Screenwriters Jacob Roman and Kenny Ryan

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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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Really figure out conceptually what the story is
Like, get that concept, get itdown to a really good logline
workshop that, get it to theplace, before you then invest
the four months into writingsomething.
I think a lot of times we getso excited about diving into a
script that you kind of loseyour compass in some way.
You forget like, oh, I want todo this and I'm off base.

(00:25):
So I do think locking in thatconceptual piece of the puzzle
is really important.
Bad concept, great script is alittle 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 (00:51):
This is the Act One Podcast.
I'm your host, james Duke.
Thanks for listening.
Please don't forget tosubscribe to the podcast and
leave us a good review.
My guests today arescreenwriters Jacob Roman and
Kenny Ryan.
After meeting in college, kennyand Jacob teamed up to sell
their first script, david vsGoliath, to Sony Pictures.
Since then they've soldmultiple feature projects around

(01:12):
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 bereleased theatrically by
Vertical on November 8th.
Their latest feature isSleeping Beauty, a high concept
action thriller they'reproducing alongside Scott Free.

(01:33):
On the TV side, they spentthree seasons as
writer-producers on the CBSNetwork primetime hit Seal Team,
and they're currentlyco-executive producers on the
Lionsgate MGM Plus show RobinHood, which is premiering fall
2025.
Kenny and Jacob are verytalented writers, but also very
kind and thoughtful.
I hope you enjoy ourconversation.

(01:55):
Jacob and Kenny.
Welcome to the Act One podcast.
It's great to spend some timewith you guys today.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, thanks, Jimmy.
It's awesome to be here.
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So I'm looking forward to having this
conversation with you guys.
Obviously, the main reason whyI'm talking to you is you guys
have written a film that's intheaters.
It's a film called Elevation,which is this really fun action
sci-fi movie starring AnthonyMackie, and so I want to make

(02:33):
sure we spend some time talkingabout that, as well as just a
lot of stuff in you guys' career.
I'm also really excited becauseyou guys are a writing team and
I think it's really good forour audience to hear about
what's it like writing with awriting partner and kind of, how
does that work and how do youguys handle when someone writes

(02:54):
something really terrible?
How do you?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
I'm just kidding- that never happens, it never
happens.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
No, we'll get into all that.
So first of all, let's juststart with how, maybe
individually, before you guysfound each other, how you guys
found writing.
So, kenny, maybe we'll startwith you, tell us a little bit
about how you got into writingman.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
I remember, you know, one of my earliest memories was
me sitting around with uh, Iwas probably five or six and
like I had this um book that waslike the making of the black
stallion, and I was so excitedabout that movie and I spent all
night I would go and I had kindof done my rewriting my version
of what it was and again, it'slike chicken scratch, whatever.
But I remember waking up thenext morning and pitching that

(03:47):
back to my grandma and my momand it was just they were like
so confused about what it wasand what I was talking about,
which you know, now I have twosons and they're kind of doing
the same thing back to me.
But yeah, I mean I grew up withlike a love of movies and
wanting to be involved and Ithink for me, you know, I really

(04:11):
looked at like people likeGeorge Lucas and Francis Coppola
and their partnership, as I wastrying to figure out who I
wanted to be and I'd read aboutthem and Coppola at some point
told Lucas, like if you want todo 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 wantingto be a director.

(04:32):
But I think every time I wouldtry to do that, I would realize
how many compromises one wouldhave to make.
You know, your best friend isthe star.
We don't have a dolly, we havea wagon, we're in.
Your best friend is the star.
We don't have a dolly, we havea wagon.
We're in my backyard instead ofthe back lot, like it just was
like a lot of goofy stuff and Ikind of figured out, if it was

(04:53):
just me and the page, I couldhave as much control, I could
succeed or fail, but it waswholly what I wanted it to be.
So that's kind of how I gotinto the writing side of things
and it just was one of thosethings where in college you have
a lot of experiences and youget to be on set different ways.

(05:14):
I worked as a producer on onefilm, or I was trying to direct
another one, or I was pullingcable on something and you just
figure out I don't really likethis stuff.
But I really like writing, Ilike storytelling and it felt
like that was the passion for me.
And I gut checked it with BrianBird, who he was my dad's

(05:38):
roommate way back in college atsome point and so my dad kind of
set up meeting and then I waslike how do I know if I'm
supposed to be a writer or not?
And Brian said, if you can'tnot do it, then you're a writer.
So I had to do it and that'show I kind of figured out I
should be writing things.
So that was kind of my myjourney, from five years old or

(06:01):
you know, to whatever, to kindof post-college and getting
trying to go professional that'sawesome.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I love that.
Uh, jacob, uh, what about you?

Speaker 3 (06:12):
um, yeah, I mean, I was, ironically, I was raised in
a home where film andtelevision were, um, you know,
not necessarily considered likeof the devil, but you know
what's what's like a deviladjacent.
Exactly yes, um, so, and evenyeah I mean I think some of the
the uh audience for this podcastmight appreciate this uh, for a

(06:37):
period of time when I was in myteenage years, we were
homeschooled and my parents, um,sort of you know kind of signed
us up for this organizationcalled ATIA, the advanced
training Institute of America,uh, which is now, you know,
better known as the organizationthat the Duggar family was a
part of, and you know, it waskind of part of that movement
during the nineties where, um,you know, people were having a

(07:00):
ton of kids and homeschoolingthem and part of that deal was
that you didn't listen to rockmusic and you know you didn't,
uh, didn't watch the, the boobtube, um, and so you know, that
was kind of the environment Iwas raised in.
So, naturally, of course, uh, Iwent the complete opposite
direction and anything that Icould, you know, anytime that a

(07:20):
movie was on, I was absolutelyglued to it, um, it just
captured my imagination in a waythat you know nothing else
could.
And, of course, growing upwhere I did which was kind of
rural Wisconsin, um, borderline,you know, raised on a farm, um,
Hollywood just seemed like thefurthest place, it seemed like a
different planet, Um, and whenI kind of discovered that there
were all these different jobsthat you do in this industry, um

(07:43):
, I kind of discovered thatthere, you know, were all these
different jobs that you do inthis industry.
Um, I think the thing that,similar to Kenny, I think I
started out with a little bitwider, um, scope of what I
thought I might want to do.
You know, I'm I'm fairlyvisually oriented, so I tried
being a DP, um, you know, triedcamera hopping, you know all the

(08:03):
you know on student films andthat sort of thing.
And, you know, tried camerahopping, you know all the you
know on student films and thatsort of thing.
And, you know, similar to Kenny, found out that the compromises
he mentioned, uh, were kind oftoo much for me to my
perfectionist self to take, andso I ended up, um, turning to
the page where at least I couldhave total control over that
script.
And you know, once I typed fadeout or the end, you know that

(08:25):
would be sort of the, the finalword 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, sothat's sort of how I wound up
doing it wound up doing it?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
For both of you guys.
Was it when you first startedwriting?
I would say, what sort of maybesupport or positive
reinforcement or opposite, likewhen you first started writing,
when did you think to yourself,man, this is hard or this is

(09:06):
impossible, I'm not any good atthis.
And then maybe at one point youthought, maybe I am good at
this, like that kind of earlyformation.
Did you get a lot of support?
Were you kind of on your own?
What was that for both of youguys?

Speaker 3 (09:20):
For me it was.
I think I was very, I was likean artist, like a visual artist,
growing up and, as you know,from as far back as I can
remember, when I was like sixyears old, you know, drawing and
painting were my jam and I gota lot of positive reinforcement
around that, you know.
So I think I was alwaysartistically and creatively
inclined and you know, I just Iknew that I loved, you know,

(09:42):
something that I kind of knewabout myself from the time I was
young I just I loved being amaker, I loved making things and
you know, making something goodand true and beautiful, that
was something that always reallyresonated for me.
So I think, you know, and I doremember one time in high school
when we, you know it was anEnglish class and you're
supposed to write a speech anddeliver it to the class, when we

(10:04):
, you know it was an Englishclass and you're supposed to
write a speech and deliver it tothe class and, um, whatever
that speech was, I, you know theclass responded very, people
were laughing, people wereengaged and I realized like, oh,
the ability to tell a story, um, and in that environment it was
person to person, but that sortof morphed into.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
You know this career I have now where yeah, it's, the
ability to tell a story issomething that um you know,
really just resonates with mestill um all these years later
yeah, I don't know that I everhad any anybody push back on my
talents or tell me I'm not good.
And that's not to say I wasgreat out the gate.

(10:41):
I just I don't think I had.
My network was me and my buddyand we were just, you know,
making our little short filmsand we're like this is awesome,
like we're crushing it here we,you know, let's keep going.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
That's awesome.
That's awesome, and so you guysare, you know.
So you both obviously findwriting.
When did you find each other interms of writing together?
I think for some people that'sa little bit of a foreign
concept like writing together.
So when did you guys build thatrelationship?

(11:16):
And go, wait a second, we'regood on our own, but we can
actually do this together.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
I think Jake and I have been kind of talking

(11:51):
no-transcript.
I was always working withsomebody and we were always
looking at the Coen brothers andwe were like those guys know
how to write together, they knowhow to produce together, they
know how to direct together,they edit together, they do
everything together, and so forme that was in the background
and even like I mentioned, theCoppola Lucas thing like those

(12:13):
are two guys that are kind ofagain like working side by side
trying to make something great.
So I did a lot of stuff on myown and I kind of had some

(12:34):
success where I set up a scriptthat I had written and again I
had written it.
But I had my brother's roommate.
Chris Herzberger was a.
He was kind of acting as mymanager.
He didn't really have anymanagement skills or anything,
but he had worked as anassistant for Gary Ross and so
he knew like oh, here's how youcan do stuff.
But that was very collaborativetoo, like I had written the
first draft and then he came inand we workshopped it together

(12:55):
and he would give me notes andthen I'd implement those, and so
it was very my experience wasvery collaborative from the
start, and then I got to a pointwhere I'd set that thing I need

(13:24):
to, I need somebody else's eyeson this and see if this can
work.
And, like I know there'ssomething here, I just need to
find somebody who shares thevision.
And Jake, really, he read whatI had I don't know it was like
60 pages or something, 70 pagesand he said I get it, I
understand, let's figure thisout.
And he just kind of came in atthat point and that was the big

(13:45):
partnership, join up.
And that was a davy crockett,um pirates of the caribbean, you
know ask crazy movie.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
It was tons of fun to write and but that was kind of
how he and I started workingtogether yeah, I think from my
side of things it was, you know,you graduate film school, so we
both went to biola together andwe knew each other.
Um, you know, while we wereundergrads there and you have

(14:14):
that experience of going to filmschool with people, everybody
graduates you enter the industryand 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 writingas much as I was, who we kind of
.
You know, both got a manager atthe same time, got an agent at

(14:35):
the same time.
We had both optioned thingswithin a couple of months of
each other.
Um, and so when he asked me tocollaborate on something, I
immediately knew it wasn't.
You know, this wasn't like hisfirst script, it was like his
13th and he was already reppedat CAA.
Like I knew it was a legitimate, like okay, this guy knows what
he's doing.
And then, of course, when Iread it, you know, like

(14:57):
everything he writes, the goalwas undeniable there.
The goal was undeniable there.
And so it was like oh, ofcourse, 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.
I've never thought I would writewith a partner.
I was the guy who, if we weredoing a group project, I'd be
like, all right, don't worryabout it.
Everybody.
I got this and I would do allthe work because I wanted an A

(15:18):
and I knew if I.
But then I think the you knowto meet somebody like Kenny who
could sort of match my energy,capacity and focus and was
serious about doing this as acareer, that just felt like kind
of one hand shaking another andreally fitting and discovering
that like, oh, we work superwell together and you know, I

(15:41):
think that's the nature of allreally great partnerships that
can stand the test of time isyou find in that other person's
compliments.
You know whose strengths coveryour weaknesses.
And in our case, very, verythen we are apart, which isn't
to say we're not great writersapart, we totally are but it's

(16:02):
just something where the oneplus one equals three, in this
case, when we work together.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
So can you help my audience understand what it
looks like to write together?
So you sit down and you knowwhat to say.
Say you get a writingassignment and you I don't know,
maybe you guys have gone in andpitched, or maybe you just your

(16:30):
agents or management set you up, you get it, you get a gig
Right, typically right.
If I'm by myself and I'mwriting, I just sit down and
start, start outlining, or Istart, you know, trying to
figure out, um.
For you guys like to walk usthrough, what is it like to work
with a partner?
How do you guys I'm suredifferent partners work together

(16:51):
differently.
But so for you guys, how do youwrite, like from the very
beginning, what, what, what doyou do?
How do you guys um, and then,how do you decide who does what
kind of thing?

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, I think for us I mean, there's definitely a lot
of front end communication totry to make sure we're both
seeing the same vision.
So the way that I was kind of Icame up with this analogy of
like how it kind of feels likeit works when I kind of am in
this partnership, jake and Ihave this conversation.

(17:27):
We go, okay, cool, we're, we'regoing to do this, this movie.
And then I feel like I have thecamera and I kind of pointed in
the direction that it needs togo.
Jake comes in and puts a lenson the camera so that it
actually is focusing the storythe way it needs to be focused,
so that we're then capturingthat on our pages and on the

(17:48):
nuts and that's like the youknow, the big kind of visual
version of it.
But on the nuts and bolts side,a lot of times we'll have our
conversations and then I willstart writing some stuff to see
if we're in the ballpark and Iwill get that to Jake and he
will then take a pass on it, andso we're kind of just taking
passes on each other so that bythe time we get to, um, you know

(18:13):
a deliverable draft or adeliverable outline, like even
right now.
I did this pass on this outlinewe'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 thechain of command, but it very
much is kind of like each oneplussing the other's work, and

(18:33):
you know, that's what it is onmy side and I don't know, jake,
you can say more on that too.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
But to kind of drill down on that, Kenny, are you so?
You so you're kind of plotcentric, is what you're saying.
So it's like you're looking atbig picture.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Let's get it all out.
I think so, okay, yeah.
And again, like that doesn'thappen in a vacuum, jake is very
there the whole time.
I think he and I are kind of webat things back and forth,
whether it's over Zoom, whetherit's over text, whether it's
over zoom, whether it's overtext, whether it's whatever.

(19:09):
Where it's, you just get sortof the point of, okay, this is
what it is.
Then I go, okay, cool, I thinkI can fit that into my plot
brain and I can kind of work toget a rough, a rough build of
what this can be.
It might be 20 pages too big,you know, for what it is, and
then Jake will get it back towhat it really needs to be.
Jake is very much like detailstightening.
Are we hitting those things?

(19:30):
And then once we get that draft, then we start going together.
We're like, hey, there's athree-beat runner that we need
to carry through.
Maybe I see that, maybe Jakesees it.
Maybe Jake comes and says thisline needs to be echoed here by
this other character so thatthis guy can learn something.
So it is, I mean it, just to meit's very familiar and I think

(19:56):
this is also this collaborativepiece of it I think was what
helped set us up well fortelevision stuff and being in
the room, because of just howcollaborative that is as well.
So Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
So basically at the beginning of, at the beginning
of a project, you guys arevolleying back and forth ideas,
concepts, and then when you kindof land on something, you then
take it and start the formforming of it and then and then
you give it to him to refine it.
So do you guys start with anoutline, Do you go right to

(20:30):
pages Because I know, obviouslytelevision is different than
features but just trying to helppeople understand what the
practical side of this is foryou guys, so on this one that
we're working on, jake and I sowe were on a SEAL team, covid
hit.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
We used to have a board with room, you know, a
room with boards and cards.
We all shifted over to adigital whiteboard and Jake and
I just continued doing thedigital whiteboard for our own
stuff.
So we kind of have all thesecards 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 thesecards that are in there so he
can see it, see what I'm doing,I can see what he's doing and

(21:11):
we're tracking kind of throughthat process.
So we would say you know, onthis one you would break it down
and say this is act one, here'sact two, and he can see all
those cards, I can see all thosecards.
One of us is either writingthose cards or rewriting those
cards to get us to a point where, off of that, we would probably
go to outline, like I'mthinking about constellation
jake, like we have our cards.

(21:31):
We then went to outline.
That outline then went throughscript that then jake got into
and like I would give him achunk.
So I, here's the first 45 pages, or first 50 pages.
I feed that to him and keepgoing and he would know where
everything's going from there.

(21:51):
And this was all an attempt, Ithink, for us we're very much
like how do we get that firstdraft done?
So that it's just it could bereally bad, but at least it's
finished and now we can bothlook 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 greatestversion of this thing, but it

(22:12):
might not be the one that bothof us want, and so getting to
the first draft for us is verylike it's helpful for us to kind
of look at it and know it andsay, okay, now we can really
sharpen that.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
So yeah, and usually by that point it yeah, usually
by that point it approximates iteither really definitely works
or definitely doesn't in termsof that shared collective vision
.
But yeah, I mean in terms ofthe sort of the chronology of
things, we do spend a lot oftime ideating, we spend a lot of
time on concept and very often,when we do decide to pull the

(22:48):
trigger on something, I meanwe've been sharing an Evernote
folder of ideas since we startedour partnership and that
thing's like a thousand ideasdeep by now, literally, and so
we have this massive bank ofconcepts that are sort of half
finished, or it's a great wayinto a concept, but it's missing

(23:08):
the beating heart, it's missingthe character story, or it's
missing, you know, kind of thecinematic imperative that would,
you know, be the thing thatmakes both of us say, okay,
that's it, that is the idealversion of this concept.
That is, you know, both thesomething that's right for the
marketplace, um, and somethingthat we can sort of, that we

(23:32):
know that we can deliver right,knowing our collective voice as
a partnership and our abilitiesas a partnership and kind of
what is our abilities as apartnership and kind of what is,
you know what's, something thatis both creatively, you know,
enriching but also smart from abusiness perspective, and it's
something that we like is a goodbet in terms of all.
Right, we're going to spendthree to six months on the the

(23:54):
writing of this thing, and thento go the distance with it to
production and throughproduction.
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 somethingthat can bear the weight of that
, and I think it's somethingthat we've arrived by through a

(24:17):
lot of mistakes over the courseof our partnership.
I mean, that was really a lotof.
Our first five years wasswinging and missing on a lot of
this stuff and really it wasreally difficult.
Um, it was a lot of failureAlso.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, and learning the rhythm, like learning how to
work with somebody that's likethat's the Beatles in Humber,
like that's them trying tofigure 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 thinkjake and I got lucky early.
We had written something thatwe then pitched, that we sold

(24:51):
and like that was like our.
The second thing he and Iworked on together, um, and we
had some good success.
We got our guild cards and thenwe had no idea what the next
you know thing would be, or howto kind of keep going or what
you to.
Okay, no, we're on the rightpath.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
We're going to keep working together.
But if you guys had writtenfive or six or seven things
together and didn't really getany traction on it, do you think
you would have been like, okay,this was a good experience, but
now we're going to go ourseparate ways?
I'm curious if you have anythoughts.
That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Um, I I do think that the thingthat was very obvious to both
of us I would say undeniable wasthe clicking in of of kind of
our disparate skill setsbecoming something much greater
than you know.
The whole is greater than someof its parts.
Um, and that synthesis was veryit was like because, to be

(26:03):
perfectly honest, kenny hasabilities that I just do not
have.
Um, he's an absolute machinewhen it comes to structure, plot
, concept.
He has an encyclopedicknowledge of cinema that I don't
have.
How he thinks in terms of like,he just he thinks in terms of
story, and I can't tell you howmany times that has saved our

(26:23):
bacon, both as a partnershipcollectively but also just
always felt like I've gotten thebetter half of the partnership
from him and I think that'sprobably pretty, you know,

(26:47):
pretty telling in terms of youknow, 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, forme to recognize that I think I,
you know that says a lot and Iknew just from the jump that we
were going to go furthertogether.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
I yeah, and I would say for me, like I think we knew
we were going to go places justbased on that first project
that we didn't sell, we gotreally really close on Davy
Crockett.

Speaker 4 (27:15):
I mean we had.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
We had a situation where we had worked on that
script, we got it singing.
It was so great, it was such afun thing.
Caa had it in their weekendread.
They came back in on Monday andI can't remember the woman's
name but she was like one ofSpielberg's agents and she goes.
Everyone should read this islike their meeting.
Everybody should read thisthing and this is the greatest

(27:38):
script ever.
And then Brian Lord called usand 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 thatway he goes, I'm going to send
it to steven and I'm going tosend it to robert zemeckis.
And so, like we were, you knowwe were in great we, you know we
had, we had wild success beforewe saw our next one.

(28:00):
That was kind of the big rollercoaster.
That was like that was we getthe passes from those two guys
and then it went, started goingout and then you start kind of
fielding passes and you know,just bad.
I think it was bad timing onthat project.
It was such a a big americanromp, you know.
It had these crazy characters,davy crockett's riding a bear.

(28:21):
It's just it literally is likepirates of the character this is
the Bruckheimer version of itat a time where the marketplace
was shifting towards what isglobal IP, and so we didn't.
We got really close.
We were almost going to get,you know, I think it was a
platinum dunes and maybeParamount were kind of.

(28:41):
We were waiting to see if maybeMichael Bay would produce it or
something.
And they, you know that phonecall comes in and they go, oh,
they're passing.
You know, whatever Coveragewasn't great on it, we go screw
the coverage.
It's an awesome script, but wehad that success before we even
sold it.
And so, you know, before wesold our next project, we even

(29:03):
sold it.
And so, you know, I, before wesold our next project.
So I mean, I think there was somuch fun on on Davy Crockett
that we knew David, if it wasn'tDavid and Goliath, it would be
the next one, if it wasn't thenext one, it would be the one
after that.
And that's kind of the chutzpahthat you have to have, the
self-belief that that's going to.
You know, come together.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
And you, you this I know this is a question for a
lot of people who ask thiswhenever 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'ssomething missing about the
scene?

Speaker 3 (29:37):
So, as 50-50 partners , how do you guys go about
handling those kind ofdisagreements or disputes
aforementioned concept phasewhere you're batting the ideas

(30:00):
back and forth, because I think,generally speaking, when we do
arrive on something and we bothagree to it, we are both all in.
I mean, you just know, okay, weare going in this direction and
really after that thedisagreements are fairly minor
Because I think once you kind ofhave that, you have that
compass setting together and youboth agree on it, I think a lot

(30:21):
kind of have that, you havethat compass setting together
and you both agree on it, Ithink a lot of it flows out of
that Um.
But yeah, I mean, look, we hadour certainly had our fair share
of going back and forth onthings.
You know that again, that thatfirst five years of the
partnership um was really roughthat way, and part of it is, you
know, figuring out how to, howto handle conflict as partners,
um, how to you know be releasing, how to be egoless.

(30:43):
And part of that too is justeventually you double down on,
you know, you just trust yourpartner, like when it comes to
anything.
You know anything plot orconcept related um, very
generally, I will, you know.
I just I know Kenny's like he'sbeen right so often for so long
that I think I just know I'mlike okay, I just trust him.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
It also it feels like a lot of the times too.
It just is a conversation.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
So you go.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
This isn't working for me, here's why.
And then Jake will go.
Here's the intention behindwhat I was trying to do and I
don't feel like I'm landing it.
So that then becomes anopportunity for me to come in
and go.
If that was your intention,what if it's this?
And then he goes, yeah, butplus one like, and so then it
turns into at this stage in ourcareer and I think like we had

(31:35):
to learn how to talk to oneanother, how to listen to one
another, and that's a big partof collaboration.
But now I feel like is lesslike we don't ever.
We're not like bonking heads,you know, crashing into each
other with arguments like it'svery much like a conversation
that leads it.
That is an invitation to kindof find the next good thing.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
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 sealteam.
You guys, was that your first,after you're selling one or two
things?

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, so we sold.
Yeah, we sold David and BerzyGoliath.
That was the Sony one that we,that was our you know, Zack
Snyder version of the David andGoliath story.
That was just, it was awesomeand the dream project, but that
was the one that we kind of bothtogether pitched and sold.
Then we did some randomassignments.
Scott Derrickson got us arewrite gig on the resurrection

(32:39):
of Gavin Stone.
That was a Dallaskins moviethat kind of blumhouse was
making.
And between all of that we werealso doing these kind of weird
exploitation lifetime thrillerslike underpin names and like.
So you're staying sharp andkind of and also, you know,
working a day job because youhave to kind of keep the money

(33:00):
in.
But then, yeah, and through allof this, I think the most
meaningful partnership likethere's Jake and me.
And then the other part of thisis I met John Glenn, um,
through a shared agent, rightwhen Eagle I was coming out.
So I ha, I met him then andjust stayed in touch with him.
And that's one of the big kindof, I think, lessons for young

(33:23):
writers is find your mentor.
And Jake and I basically workedour butts off whether it was
John saying hey, I need a readon this.
Can you give me some notes?
Because again, the invitation tocollaborate it helped sharpen
our skills.
It helped us look over hisshoulders.
He was developing with M Night.
He was developing over here.
He's doing this, making thispilot, doing this movie.

(33:46):
And because of thatrelationship, when he jumped
over to SEAL Team Season 2, hebrought us with him because he
just was like I know who youguys are, I know your work ethic
, you know, come join me on thiscrazy show that we're going to
go do.
So that was kind of our.

(34:06):
You know we had done a bunch ofstuff but this was that was
kind of the first big leap to.
You know, you're going to havea show on the air, your credit's
going to be there and yourname's on the script in a big
way, and so that was like firstproduced stuff.
That wasn't a little bitembarrassing.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
And what's it like writing on a?
At the time it was a networktelevision show on CBS.
So what's it like writing on anetwork show?
You're in a room about how manywriters were there and how do
episodes get divvied up like?
What was that experience like?

Speaker 3 (34:44):
yeah, it was.
I mean, the experience itselfwas, I think for both of us it
was like you know, it wasawesome.
We hit the ground running.
Man, it was like mainliningadrenaline all day, like it was
so fun to jump into somethingbecause I can't under, I like I
can't overstate um, just howrewarding it was to be on a
network show where you have 22episodes, right, and so that

(35:05):
means you've got to fill 22weeks of airtime and that means
you're making something everyweek.
And after a decade of almost adecade 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 rewardingthing in the world to not just

(35:28):
get to write at that level.
But we got to.
We're very lucky.
It was all pre-COVID, so we hadthe chance to produce every
single one of our episodes.
We were on set, we prepped it,produced it and posted it.
Every single one of thoseepisodes.
We were on set, we prepped it,produced it and posted it.
Every single one of thoseepisodes.
And it was just such a blastworking in that environment
Because, again, it's also for us, having worked in a lot of

(35:52):
genre stuff and having writtenplenty of action, to get to
actually be on set producing.
It was so rewarding.
I mean, you show up and it'slike, all right, what are we
doing today?
We have there's 250 people onset, there's a bunch of extras,
we have two black Hawks, we havea firefight that's happening.
I mean, it was just an absoluteblast.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, the room was so fun.
It was, you know, realchallenge we got to be.
You know, we were people inthat room had like won an
Academy award over here and youknow this person was on this on
CSI since the beginning and thisperson so you kind of really
could pick up.
There was a lot to learn, a lotto kind of, you know, be with
them and then, like Jake wassaying, like when you got it to

(36:34):
a point where it would then goto production, you we were so
lucky to be in that spacebecause, you do, we got to work
with some of the coolest, likebest production designers and
actors, top shelf, top level.
Everybody was so great.
Directors were good.
We, you know one of the guysthat directed our episodes,
jimmy muro.
He's like a legendary steadicamoperator.

(36:57):
He worked on dances with wolves, he worked on open range.
He, should you know, directedphotography for that Um, he shot
Titanic.
You know he's shot the shootoutfrom heat.
He's just a real legend and hedirected an episode of ours and
so you're just you're hobnobbingand kind of interacting with
all these people.
That, I think, plus what wassome good writing, and they

(37:19):
really elevated it every time.
You know everybody thateverybody above us really helped
that's.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I love the shootout from heat.
I'm like wait a second, wait asecond, yeah he's, he's, he's
the guy he had to.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
He had the steadicam strapped to him.
He's up in val kilmer's facehe's.
I mean, he's so one of our, ourshow showrunner, you know, john
was there and then Spencer tookover, but Spencer was always
like dude, literally.
I think, uh, jimmy might'vegotten, you know, or played a
part in getting Titanic, thatbest picture, uh, nomination win

(37:55):
, because he's the dude thatdoes that final steady cam shot
where you meet, you seeeverybody once again here, they
all are everybody's back and andyou, you know, go up to leo and
he's up there and you're justlike there's the captain there,
that's all.
Jimmy doing a great job andexecuting cameron's vision, and
but it really leaves you withthe right like this should be a
best picture thing.
So we got to, we got to hangout with jimmy mero.

(38:15):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Now, have you got?
Obviously are you guys.
Obviously are you guys militaryguys.
Neither one of you have anymilitary background, right yeah?

Speaker 3 (38:25):
No, neither of us serve.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah, and I'm sure that obviously you guys have
consultants and stuff, but it'swhat made me think of it was you
said the heat.
So I'm sure you guys have heardthis famous story that

(38:53):
apparently that scene, valKilmer the way and talk to some
of your military buddies aboutthis and find out.
Vet this story if it's true.
But I was told that I don'tknow if it was like an FBI
trainee or something, someonewho they were watching the way
Val Kilmer maneuvered with hisweapon.
Yeah, and they trained.
They started training peoplebased on what they saw, because
they said, wait a minute, thisguy has some sort of training,
like he moves, like he reallyknows what he's doing, and they

(39:16):
were so impressed I wouldimagine.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
I haven't heard that, but I know, you know you go,
you can.
I know they did a lot oftraining.
What's the?
Michael Mann always has a lotof training for those things.
You can see footage of De Nirogoing through a shoot range and
if you look there's Tom Cruise,stuff from collateral that he
was doing, and I know even nowthey're doing like, oh, there's
Austin Butler doing you knowtraining for heat too.
Even now they're doing like, oh, there's Austin Butler doing

(39:42):
you know, training for heat too,and so they do in that world.
For sure that's a big deal andyou see, that kind of both on
our show on seal team was a bigdeal.
But also some of the guys thatworked on our show would also go
and help stunt, coordinate orbe, 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

(40:02):
consultants were incrediblyhelpful and there's some great
guys, one of whom, tyler, is in.
He has a little cameo inElevation.
He's like the gunsmith orwhatever you know in this little
village where Anthony Mackiehangs out, but he's such a great
positive, you know, guy, thatwould always help us solve
problems on set for how peoplewere supposed to carry their gun

(40:23):
and how much they should moveand win, and.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
I knew it as soon as I saw him on screen.
I had that thought as soon as Isaw him on screen.
He's like telling them whatguns to choose.
I was like yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
I bet this is one of their.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
SEAL team buddies.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
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 besthe is.
He's so helpful, so positive,always solution-based um.
Kenny sheared was another guyon seal team that was so helpful
both in the room and also onset and um.
We wanted to get justin melnick, the guy who's the dog handler
on seal team.

(40:57):
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 thenext town that is above the line
or whatever he's.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
He's also good, positive energy so, um, when
you're writing a show, so Iremember talking to, uh, jeremy
howell, who wrote, you know, onbig bang theory, and he would
say, you know, we're notscientists we would just
basically put like a placeholderin the script and then they
would send it to their scienceexpert to kind of basically fill

(41:27):
in the blank for them like what?
this is Right.
So you guys, obviously themilitary there are, there's
strict code of ethics and, withtraining, like you said, people
are watching the way people evenhandle, hold weapons.
You're trained in very specificways.
When you guys would write stuff, would you have military guys

(41:48):
come to you and go what are youdoing?
You can't write this Like howdid you guys handle maybe the
technicality, the specificitiesof?
Did you just leave it blank andlet the consultants help?

Speaker 3 (41:58):
you.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, I think I think we weredefinitely helped by so one of
the very smart you know thingsthat was baked into that show
from the jump was this idea ofyou know, the technical advisors
actually being in the roomhelping us break story, and I
can't say enough about how smartthat was.
Um, just just because you have,you know, you have X team guys

(42:21):
there who have actually been onthese ops, who have been
deployed multiple, multipletimes, who've been in plenty of
firefights, um, who know exactlyhow things you know should look
, and and because they know howthey feel, you know, they know
what it feels like to watch yourbody take around, like they
know what it feels like to, youknow, feel the, the, the

(42:42):
adrenaline when you're about tokick a door down.
You don't know what's on theother side of it, um, and that's
something that just wellthere's also two, yeah, from the
jump from the jumpyes, so from the jump that was
baked into the show and I thinkthat was really smart.
Um, you know, because theywould, we would reach a point
during the break where we, youknow, would have kind of all

(43:03):
right.
Here's a this big blank spacein between.
It was very, very often, youknow, acts two and three, if
you're breaking it on CBS, aregoing to be action right, and so
there's this big 10 to 12minutes per episode that you
have to fill in and it has tolook and feel right and it has
to.
Also, very often on that showwe were accomplishing, there was

(43:26):
character work being done onthose.
You know, in the midst of thataction there would usually be a
few things that would happenthat would influence, you know,
somebody would learn something,you know, because that's
something you learned aboutthese guys as they deployed,
they carry stuff from home withthem into the battlefield, and
so they're not robots, they'rehuman beings.

(43:47):
And so if you're thinking about, hey, right now, I know that
stateside my wife is- in the ORwith her kid.
That's going to affect yourheadspace when you go out on an
op and it's going to affect theheadspace of your teammates who
care about you and who know yourwife, because they're the ones
who are going to have to go giveher the news if you don't make
it back like so, that type ofstuff really was rich and I

(44:10):
think we were able to weave thatinto the action in ways that,
uh, that made the show what itwas we also watched a bunch of
documentaries.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
We watched there's's a documentary that Tyler was
involved with.
That was a warfighterdocumentary that kind of told
these kind of stories.
So you have like firsthandaccounts of, like the guys who
are going out to rescue MarkWahlberg and Lone Survivor right
, like this is their storyhere's the guys that were
holding this dam in Iraq, and soyou have these kind of
firsthand accounts of thesoldiers.
But then we were watchingamerican sniper, we were

(44:43):
watching the lone survivor, wewere watching, um golly, what's
that one that the navy guys did?
You know, it was the act ofvalor.
Yeah, act of valor, which waslike those are real seals in
that movie, kind of yep jumpinginto a submarine from you know
the c-17.
But we would watch all thatstuff.
And then we would read tons ofbooks.

(45:04):
There was a reading list thatwe had, and so it was like we
had to read two of the booksthat the executive producer had
done, that he had written.
He was one of the guys thathelped sell the show.
It just was an endless list ofthings that you could consume
however you wanted to and bringthat in.
So we weren't scientists likethe Big Bang people, but we were

(45:26):
well-read civilians who couldkind of say, oh, I read about
this weird op that happened inthe 80s.
Is there the updated version?
Oh, here's the radon and tebbythat the Israelis did.
How can we do our version ofthat?
In a hijacked airplane?
You know that type of thing.
So you can be inspired from allthese different stories.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
And, yeah, one of the things that you learn in doing
that research is there.
There are only so manydifferent types of special
operations and you know it's,it's actually fairly limited.
You know what, what those unitsare 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 gettasked with.

(46:07):
And so when you learn, okay,here's there's all these famous
examples of each type of op andhere's a version that went well,
here's a version that didn't,and why, and you sort of

(46:38):
no-transcript you're, you know,getting close to a hundred.
You know iterations of breakingthis type of show.
It does become a little easier.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
You guys um also worked on a show that I have
been um evangelizing peopleabout, actually interviewed,
actually interviewed AndrewPeterson and Chris Wall.
Yes, the Wing Feather Saga,which is?
It is this for those who don'tknow.
It's this wonderful animatedfamily film, a family show

(47:17):
that's on what's it called AngelStudios or whatever.
But you guys worked on thefirst season, is that right?

Speaker 1 (47:26):
We did the first season and then we kind of
helped on season three and weactually got involved with that.
So that was one of the thingswe sold in that kind of weird
period.
After we sold, our first thingWas DreamWorks had done some
veggie, they bought VeggieTalesor doing something like that,
and our manager goes do you knowabout this?
And we're like, of course, ofcourse we do.

(47:49):
So we went and sold a pitch fora VeggieTale movie that was
supposed to be slotted in thisone slot and then that slot went
away and they stopped making it.
So it never got made.
But we met Chris through thatand then he kind of circled back
and was like, hey guys, I gotAndrew out here.
Do you want to meet?
This is this cool book.
And so we met with them andkind of were just again like in

(48:28):
that weird period of what are wedoing?
That was just a randomopportunity to kind of
participate in like a proof ofconcept.
That was even before it waskind of showing it to people to
pitch a proof of concept film, ashort film, and so we got to
work on that, which was great.
And then, yeah, we got tothat's that first season.
I just showed it to my son, mysix-year-old, and um, he's like
when's the next one coming out?
When?

Speaker 4 (48:40):
are we gonna?
You know, I want to do this.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
I want to see that I was like, oh, it's a, it's a lot
of fun and and those guys aregreat 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 contrastfrom silt team but at the same
time it's still a lot of um uhfor people who don't know.
You know it's based on this ipof a very successful you know

(49:05):
fantasy fantasy book series, sothere's a lot of world building
involved and a lot of cast right.
So can you guys just talk alittle bit about that, like the
taking an ip.
What was it like to to take anip?
And, by the way, I'll tell aquick story chris was speaking
to our producers the other dayand, uh, he mentioned the script

(49:26):
that you guys wrote for forthem and he mentioned that, uh,
him and him and the the authorfor those who don't know the
author of the series, andrewpeterson, they read, uh, one of
the it's like one of the earlydrafts and he said that andrew
and him got really disappointedabout one particular moment in

(49:46):
the script where they were like,you know, uh, we were just
really disappointed in this onescene.
It was a little just too on thenose the way you wrote it.
Like, that's not, you know, wewere 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 yousaid on page 78.

(50:09):
Yes, I do remember that andChris said he was like what?
And he said Andrew said what.
And they went back and theylooked at page 78 and Andrew was
like oh man, like you guysliterally just wrote exactly
what he wrote and he was sayingthat he didn't like it.
I thought that was a greatanecdote.
But talk a little bit about thewhole idea of taking this IP,

(50:32):
and you know world builtcharacter.
Talk a little bit about thewhole idea of taking this IP and
you know world-built character.
Talk a little bit about thatprocess.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
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 ofseveral different ways, based
upon the first ingredient inthat process, which is your
relationship as the person who'sadapting it, with its author
right.
And in this case, I think we,you know, got the luckiest.

(50:58):
The luckiest version of thatrelationship possible is to work
with Andrew Peterson, becausehe is like the most releasing,
supportive and fantasticcollaborator in terms of, you
know, he's single-handedlyauthored what I would consider
it's one of the best fantasyseries of the last 30 years, and
he was so trusting, not just in, you know, his partnership with

(51:23):
Chris, but then in us, andreally, you know, empowered us,
and I think it certainly didhelp that we started doing.
You know, we started off doingthat short film, um, which they
used on on Kickstarter to raisefunds, and that was kind of a
great test, a great test runright For the partnership
between, you know, kenny and Iand then between he and Chris Um

(51:44):
.
But I think, you know, at theend of the day, when you're
adapting something from the pageto the screen, they're just two
different mediums, and I thinkI remember um talking to Andrew
after.
So we had this was on season oneand we ended our you know kind
of our writer's room week outthere in Nashville by pitching
him and Kenan and I did, I think, a lot of the pitching um, but

(52:07):
we pitched him through thatentire first season, uh, which
covers the events, most of theevents of book one, and it was a

(52:31):
chance for him to kind of, youknow, get the fire hose blast to
the face, the page into reallysalient, punchy turning points
and scenes and you know highsand lows, dramatically.
And it requires you to pull somestuff forward too.
I mean, I think our Kenyanizedprocess before that was to read,
we read every single one of thebooks.
Process before that was to read, we read every single one of

(52:54):
the books and then, you know, weput our heads together for a
couple days on how best to sortof platform and frame that
season based on where we knewthis, the, the story was going,
um, which kind of it required.
It did require pulling somestuff 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 ofthat and the best part of that
world, building some of thosestakes, giving some context to
the events of that first book.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
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, theperson that's kind of saying
like, ok, give me, give meeverything you got, so we're all
.
It was us and a couple ofpeople were all throwing ideas
out there.
But Chris again is similar towhat jake is to me.

(53:35):
He's the one that's focusing itall and saying this is where
we're going this season, this is, you know, he's the lens, yeah,
and so it was incrediblyhelpful.
He was like the, the sealadvisors that we would have in
the room, you know, on seal team, and he because I think his you
know his relationship with thematerial is very much, um, you

(53:55):
know, he read, he read them tohis kids and all that stuff, so
like it's just a he's veryintimately involved in that.
And then he also is kind ofcreative partners with, uh, with
andrew, and so he knows how totalk to andrew and interface and
so he's so helpful with all ofthat.
But that again goes to that.
There were, I think four orfive people in that room on

(54:16):
season one and like, yeah, youknow you're throwing all this
idea, all these ideas up on theboard and trying to see what
will work and and kind of alsobuilding it off of the spine
that Andrew gives you, whilealso saying, hey, I think we
need a couple arteries over here, we need some capillaries to go
over here, the central nervoussystem needs to be expanded.
And he was always again like,so grateful and inviting of

(54:42):
collaboration.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
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 (54:50):
Yeah, that was actually so that was actually
that was one of Doug and I'sfirst conversations, I think,
Because he was very he did actone very early on 2001.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
He did the New York class in 2001,.
I believe, oh yeah, yeah, yep,or 2002, maybe.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
He's an act one OG yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
And Doug.
Doug was also like, also likehe's.
So he is kind of the editor ofa lot of the books that come out
and the ancillary short storiesand stuff for wing feather.
So he was another person thatwas kind of a foundational uh
encyclopedia that you could goto and go.
Hey, doug, does this like?
Does esben wing feather swordend up in this place?
Could it end up there?
Could they find it here insteadof there?
And Doug would go.
You know, almost like Lobotfrom, you know from Empire,

(55:39):
strikes Back.
Yeah, okay, I think it couldwork and like, but again, like,
that's the.
I think when creativity andcollaboration are working, it's
always this building up, asopposed to when it's not, it
does feel like it's a lot oftearing down and you don't, you
don't make progress.
And so, especially on that,that first season we I think we

(56:01):
broke it in like six days, fivedays or whatever.
It was a real kind of whirlwindof activity.
We were going, going as quicklyas we could.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Well, I he'll never hear this, but to know Doug
McKelvey is to love Doug, butyou described him well.
He is a renaissance man.
That guy he really is.
I'd love to just segue now intothis latest project, which is

(56:30):
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-fiaction movie, but it's obviously
a character piece.
Can you guys talk about how youcame onto the project and tell

(56:52):
people a little bit about thefilm?

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Yeah, that was kind of again like one of those
invitations to collaborate.
Jake, john and I are all kind ofon a text thread or an email
thread and we were just sharingideas back and forth and John
had said I think there's room inthe marketplace for a, you know
, some kind of sci-fi movie thatyou know does something like

(57:16):
this, and and we we approachedthat and said, okay, well,
what's the, what's the strippeddown version, how can we kind of
quiet place it?
How can we try to do somethingthat's a little bit more
emotionally intimate thanIndependence Day, right, like
which is I love it, but alsogargantuan and kind of
unattainable, because we werelike we want to get a movie made

(57:39):
.
So we had all these ideas andwe kind of all Jake, me and John
all went to this barbecue placehere in South Pass that's right
next door to our offices now,and we were kind of just sitting
in our booth eating and talkingand figuring it out and it kind
of all started to click when wesaid what, if you know somebody

(57:59):
has to go do something down,you know you open and they're
high up and then they have to godown to go solve a problem
that's involved with their youknow, helping their kids.
So you get the emotional stuff.
And somebody there there waslike and what if, when you go
down below a certain amount ofelevation, you know there's
monsters down there?
And it was like whoa, okay, itkind of clicked and jake was

(58:21):
like what?

Speaker 4 (58:21):
is elevation.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
You know what, if that's the title, like it was
just a you know funcollaborative yeah it was an
easy idea.
It snapped into place pretty,pretty quickly.
I think it was one of thosethings where it was an easy idea
.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
It snapped into place pretty, pretty quickly.
I think it was one of thosethings where it was, you know,
like a really great, you knowkind of riff that turned into
that kind of solidified overdinner that that one night.
And I think that you know therewas something that to us is
super appealing about.
You know, a mantra that Kennyand I try to embrace often with

(58:55):
the type of things that wegravitate towards and features,
is this mantra of epic in scope,intimate in approach, and it's
that idea I think we kind ofcoined that after we watched
Overfield back in the day andjust that idea that like man
that movie is, so it is sointimate.
Right At the end of the day itboils down to a guy's quest to

(59:17):
reach his girlfriend.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Boy needs to find girl Godzilla is in the back.
What is what is more?
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
What is more personal than that?
And then, by the way, in thebackground, there's like a
Michael Bay movie happening,there's like a there's a 300
million dollar version of thatmovie, it's just off screen.
And so I think, when it came toElevation, that idea of, okay,
this is a gigantic, very simpleconcept, I mean that concept of
hey, there's a line around theworld where above 8,000 feet

(59:44):
you're safe, below 8,000 feetyou're in mortal danger, kind of
to us, struck us like.
It's almost like Jaws, jawsright, if you get in the water,
jaws can get you.
And it's sort of.
You know, the thing that Iliked I always liked about that
conceptually, is that it just itimplies the, the necessary

(01:00:04):
rules to drive stakes andurgency during a set piece, and
so that's how you, you know, youwind up with some of the, the
set pieces in the film, like theski lift sequence and the
sequence where they're goingthrough the mines.
You know, those were all kindof baked into it from the jump.
Based on that, that initialidea of elevation, yeah, I love.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
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, youautomatically know okay, for the
rest of the movie it's going tobe about breaking this line.
It's going to be about gettingand that's a neat conceit, right

(01:00:48):
Like.
That's a neat way to kind ofget 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 anegative, I'm just trying to
explain it to people.
It's like a big budget film in asmall budget format, you know,

(01:01:10):
like cause it's like like yousaid 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 herewhile everything else is going
on?
So, um that, that conceit didit?
Did it come when you guys were?
Was it like, hey, we're tryingto make something at a

(01:01:32):
particular budget?

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Yeah, I think we set out with the intention of trying
to make it so it was very muchlike you want to keep it under a
certain number.
I think the number we kind ofwere all dancing around was like
20.
And kind of see if you can findthe right team for that, the
right producer, the rightpackage.
And that's where you know BradFuller in and we sent it to him

(01:01:56):
and he responded in a big wayand I think he really liked the
character work that was in there.
But also it fit kind of thatbusiness model.
I mean he had done the QuietPlace, he had done the Purge.
That's when the trailer comesup from the producer of the
Quiet Place and the Purge, bothmovies which are somewhere off
screen.
There's a gargantuan thing thathappened.

(01:02:18):
But look here, here's EthanHawke'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 biggood fit for him.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Is Hollywood more or less open right now to more high
concept pieces?
Is it because you know there'ssuch a battle for original ideas
these days when you're outthere pitching, are they looking
for those kind of, uh, higherconcept stuff?
What's?
What's your thoughts on?

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
that I it is.
I think it's very much.
You know what is the concept.
If it's original, right, likebecause that's all.
I don't have an IP databasethat Jake and I control, we have
only what's in our heads, andso it very much is, how can you
package your original idea andyour concept into a genre lane

(01:03:13):
that makes sense in themarketplace, that is also
emotionally compelling and again, like gold standard, quiet play
, like you cannot make a better,so good.
The second words are, like youknow, so fantastic and they did
just such a great job andkaczynski coming and directing
that.
But yeah, like we very muchwant to find that high concept

(01:03:38):
that is sticky.
Like I just saw a I saw aninterview that Ridley Scott did
and it was in the Hollywoodreporter or something that said
like I need to know what themovie is in two sentences and
that's really smart.
Like Jake and I had this thingwhere I was.
I was kind of I discovered thisas I would pitch this to my
wife's grandfather.

(01:03:59):
And he goes what are youworking on?
And he's got.
Like you know, his attentionspan is not a lot, so he's not
following.

Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
Oh, it's got Anthony Mackie or did you ever see this
new movie, the pilot?

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
he doesn't know what the pilot place is quiet places,
he doesn't know.
So if you could pitch it toyour grandfather and he'll pitch
it back to you and understand,within three sentences you have
something.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
So that was kind of a little bit of what we thought
yeah, what was it, and I thinkthe go ahead yeah, the sort of I
see high concept, as it is thevehicle you sort of must inhabit
to get original stuff madeabove a certain budget level.
You know, just because it's,you know there is a certain

(01:04:44):
sweet pop, sweet spot in themarketplace right now where,
because the studios andstreamers don't necessarily make
, you know, very often make thetype of mid-budget genre stuff
that Kenny and I grew upwatching, you know, in the 90s
and early 2000s, and you knowthat now has been sort of
outsourced to the independentspace.

(01:05:04):
And you know, believe it or not, that's what Elevation is, it's
an entirely independent feature.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Independent original.
Yep Independent original nooriginal.
I, I know ip, you know againlike yeah, people would
occasionally be like, hey, isthis too close to the quiet
place?
And we're like, dude, this isthe loud place, this is where
guns are going to be, you knowfiring.
This is the predator version ofthe quiet place.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
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 porchtalking or something and someone
starts shooting a gun, and Ihad like a quiet place response.
I went, wait, wait, wait.
Ok, we're.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
OK, we're, ok, we're, ok, we're.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
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 ascript with three people?
Well, I think it was fun.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
It was super fun.
I mean, I think it's somethingwhere we, having worked together
for so long at that point wehad all worked together on Three
Seasons of Seal Team and a lotof other stuff.
We had all worked together onthree seasons of SEAL Team and a
lot of other stuff but I wouldsay the kind of collective
mindshare between the three ofus was very, very solid and
effective at that point and itwas really just made even more

(01:06:24):
effective by working on thatmovie together.
It's something where I thinkKenny the process was Kenny
outlined everything.
I think I took a stab at thefirst draft over was Kenny
outlined everything.
I think I took a stab at thefirst draft over and it was over
the first, those first coupleof months of COVID shutdowns.
I remember being on my couch andlike, all right, can't leave,

(01:06:45):
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 (01:06:52):
It was up to the process to production from there
.
Yeah, and john, john, like I gomeet with john at a restaurant
over here.
Jg and I live on the side ofthe 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'dsay, okay, this is what we're
thinking, blah, blah, blah.
Here's where I'm at with thedraft, here's whatever.
And.
And then he would come in, kindof in the same way that Jake

(01:07:17):
comes in and kind of isfinessing and tightening and do
whatever.
He would come in behind Jake.
And so it was like it was justthis 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.
Or, guys, I think we're missingthis emotional beat, let me take
a stab at this kind of midpointthing.
And so he would come in anddrop that stuff.

(01:07:37):
And then, very much he is.
You know, he has this executiveproducer hat that he puts on
too.
That is so helpful in us kindof making a movie or writing a
script that can get made.
That was kind of essential tothe process as well, and we just

(01:08:01):
go like, okay, well, we can'thave this set piece because it's
just going to cost too muchmoney or it needs to be this or
whatever that is.
But yeah, I mean, between thethree of us it was, everybody
had a version of the file and wewere trying to figure out whose
file was the most recent.
Everybody's fingers were on thekeyboard.
So it really was a bigcollaborative celebration

(01:08:24):
Celebration, yeah.
And then, by the way, then youget oh, anthony wants to be in
it, okay, and George, thedirector, has notes.
Here's some thought it can't behere.
It's got to be here because thetax break is better, and so you
just go cool, let's all figurethis out.
And thank you for the notes.
And so it was.
You know, a lot ofcollaboration.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
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'traise his hand for for final
credit on or anything.
But you know, a lot of the, thebest stuff in that does come
from him, um, and I think hisgetting his involvement as a,
you know, not just a writer he'sa brilliant writer, obviously
on his own um, but to have himinvolved at the in the capacity

(01:09:09):
of both, you know, director,director, writer, and you know
he was producing as well um wasjust such, it was so additive,
and I think his, his work, youknow, on the film elevates it,
you know, no pun intended uhdoes really elevate it, um, in
ways that I think we, we reallylucked out in in getting him
involved, uh, with this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah, uh, the film is a, is a.
Uh, we were talking about kindof um, what's the most um, you
know, a simple story, well, toldright, like, like, if you could
just steal it down, right.
So for those that, um, maybehaven't seen the film yet, can
you guys tell them what the filmis?
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 basicform, it's about a father trying

(01:09:58):
to help his son.
But what for you guys?
Can you guys just do the quickpitch of the film for everybody?

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Yeah, it's basically it opens with Mackie.
You know they're above 8,000feet to live in in the world.
You know this world that somehowwe don't know why or how, but
it's changed and everybody is upon this mountain and he has a
kid, he has a son who he caresabout and we as an audience care
about and, um, this kid has aproblem with his machine that's

(01:10:28):
keeping him alive, his machinethat's keeping him alive.
And so Mackie has, you know, thedramatic, the dramatically
ironic motivation to do the oneto save the child he loves.
He's going to do the thing thatwill possibly kill him and he
recruits, you know these twowomen Marina Baccarin, who's so

(01:10:48):
great in the movie, and MaddieHassan, who's just fantastic and
takes them with him below theline 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 downthere, you realize once you
cross the line, there's monstersdown there and they will come
find you and you're on theirradar and anytime you go beneath

(01:11:14):
a thousand feet, it will comeand get you so and along the way
I think from them is kind ofyeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
Okay, sorry, go Jay.
Yeah, just from from acharacter perspective, it's a
very much a uh, I would say kindof a quest film in terms of you
know, mackie has this verysimple quest to go get the grail
, as it were, which is the thingthat's going to save his kid.
And you know recruits, you knowpartners to join that quest.

(01:11:41):
And you know Morena, who playsNina.
Her role is she's the physicistwho's kind of obsessed,
absolutely obsessed, withfiguring out a way to kill these
monsters.
That's kind of her own grailquest personally.
And both of them are are peoplewho, as you might imagine, uh,
in a the world of this film,everybody in the world of this
film, has lost someone.

(01:12:01):
Um, you know, and in in the caseof the two of them, there's
some kind of bad blood betweenthem.
Uh, based on something thathappened previously.
Um, I guess all you need toknow going into it is that Nina
you know Marina plays Nina Ninais the only person who has
survived an attack and encounterwith these monsters that are
called Reapers, and that thatattack took somebody's life who

(01:12:27):
was very close to the Mackie,and so there's this bad blood
between them.
But they need to cooperate andwork together.
You know, unfortunately again,she's the only person who's ever
survived an encounter withthese 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, thebaseline of their, their
relationship is is based on, youknow, loss and pain, and can

(01:12:49):
there be forgiveness.
Can they work together, um, andovercome their personal wounds
to on this kind of collectivequest for to go bring life back
to the village?

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Uh, this has been great.
You guys.
I wonder if I could get you outof here with this kind of
general question for ouraudience.
You know you've got a lot ofaspiring writers and filmmakers
listening to this podcast and,um, if you guys were starting
your career today right, like ifyou're starting over today,
what would be your advice?
You know what?

(01:13:21):
What would you, what would youtell yourself to do?
How would you go about doing it?
Maybe you do somethingdifferent, 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 writefor film and television um, how
do I, how do I get started?
What do I do?
What's your advice to them?

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
I do think, um, the thing that I there's a couple
things, but one of them isreally figure out conceptually
what the story is like, get thatconcept, get it down to a
really good log line workshopthat, get it to the place before
you then invest the four months, the six months, the three

(01:14:01):
months into writing something.
I think a lot of times we getso excited about diving into a
script that you kind of loseyour, your compass in some way.
You forget like, oh, I want todo this and I'm off, I'm off
base.
So I do think locking in thatconceptual piece of of the
puzzle is really important.
Like we just had a meeting withthis producer a couple weeks

(01:14:23):
ago and he said you know, badconcept, great script is a
little bit harder to sell thanyou know, know great concept.
So so, script like you can, youcan always fix the script, but
you gotta have that concept inthere.
So that's part of the pitch.
It's like what's the trailergoing to look like?

(01:14:44):
What you know, where does thissit in the marketplace?
So I think that's important.
And I think the other thing isthe concept of find a mentor,
find somebody who can kind ofyou know, not only help you
along the journey, and thatdoesn't.
It's not always going to belike get you paid.
It's literally like maybe it'sadvice, maybe it's this, maybe

(01:15:05):
it's you know, looking overtheir shoulder and seeing how
they're doing shoulder andseeing how they're doing.
But the other thing Jake and Italked about with this mentor
idea is when you find thatperson, you see this can be done
.
This is something that isachievable.
I remember when we were at Biola, scott had released Emily Rose

(01:15:26):
and so he brought a poster inand just he signed it or
whatever, but it says it can bedone.
And I was like in and it justhe had to be signed it or
whatever, but it says it can bedone.
And I was like light bulb, wow,okay, we could actually do this
.
Um, it's a reality to get atheatrical release.
It's a reality to make a movieand get get made with a movie
star.
So I think, yeah, concept andthen find your mentor, uh, is

(01:15:47):
really important.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
That's awesome.
Well, this has been fantastic.
You guys and I so appreciateyou taking time out of your
schedules to spend time with us,and we want to encourage people
.
The film is called Elevationstars Anthony Mackie.
It's in theaters beginningNovember 8th, so whenever you
listen to this, go check it out.
I always pray for my guests atthe end of our podcast.

(01:16:15):
Would you guys allow me to prayfor you guys?
Oh, of course.
Oh yeah, heavenly father, wejust uh thank you.
We thank you for today.
We thank you for the chance tobe able to uh, just um talk with
these guys.
I'm just so grateful for Jakeand Kenny and thank you, god,
for just who they are and whatthey've got going on, not only

(01:16:37):
professionally but personally.
Just pray a blessing upon theirwork, but also their families
and their lives, and, god, wejust pray that you would
continue to reveal yourself tothem, not only through what they
do, but the lives that theylive.
God, go before them, open doorsthat need to be opened, and

(01:17:00):
just thank you.
Just pray a blessing upon theirfamilies and God.
We just thanks for thisopportunity to be able to speak
today, and we love you, god.
We pray this in Jesus' name andyour promises we stand, amen.

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Thank you for listening to the Act One podcast
, celebrating over 20 years asthe premier training program for
Christians in Hollywood.
Act One is a Christiancommunity of entertainment
industry professionals who trainand equip storytellers to
create works of truth, goodnessand beauty.
The Act One program is adivision of Master Media
International.
To financially support themission of Act One or to learn

(01:17:35):
more about our programs, visitus online at actoneprogramcom,
and to learn more about the workof Master Media, go to
mastermediacom.
Thank you, so so Bye.