there is a bias when people are trying to hyphenate yeah, there can be a bias and like oh, another producer who wants to write. I actually was doing it to protect myself.

Speaker 2

Is that a thing Producers who want to write? I think so.

Speaker 1

I mean, look, if you want to write, write, oh an actor who wants to direct oh there are some natural transitions, but I feel like an actor who has a script or a producer who has a script gets a little bit of an eye roll. But you have to overcome that. You have to believe in your stuff.

Speaker 2

Yeah, solidly enough to overcome the eye a little bit of a cheat code to be like look it's good, yeah, I'm, I'm. You have never heard this name before, is it good, right? Yeah, okay, all right, move on. Here we go.

Speaker 1

Sorry that's a good, you use a good point, though. Yeah, it could go either way we have some exciting news.

Speaker 3

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Speaker 2

It could go either way.

Speaker 1

But I got agents, felt like a writer for the first time in those years, sold that TV pilot to 20th and then it didn't go to pilot. So I was like what now? And my agents were like, like write another one, do another one. I wrote another one the next season. I sold that to Sony TV, uh, and then CBS didn't make it to pilot. So now I'm like kind of two for two, but I felt like, oh for two.

Speaker 2

Right, you're like sold them both, but can we see it?

Speaker 1

yeah like you, want a table read I know didn't get that far but now I feel like I'm making money. Yeah, I'm kind of a writer now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in the transition phase. Then I had a wonderful stroke of luck again where I met this, uh, gentleman named eduardo cisneros, who was introduced me to another mentor of mine, sanford panich, who, who worked at Copelson when I was there. So a lot of times in my life things came full circle and he introduced me to Eduardo.

Speaker 1

Eduardo was this really successful producer out of Mexico who had this massive movie called instructions, not included, um, which was the biggest hit ever, multi-language hit um, and he had been partners with this actor, uh, ogenio derbez, and I meet him and there's a lot of there of like I meet him. He's already such an established writer, but I had read somewhere from judd Apatow that when he worked the comedy clubs and like Jim Carrey or Ben Stiller would say, hey, can you write me a joke about whatever, about toilets he would come back the next day with 15 jokes about toilets and that's how he?

Speaker 1

impressed Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller and they all wanted him. So I prepared for the meeting and I came in with the 12 ideas that we could work on together and he liked the actually the 12th one wow uh, I thought I was like failing failing you did he liked the 12th one. We worked on it. We pitched it to Fox movie studio. They bought it. Yeah, yeah, so now my first movie pitch got sold.

Speaker 3

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1

We write it together. Again, it doesn't get made, but we had a great time, mm-hmm, and that led to a movie called Half Brothers which we sold to Focus, which did get made.

Speaker 2

All right, so we're moving up in the world.

Speaker 1

I'm getting movies made.

Speaker 2

now here we go.

Speaker 1

that exact same time is when we created Acapulco which we sold to Apple oh, thank you, I love it, um, which was like a semi-autobiographical story, mixing his life and my life, which I thought in itself is highly original a Jewish kid from the Midwest and a Mexican kid from, like, an immigrant from Mexico. We're blending our lives and our stories to create this potentially original story about a kid in Acapulco in the 80s, and now that's like leads to this four-season hit show on Apple. But that all started because of that introduction to him and because of our wonderful, loving working together.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So that led to Acapulco.

Speaker 2

So now, as a producer who writes, a writer who produces, what do you, what context do you wish producers had on writers and what context do you wish writers had on writers and what context do you wish writers had on? Producers you know like the, the job, the people, the whole thing.

Speaker 1

Like what would have made either of your jobs easier had you known certain things well, as a producer, I always had the mindset that I am like I have no skill specifically. I'm just supposed to watch over everybody and be as respectful as possible, which is nice, I guess, because I'm acknowledging that I don't know how to costume design, so I'm hoping to hire the best person and let them do their job and I'm here for them if there's a problem, or I'm here to sort of deal with it if a problem happens.

Speaker 1

But with writing I think I should have gone deeper than that, because I'm sitting there with them months, years before the. It's one thing to have that attitude once we're in production because we're moving so fast we're in production. I can't know the intricacies of cinematography, of costume design, you need to be able to trust.

Speaker 1

With writing now that I'm on the other side of it and I'm so obsessed with structure and character arcs and everything I'm like what, what, what? I can't believe that at 22 years old, arnold was sitting me down with million dollar writers going like Jason, read your script. He has some thoughts yeah and these million dollar writers are have to listen to me yeah, they do and then I'm a producer all of a sudden at 25, 26 years old.

Speaker 1

And now they really have to listen to me and I think back upon how little I knew about screenplay struck, even though I went to film school. I took classes, but until you're actually doing it for a living, day in and day out in the script, learning about scene structure, character structure, all those sort of things, I just I'm baffled right that I had any success early on, because how could I have had any good notes?

Speaker 2

he just saw.

Speaker 1

He saw it, he knew what was gonna happen so I implore producers and I bet all the good producers out there do do this, I would hope which is, try your best to read some screenplay books or try to really understand.

Speaker 1

Or take your best screenwriter friend out to dinner or something and ask all the questions you can about how they approach writing and all that stuff. God, it would just to be a good producer, which I think first and foremost is recognizing a good script, a good writer, but then holding their hand, he or she or group, and and like getting them to the finish line to get to the 80 percent to 100 percent, to where a studio is like, wow, this is a movie we would make.

Speaker 1

That's the difference. That's all the difference between success or never having your screenplay made. So that would be something I would tell a younger version of me or anyone wanting to be a good producer yeah, fantastic, you're working on something cool now oh, what can?

Speaker 2

you tell us anything?

Speaker 1

only I could only tell you what's was already publicized, which is uh, yeah, I um, I'm doing this movie called cola wars with steven spielberg and jed apatow and I can just say it's awesome. Um, it's a dream, it's. It's a movie that, uh, I would run and go see in two seconds if I saw a trailer and I wasn't involved. It's to me, the movie I hope I'll be remembered for, but I'm just trying to enjoy the process right now of writing it and working with my idols and just taking it one day at a time.

Speaker 1

But I do often pinch myself, uh, when I'm like because these two people are everything to me, yeah and they're brilliant and um the fact that I'm in this position, I again feel lucky. I feel like luck has sort of been a theme of this, this podcast, for me, but, um, a little bit of hard work was involved, but also, yeah, you worked your ass off.

Speaker 2

So it's very exciting you didn't get your summer with your girlfriend.

Speaker 1

I didn't. And then we broke up because that job was too demanding. You were too successful.

Speaker 2

It's so hard Will we ever see some direction?

Speaker 1

from you. I hope that will be next. I hope to learn as much as I can from Stephen and Judd. I think they know a thing or two about directing, and also Judd especially being a writer, and Stephen writes a lot, but he started as a director. Judd specifically started as a writer and transitioned into a director Judd specifically started as a writer and transitioned into a director and I feel ready. But like I've done my whole life, I want to do it right.

Speaker 1

I want to learn from the best and know that it's always about setting yourself up for success.

Speaker 2

Not failure. So that's what I hope to be doing Next year, and I do know you did just get a swimming pool, so you will get a summer soon right, yes, a lot of pool parties.

Speaker 1

I hope you'll come over we will, and hang in the pool you don't have to worry about that.

Speaker 2

Thank you for the invite. We'll be there.

Speaker 1

Great yeah, great.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much for listening jason schumann, everybody uh like and subscribe bye, thank you.

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Haeleigh Royall

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Indeana Underhill

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