June 9, 2025 • 62 mins
Today on What's My Frame I'm joined by Writer and Producer, Rob Edwards. Rob has written classic animated films for Disney including THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG & TREASURE PLANET.
This year he has three films including MARVEL'S CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, SNEAKS and THE KING OF KINGS.
Rob is a 20-year veteran of television where he wrote and produced, notable credits include THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, FULL HOUSE, A DIFFERENT WORLD, STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP & IN LIVING COLOR.
Rob also consulted on TANGLED, WRECK-IT RALPH, and FROZEN. He also wrote and directed the award-winning animated short film THE PARK BENCH and is currently writing projects for SHOWTIME, SONY, and MOFAC. His graphic novel, DEFIANT, is a best seller and is currently being made into a feature.
Rob shares some beautiful advice around self awareness and self acceptance in support of the writing and rewriting process. Now let's get to the conversation!
DEFIANT - The Story of Robert Smalls - Comic Book Issue #1
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hi everyone. Today and What's My Frame?
I'm joined by writer and producer Rob Edwards.
Rob is are in classic animated films for Disney including The
Princess and the Frog and Treasure Planet.
This year he has three films including Marvel's Captain
America, Brave New World, Sneaksand The King of Kings.
Rob is a 20 year veteran of television where he wrote and
(00:22):
produced. Notable credits include The
Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Full House, A Different World, Studio
60 on the Sunset Strip, and In Living Color to name just a few.
His graphic novel Defiant as a best seller and is currently
being made into a feature. Rob's insight and advice on
self-awareness, self acceptance in support of writing and the
(00:42):
rewriting process is really beautiful.
Now let's get to the conversation.
Welcome to What's My Friend, Howyou doing?
I'm doing great, Laura. I am so excited to dive into the
many different chapters and evolutions of your work, but for
anyone who isn't familiar, couldyou talk a little bit about what
(01:03):
drew you to the industry? What wow, what made you want to
write and tell stories in this way?
And I guess also very of the times, what makes you want to
continue because I know we're going through a lot of growing
pains right now in the business.Yes, OK, good, good.
Oh, wow, you're going to hit allmy hit all the good stuff.
(01:23):
Yeah, let's see. I I, I always say I, I I was
never the class clown. I was always a kid in the back
of the class and made fun of theclass clown.
And, and that was kind of the first for me, the first
introduction to like, Oh, hey, it's fun being, it's well, it's
fun being funny. And it's also fun kind of
observing and, and, and having fun that way.
(01:45):
And then that just crew into like, and it's terrible for any
teacher. I apologize right now, But it
grew into passing notes and thento writing stories, you know,
and then like I, I can draw. So I, I, I wound up with a, a
comic strip, but I, I would justdraw a picture, you know,
pictures of people to make fun of them.
(02:08):
And just like, oh, I'm entertaining the back row is, is
fully taken care of. And, and that just, yeah, that
just turned into, I think it wasencouraging school to write
short stories. I went to boarding school.
So it was a interesting thing. And and so I just wound up,
like, getting shepherded along by some of the some really great
(02:32):
teachers who exposed me to, you know, great science fiction
writers. And from that, I just started
writing short films, you know, grew up in Detroit.
So it's kind of like me and Sam Raimi, we're about the same age.
And we were doing kind of super 8 movies.
(02:52):
Yeah. And then it just came time.
OK well, what are you going to study in college?
Like, OK, well, let's do this. And yeah.
And then from there, it's just like, how can I, can I make a
living at this? Is there a way that I could, I
could eat and, and do this? That'd be fantastic.
And and all just worked out nicely.
Who were some of your mentors inthe early days once you were in
(03:16):
LA and pursuing it as a career and it was no longer something
that was beneficial and entertaining and something that
just fed you creatively, but also it was it was on a career
path at this point. Yes, Well, I found out because
this is an educational community.
I'm going to get in trouble witheverybody.
But I, I was a film school student.
(03:37):
I was, you know, and I, I, I didwhat I thought was fairly well
in college. And then when I graduated, I, I
found out that zero, none of it crossed over.
I, I would show people my stuff and they would say, well, what
do you, what is this? I said, well, it's metadiegesis
and, and it's, you know, figure ground relationship.
And people were like, no Rob, no, stop that, stop that.
(04:00):
Now. When I was in college, I wrote
fan letters to a bunch of writers that I, that I liked
and, you know, 20-30 at a time. And a couple of guys got back to
me. And one of them was this guy
Thad Mumford, who'd who'd written MASH and won an Emmy
Award. And, you know, it was just a, a,
(04:20):
a really great guy to me. And so he, you know, hey, if
you, hey kid, if you ever in town, I'll take you out to
lunch. And so that, that grew into just
a straight on mentorship where he looked at my scripts and
I'll, I'll tell you the first one that he, he, he looked at,
he said, he said, well, I laughed once, you know, this was
(04:43):
the, this was like a 40 page script.
And he says, he says, I, I laughed once and I said, wow.
And he says, OK, if you want to go through it, you know, I'll go
through and I'll tell you what you did wrong or, you know, have
a nice life. And I said, no, no, no, you
know, please, Sir, may I have another?
And, and he, and so he gave me the notes and they were great.
(05:07):
And he and he said like, OK, well, you know, most people lick
their wounds at this point. I said, no, no, I'll see you
next week. I'll see you, I'll see you next
week at this table. So when I rewrote the script, I
gave it back to him. He says, OK, I laughed 3 times
and he gave me the notes again. And then I did the same thing.
(05:27):
Quick turn around. You know, I just wrote all
night. I was, I was delivering coffee
at the time. And, and I third time he said,
OK, we can work with this. And that was like, oh, you know,
collagen 3 weeks basically. And, and so from then on, you
(05:48):
know, he, he gave me the notes, I rewrote it.
And then he said, well, we can continue with this or I'm sure
you've learned a lot from this, from this process.
If I were you, I would just start another script.
And I said, yeah, you're right. And I started the new script
with, you know, fresh muscles and, and just did a much better,
(06:10):
much better job and just kept going and going that way.
But yeah, Thad Mumford was really, really instrumental in
in, you know, in getting me fromnothing.
Just a just an everybody to likea an actual working writer.
It seems like it came kind of naturally to you, but any advice
for most artists have a hard time separating their self worth
(06:32):
from their creative process. And if there are critiques or
notes or rewrites or criticisms,even if they are constructive,
it's very personal. And it's just like he said, they
go and lick their wounds and youknow, it's them.
It's not me kind of a thing. How did you have that
self-awareness and self acceptance of they the 2 are
(06:54):
separate? Yes.
Well, I think that that is, it'ssuch a great question because I
think it's everybody all the time.
You know, I've, I've been writing now for like 40 years
and I still, you know, I get, I get stung.
You know, you go on IMDb or, youknow, or, or you go worse yet,
(07:15):
you know, Rotten Tomatoes. And then you get, you get it
served to you and, and it hurts.Part of the process is accessing
your emotions, you know, so you have to really be readily
accessible. There are scenes in Princess and
the Frog where I was, people would pass by my office.
I always kept the door open and I would just be bawling.
(07:37):
I would just be crying my eyes out and be like, what's wrong?
What's wrong? Rob, are you OK?
I was like, read the pages and let me know and people would
pass by my doorway also crying like a day after.
Because you have to access thosethings, you know, in order to
make other people cry, you have to be, you know, you have to
(07:58):
know what makes you cry. And in order to make other
people laugh, you have to know what makes you laugh and
excitement, all that kind of stuff.
So you kind of live this, you live on an emotional edge anyway
because you want to just be opento those things.
And so everything hurts and, and, and you just have to be
able to say, OK, well, this isn't this isn't me.
(08:24):
This isn't, you know, he's not saying Rob, you're, you know, a
terrible person or whatever. He's saying this thing doesn't
work. And so at a certain point as a
cabinet maker or whatever you are, you have to say, OK, this
thing doesn't work. That's my job tomorrow.
If it still doesn't work, well, then I'm a bad person.
(08:47):
But if it, if it, if I fixed it,yay.
You know, there you go. And most, most scripts that I've
seen, and I, I teach at USC, I teach at Syracuse.
And, and so a lot of times you give the notes and you get the
script back and it's exact same thing because they didn't take
the note. And, and the key is that that's
(09:08):
the way to mediocrity is just never get better.
You know, at Disney, you know, once again, Princess Princess
and Frog and Treasure Planet, the rewrites were like, they
weren't just, oh, we're going torewrite.
It was like 75% of the movie would get, would get rewritten
between screenings. There's six screenings, 3
(09:29):
months. You have three months to, to, to
between screenings and you get the notes and the notes are
like, they're not, nobody is trying to be nice.
You know, whatever. They're trying to win an Academy
Award. They're trying to, to make the,
the, the best movie of the year.And, and so you get, you know,
(09:51):
yeah, they, they, they just go right in.
And sometimes it's massive elements that don't work.
The third act is rarely works. And the, you know, and sometimes
the midpoint is, is a, is a slog.
And how you, if the third act doesn't work, usually because of
first act doesn't. And, and so you're kind of going
into it sometimes like just the DNA of the movie itself.
(10:15):
And, and once you get into it, there goes half the movie.
So, you know, the so the first screening 75%, second screening
50%, you know, you're happy whenit's only 25% of the movie that
that that's getting changed. So, yeah.
And, and but that is how they get good.
You don't want anybody shooting that first draft.
(10:36):
Oh, God, no. You know, whatever, you know
that that should just be burned.You know of the ground salted
where I know where you bury it. Nobody should see that.
So and that's the process. But you have to love the
process. You really have to you really
have to embrace, you know, trustthe process, lean into it,
(10:57):
embrace the the suck is what I call it.
You know where you get like a lot of notes and you guys have
to go a lot of it's going to be a long week, you know?
Now I wasn't aware that there was the six screenings for an
animated feature. When you say screening, do they
(11:17):
actually have the animation and you are watching it?
Has it been voiced or is it moreof a read through?
Yeah, you're watching. It's kind of a hybrid.
Well, in sitcoms you have read throughs and read throughs and
whatever similar process, you want to see it in as cheap a way
as you can. You know, you want to see, you
(11:37):
want to have some idea of what the final is going to be, but
you but you want to kind of just, you know, taste it.
You don't want anybody filming it and costumes and all that
stuff. So in animation, the most
expensive part of the process isthe actual animation is guys
sitting down for a week, you know, doing a sentence.
(11:58):
And so, but the storyboards are much less expensive and, and
having Rob instead of, you know,Keith David do the part is super
cheap because he just called me.I go down to the booth and I, I
just, I do the lines as I think they, I, as I think Keith David
(12:18):
will eventually do that. And, and so I'm doing my worst,
my worst Keith David impersonation, whatever.
And I'm, I'm just trying to approximate what it is.
And then we screen that for all the directors and the writers
and producers at Disney. And then we go, we would, we
would go in that particular instance, we would go up to
(12:40):
Emeryville and we would screen it again for the Pixar guys.
And you get 2 sets of notes and you know, and so there's a lot
you get, you get a binder about that big of notes because you're
not just screening it to those guys.
You're screening to everybody inthe building, everybody who who
works for Disney and everybody has two cents so.
(13:03):
Each time you have three months to go away and as as the writer,
is it primarily your responsibility to take that
binder, digest it and then work on it, or do you have any
assistant writers that are supporting you in that?
No. I wish I have.
More of a like a solo team. Somebody who you could just put
(13:23):
your great ideas into Who? Would, you know, work on this
part? Yeah.
No, I, I think I'm not sure if that would work it, it barely
works in in sitcoms, you know, where, where you have a staff
and inevitably, you know, even the best Staffs, the final draft
goes through the executive producers typewriter anyway.
(13:46):
So you are, you may have, you know, even the best writers
sometimes, sometimes you get a really great, you know, Unicorn
writer who writes exactly what you think.
And you and you can kind of go like, oh, this is, you know, no
notes, no below, go straight to stage.
But most of the time you're kindof like, this is what I was
(14:07):
thinking and type, type, type. So no.
But usually what it is is that three months is not all writing.
That three months is going from the screening day, right.
Lock picture editing, the the panels, the drawings.
(14:28):
Yeah, music, I'm going backwards.
Music, temporary dialogue, the actual drawing, multiple passes
of the drawing and then the writing.
You're coming back and you're saying, and you meet with the
directors and you and you say, OK, this is wrong, this is
(14:51):
wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
And how do we prioritize those notes?
And after that, then how do you say, OK, what are the most
important things we need to do or the least important things we
need to do? Do we have any fixes?
And everybody, the head of story, sometimes some, there may
be two or three other people, but it's usually a small room,
(15:11):
maybe 6 people. And we'll try this, try this.
What about this, would this work?
OK, this works this way, that works this way.
A lot of times you have to go back and, and watch the movies
and, you know, see how other people have solved your
problems. Yeah.
And then you finally say, as thewriter, you say, I think this is
(15:34):
the way. I think this is the way, you
know, let's see what happens. And you, the writer, the writing
being, OK, I'm sorry, I'm getting things on top of things,
but the writing is the cheapest part of the animation process.
You know, I can write a page andand that's just a page.
To me, that's just like, OK, great.
I can do that in an hour. That is $1,000,000 worth of
(15:59):
animation. You know, for Disney, it's a
it's $1,000,000 a minute to to animate a Disney movie.
Yes, so at least. And so, so my part of the
process is easy and I can changeit in no time at all.
Oh, that joke didn't work. How about 6 more jokes?
(16:19):
Oh, oh, that line. OK, well let's let's lighten up.
This way when you start drawing it, it takes a takes a bit more
time and you know, the fixes on drawings, Oh no, this character
needs to come out. So you need to redraw 8 panels.
You know, this character should be sad.
Oh no, you know, you got to redo20 panels and and so that so so
(16:44):
so that happens. So that's the process.
I mean, it really is. You have 6 guys, sometimes 8,
maybe 12 story artists waiting for you to, to give them stuff
to draw and they can't wait. They're not going to wait three
months, you know, and then draw it and last day.
(17:05):
So you are writing as quickly asyou can.
You know it's three to five pagesequences, you know, for each
guy and you're hoping to feed asmany mouths as you can.
So I have to think, make quick choices, write it down, take a
look at it and maybe rewrite it.As soon as I write it, as soon
(17:26):
as I pass it out, I start rewriting it and I say, hey, you
know, I know you're doing that. But I I did another pass at it.
Take a look at this. And the artist himself will say,
Hey, Rob, you know, while I found a way to get from here to
here better. And I'll say like, oh, great.
Well, let me build on that because I have another idea and
(17:49):
I'm going to send you some more pages.
And, and so off they go. And, and so it's a collaborative
process and that's what makes it, that's what makes it work.
But it is you do not have the luxury of just kind of sitting
back and having a, you know, coconut smile and, you know,
just. Letting the ideas be.
Inspired. Yes.
Waiting for the sun to set in the beautiful way.
(18:12):
When you are handing off these pages to your story artists, how
do you like to describe? Because I'm sure these are very
3 dimensional personalities and be it people or creatures or
animals, they're very, very realto you.
So how do you give that first nudge in a direction of what
(18:34):
this this character is going to look like?
Yeah, well, that's the thing, right?
Is it a lot of that in being a good animation writer?
The part of it is you have to resist the temptation to do
exactly what you just said, which is to say, you know, hey,
(18:55):
I have this idea. Here's a scene And I, I did a
couple of drawings and you know,and this is what it should kind
of be like. And this is how I want to stage
it. And this is the lighting that
comes in and blah, blah, blah. And then give it, give it to
them and, and they'll go like, oh, wow, Rob did all the work
and there's no fun left for me. Well, just trace what Rob did
and give it back to him, right? That's all you get.
(19:17):
But if I give them the pages andand they say, well, talk me
through it, honestly, Nope. It's on the page.
It's on the page. Figure it out.
And and then you get these brilliant things back because
the artists themselves, they engage and they get, you know,
into it. It's like it's like if you give
(19:38):
an actor a line reading, you just see them kind of die
inside, you know, you know, you you want them to say, like, I
got AI got a twist on this line.Oh, this is going to be great.
I can't roll camera. You know, watch me, you know,
watch, you know, watch me win myOscar.
That's that's what you want. And then the second version,
(19:58):
once you get that back, you say,hey, you know what?
I had this drawing in my drawer.I just want to, I just want to
show you this thing I did. And you know, it's stupid, I
know, but you know, maybe this gets you somewhere.
And then they go like, oh, no, this is not, this is not bad at
all. And then off they go back to
where they were and, and you're and then it gets better.
(20:20):
But it starts off in a, in a much, much better place.
And you're not kind of just telling people what to do.
I had never thought of it like that.
I think it's just because my imagination is whenever I write,
I I very much like picture and Ihadn't, I hadn't even thought
about that in the animation world that you're taking away.
They're fun. Yes.
Yeah, don't want to do that, Notat all.
Everybody is, yeah, there's, there's this term called
(20:41):
plussing, you know, and it just means like, oh, I took your
thing and I made it, I put flowers on it.
And, and you don't want to deprive an artist of of that
because that's, that's how they engage.
Exactly. I mean, I, I think going off of
that, what is it about the industry that has continued to
keep you in love with it becauseyou also you continue to keep
(21:05):
pushing your own limits and boundaries of your creativity,
but what keeps you in love with the industry as it continues to
change under our feet? Yeah.
What's there's two questions in that because the the the
beautiful woman I fell in love with is not is not the the the
(21:27):
witch of the West that we that we live with today the I love
story. I love telling stories.
I'm still that kid in the back of the class in Detroit, you
know, passing notes. And I still get a, I still, you
know, when Captain America came out, I sat in the front row and
I just look back at everybody going like, oh, well, you know,
(21:50):
whatever. You see people on the edge of
their seat and stuff. And the same thing with, with
Princess and the Frog, where, you know, there's a, a point, of
course, in the movie, not spoiler, but where everybody
gets very quiet and then the tissues come out and then, you
know, and you see people. And if you've seen the movie a
dozen times in theaters, there'sa kind of a wonderful dance,
(22:12):
almost a poetry to it where you see like, OK, here it goes.
It's it's raining, you know, and, and it's gonna happen and
you turn back and you see people, some people are trying
to be strong and some people, whatever.
And you just see the, the crowd of people, 500 people in the
theater all kind of doing the same thing, which is, you know,
(22:35):
heads go on, on shoulders and our hands go around, you know,
shoulders and, and you know, like I say, tissues come out and
people, people start to, you know, whatever.
And they, they look at each other and, and there was this
wonderful thing. And I'm kind of like, Hey, I, I
helped make that, you know, and that's why you do it.
(22:58):
You know, my, my, my first question always when I write
something is whose favorite movie am I making?
Whose favorite movie? And I, and I write to that, I
put that person in the room withme and I'm like, OK, here's the
here's, here's the person that is going to be most affected by
it, you know, is going to enjoy it the most, is probably going
to see it more than one time. And am I blowing it?
(23:22):
Am I, am I, am I doing somethingto kind of destroy that
person's, you know, that person want is leading it wants to like
it, wants to love it. And, and, and am I doing
something that will destroy that?
Or am I doing something that's really going to make them, you
know, go nuts? I was just recently in the
(23:46):
theater to watch the the audience for King of Kings and I
couldn't. It was, I had a feeling, but it
is wild to see like a room full of kids.
These are kids, you know, and kids are like, where's my phone?
And, you know, and can I play, play video game?
And they were all like, like saucers, saucer eyes.
(24:08):
And in their same kind of thing,they're crying and they're kind
of nudging each other and they're, you know, whatever.
And they're coming out like, oh,let's go see it again.
And you see that those are the, you know, in all the threads and
all the stuff, that's what people are saying.
Like, oh, man, can't wait to seethis again 40 years later.
(24:28):
I see that comment on that stupid thread and I'm sure the
person didn't even didn't think twice, but I was like, oh wow, I
just had a great time in theater, you know, and, and, and
I go, OK, let's, let's keep going, let's keep rolling.
The second part is what's happened to the industry now.
(24:49):
You know how difficult it is to get to that moment.
You know how you know how how webecome a bit risk averse and
pain averse and if it hasn't been seen a million times and
has no worth. And that is it is tough to do
things in that environment. But you know, because I mean,
(25:15):
we're in an age, we should be inthis age where you could make
movies for next to nothing rightnow.
And, and there's so many wonderfully talented people, so
many film schools and so many, you know, just an embarrassment
of riches. And, and I don't know what we're
doing with it, you know, trying to get ideas sold.
(25:38):
And I've, I've, you know, for the three that I, I got made
this year, that means there were30 that people said no to.
And and I'm not just going it when when I go into pitch, I'm
not I I I go in the way you go in to pitch.
I have an A list director. I have a piece of talent that
is, you know, well sought after.I have a great idea, great piece
(26:00):
of IP and still there, you know,one after the other.
You know, people are saying, no,I have a graphic novel, you
know, defiant, which is Robert small story.
And we heard no a lot. And so I just said like, OK,
well, let me just write the IP. Let me just get proof of
concept. I'm going to write write a
(26:22):
graphic novel that we will base a movie on.
And and so that is, you know, and and that is actually going
really well. You know that even as a stand
alone, like just a graphic novel, we're getting a lot of
attention. We're getting a lot of praise.
(26:42):
I think it's going to win some awards comes out in June
Juneteenth. So you know, so that one is that
one is doing well and hopefully that will kind of break the
curse. But it's been, it is, it is
very, very difficult to just geta good movie made, a good mid
level movie made that doesn't have that where people don't,
(27:04):
you know, crush buildings, you know?
Yes. No, I I've seen people jokingly
make observations about the industry and be like, well, if
you want to make that film, you should make the book first.
Make that a best seller and thenmake the movie.
And I think what started as a joke, people were like, oh, no,
I think that actually is how it's happening now.
(27:24):
And I mean, from the actor side,we've been told for so long, you
know, just, you know, just go make, just go shoot.
Just go make things to show casting.
And that was one of the reasons that I started getting more
involved with some SAG educational program being
because we're just kind of beingsent out to do and make.
And it's like, but how like how do you, how do you start
(27:45):
building the pieces to actually have some final product that is
usable versus just you wouldn't spun your wheels and and spent
money you didn't have but. Yeah, and and, you know,
probably it's, you know, I mean,and if if I'm being nice, I'll
say I'll say that it's it's a version of, you know, a run
(28:05):
through. When I started, the executives
were people who were former producers.
They've made a bunch of movies before.
They were kind of like, you know, I would say that if you're
a if you're a a coach in the NFL, right, you played high
school, you played college, you played pro.
You were, you know, some kind ofa linebacker coach or something
like that. Then your defensive coordinator
and now you're now you're a coach, right.
(28:26):
So you've seen your way through it and you and most of those
guys had a some idea of what a movie should be or, you know,
what they needed to to do. Now it's kind of like somebody
comes in and everybody's the same thing.
You know, you're on a zoom and you kind of, you know, you, you,
you, you go and you Google somebody and you see their
(28:47):
LinkedIn and like, wait a minute.
Last week you were at, you know,Walmart and, you know, hang on,
you've been there for three months and you, you know, and
this is this is not, you know, Imean, I had an executive one say
like, oh, hey, I just bought this book called save the cat.
It's really interesting, you know, have you read it?
I'm like everybody, you kind of read that in kindergarten.
(29:11):
It's it's a it's a it's like what, what else have you read?
You know, because if we're goingto talk save the cat, you know,
and not talk Trudy or or McKee or you know what, which book are
we going to write this movie from?
You know, and that's a tough, it's a tough place to be in.
(29:33):
And so, so as we, you know, as you are preparing your, your,
your, your viewers for or your, your, your listeners for the,
for, for what is in store, I mean, be, be prepared because
that is, you know, the world is a little bit different.
It's super, super cautious. And that if you have an idea
(29:54):
that's really crazy, really wonderful and, and creative and
original and stuff, find a way to to sell it to the people that
are that, that you actually wantto buy it or, you know, find a
way to make it yourself, which is kind of where I am, right?
Yeah, with all of those folks weighing in during your creative
(30:18):
process, but also all of the fiery hoops you have to jump
through to get something made inthe current climate of the
industry, how do you stay true to your artistic voice and your
creative process? Or how do you recharge your
creative batteries when you've you've put so much out for work
wise? That's a few questions, but.
(30:39):
No, no, I mean, it's a well, it,it does plug into the same
thing. I mean, I, I think ultimately
I've had this great pleasure of,I find myself in really great
rooms. I'll see.
I've worked with a little, a lotof really fantastic people.
And so when I was on Fresh Prince, the Borowitz's were
(31:01):
always saying, hey, you know, find your, you know, make
yourself laugh. And when I worked with Aaron
Sorkin, I worked with him on Studio 60, he would always say
like, hey, we're making, we're making TV for the people in the
room. And at Disney, they would say,
you know, where are you in this?The, the, the Pixar Disney era,
(31:22):
it was be a film goer first, be a filmmaker second.
And all of those things are generally saying the same thing,
which is know who you are. You know, if you love movies,
make movies that you will love. And so, so put yourself in the
chair. And I would say like, put
(31:42):
yourself in the chair, you know,imaginary popcorn, imaginary
M&M's in the popcorn, you know, a Diet Coke with, with lemonade
and, and, and you, and, and thenyou kind of kick back and this
curtain rises and you say, what,what do I want to see?
You know, what, what do I most, there's always that moment of
(32:05):
anticipation when you're in a theater and that, that thing
goes up. You know, you watch 20,000
trailers. But then, but then the, the,
the, the, the logo comes on and you're like, oh, you know,
here's a guy running through a hall or a guy, you know,
whatever. And, you know, a gun or, you
know, woman giving birth or whatever that is a wedding, a
funeral. And, and you say like, oh, oh,
(32:27):
this is going to be a great movie, right?
Or you say like somebody just starts talking and you go, oh,
God, you know, is this going to be one of those?
Oh, no, I know the filmmaker. What am I going to tell?
No, but not just kidding guest, kidding, all my friends.
But the. Very small town.
But really, you, you, you are, you're sitting there and you're
(32:49):
saying you're trying to get a rise out of yourself.
So what are what are the beginnings that you like?
And what are the characters thatyou like?
And what are the, what is your North star all the way through?
And if you're making movies thatat least you can, you can enjoy
and can be proud of and can showyour family and friends, then I
think you're on the, on the right track.
(33:09):
If you're trying to, if you're trying to conform to the
algorithm, you know, you're, you're just going to bury
yourself because the next step is AI is going to take your job
and you know, and, and, and that's the end of it.
So know what it is that makes you laugh, cry, and, and, and
(33:30):
what, what moves you, what entertains you.
Yeah. How did you shift your creative
and your writing style or process from coming from the
sitcom writers room to animationand being a lone wolf in the
process of writing? Yeah.
Yeah, well, it was not. It was, I thought it would be
(33:52):
much easier. I thought like, oh, it's just
another button on, you know, final draft.
I can just say, you know, this is going to be great.
Yeah, I'm, I miss because I I got another point and I'll say
like, I've done so many sitcoms.I've gotten to the point where I
could write an episode overnight.
In fact, you know, once you can do that, then you become that
(34:14):
guy. You know, you're like, oh, you
know, you go to a run through and it's like, oh, it doesn't
work. Hey, Rob, you know, what do you
got? And you you say, well, I got, I
had this idea. Let me see.
OK, I'll see you guys in the morning.
And you know, in that case, you take maybe one or two writers
and you just kind of are hammering away all night and
(34:35):
then you turn in something in the morning.
And so I got to be that that guy, that fassel with sitcom
writing. So when I got to movies, I said,
OK, great, I'm just going to take three weeks off and I'll
I'll write a screenplay and it'll be so much fun.
Yay, me. And I wrote a, a teleplay is
about 3545 pages long, you know,and so I wrote my first
(35:01):
screenplay and it was 45 page long and I said, OK, this is
probably not a good one because I think they're supposed to be
120 pages. And so I wrote another one and
it was 55 pages long and I said,OK, I need to completely start
all over from the beginning. And when I was writing sitcoms,
(35:22):
when I started writing sitcoms and when I had that, those
brutal lunches with Thad Mumford, basically what I did a
lot all that time was I would watch sitcoms and just make
notes all the time. I would, I would write down all
the jokes and I would write downlike the time codes, like when
everything was happening and, and I, and I, I would just study
(35:45):
them. I just had these books of, you
know, of, of sitcoms. And I said, OK, well, great.
I need to introduce a character.OK, here are 20 episodes where
they've introduced a a character.
How did they do it? And I would just read those
things in isolation. And I would say, OK, I think
that this is the way that they go.
The guy comes in, he has an intention.
(36:06):
There is some kind of obstacle. Maybe it's it's, it's, it's one
of the other characters or whatever.
But we find out the good and thebad of the character pretty
quickly in about two or three pages.
I'm like, OK, great. That's what I need to do.
So put it in, you know, Hi, I'm the plumber.
I come this week to sink. Oh, no, you know, I'm really
clumsy, right? And so off you go.
(36:26):
The and so, so that was I, I just did that with movies and I
just sat down with movies and movie after movie after movie.
The good thing is I love watching movies.
So that was that was wonderful. I still do that.
I'm working on a movie right now.
I just started watching because it's similar in in in in in in
(36:48):
form. Not it's not about Dragons, but
it's a similar kind of like in aworld, in a fantasy world where
there's these characters and youknow, dealing with this other,
other thing. And so I'm just watching it and
going like first, how to train your dragon is brilliant movie.
It is bar none. It was just like, it's just,
it's just amazing every second of that thing.
(37:10):
And, and then and it helps teachme how to write that kind of
movie. Now eventually I'm going to just
throw away everything I've learned and I'm just going to go
do my own thing. But that was what it, that was
what it took when I did hours when I was working with Aaron
Sorkin on Studio 60, the same thing.
(37:30):
I just sat down. I said, hey, can you send me 6/6
of Aaron's favorite scripts, whether or not he's written
them? And I just went over those page
by page. I made my notes, you know, post
its and whatever. And, you know, it looks a little
(37:52):
insane. It's almost like I'm trying to
solve a crime at a certain point, everything's color-coded
and I'm just kind of going back and forth and, and some of those
things will just be one joke, one line, you know, that they'll
just sit there. So, yeah, so, so, so when I go
from from discipline to discipline, you know, when I
went to animation, I studied John Laffer.
(38:13):
I studied the Pixar stuff. That stuff was great.
And it wound up being the fix tothis is Inside Baseball, but it
wound up being the fix to to Princess and the Frog because I
said Pixar, specifically John Laffer really likes buddy
comedies. And you know, you look at all of
(38:35):
them, Toy Story and Monsters Incand you know, especially Finding
Nemo, you know, their buddy, their buddy Rd. pictures.
And, and I asked somebody about that and they said, well, you
know, one of John's favorite movies is the defiant ones.
And I said, oh, well, that's great.
So I took a look at the defiant ones and I said, well, you know,
(38:57):
and somebody said, Hey, while you're at it, why don't you take
a look at it happened one night.I was like, OK, great.
So I sit there, I study. It happened one night and that
went up on a board and you know,and all that, like how do buddy
wrote pictures work? Just so I know.
And then and then, hey, can I write a really a really great
(39:18):
one? And and so, so off you go.
So that's the fun of it is goingfrom discipline to discipline
and seeing if seeing if first you can kind of understand it
because the fans of those genresare the fans of those genres.
They've seen them all. So you can't just do the thing
that they've seen already. You have to put something else
(39:40):
on it and hopefully innovate it in some in some wonderful way.
And then hopefully, like the film goer first, you know, bring
yourself to it and and and have some emotional stakes, you know,
that that will move people. But but that's the fun of it
actually. You were told some of my
favorite like what I grew up on watching and just the nostalgia
(40:05):
and like the world that you werea part of in the room.
What did you learn from hearing those notes and those
conversations of what wasn't working?
They've been sent you to pull those all nighters and any any
advice that you can gear towardsactors now that we are
thankfully in a resurgence of comedy.
Comedy is always savage, so noneof the terms are good, but it's
(40:28):
like kill your babies is the first thing that came to mind is
that you. Nothing is precious and and the
worst thing you can get into if you're writing a comedy is to
get too precious with something because sometimes there's the
good joke may be, oh, in order to get to that joke, I have to
do this little tangent that's going to lead to this little
(40:49):
thing. And then, OK, I set this thing
up and then I do the joke and then I get back to the story and
never works. You know, you always have to
say, OK, look, it's really funny.
You're a really funny person. Hugs.
I'll take you out to dinner. But this joke's got to go.
And and you and you just slash, you know?
(41:11):
The way I have seen so many sitcoms where no one did that,
and you're just like, watching it as an audience member and
you're like, how did we get overhere on this completely
different episode of the show? And then they're like, now we're
back. Yeah.
And you're like, and you're like, and it's hard, it's hard
on the actors 'cause they're like, well, wait, I thought my
intention, you know, the first question they ask is like, wait,
(41:33):
wait, what's my intention in this scene?
You say, well, your intention ishere, but then also, you know,
you want to, you want to eat thebanana and put the banana on the
ground. When the guy's going to walk by,
he's going to slip on the banana.
Isn't that going to be great? Like, no, it has nothing to do
with the bank robbery that I'm doing over here, you know?
But it's funny. But it's funny, it's super funny
and and you know, jokes are a dime a dozen.
(41:55):
I mean, you know what you learned?
I, I did for a while as I was inmy kind of, you know, birthing
years, you know, fresh out of college.
I did stand up for a long, for awhile just to kind of see, you
know, am I party funny or am I, or can I be funny in front of an
audience, you know, with actual jokes.
(42:16):
And so I would always write a new routine and I would go up
and I, I got pretty good at it. I, I, I started headlining and,
and, and doing some stuff aroundtown.
And so that was, that was the fun of it.
But you start to learn that a joke, that jokes are really, you
know, they are a dime a dozen. Most of the time you're just
sitting there like, OK, I need ajoke for this.
It's got to be like this and whatever it's got to be this
(42:36):
this long and I go, how about this?
How about this? How about this?
How about this, How about this? All twenty of those jokes may
have been great, but one is going to survive and then that's
going to go in and then you justmove on.
In most comedy rooms. They don't care.
You know, people are just like, hey, I bet I pitched a joke.
You didn't get in. You know, it's it's no problem
on Fresh Prince. It was it's not just even the
table read and the you know, once again, table read is savage
(42:59):
and we, you know, a lot of things go rewrite night after
the after the first run through is all night, mainly because
sometimes you are rewriting the entire, you know, the entire
thing. Or that's when you know, they
send me home and I and I go and I rewrite the entire episode and
it's a whole new episode. But those things get get pretty
(43:20):
get pretty savage for good reason, because they really have
to kind of be able to hold, you know, hold their hold the weight
of the episode. Then unlike a Fresh Prince, we
would, we would shoot the shoot the scene and maybe there's 20
jokes in the scene or whatever and maybe three of them don't
(43:41):
work. And you go like, you know, we're
in trouble. And Andy Borowitz and I would,
you know, Borowitz of the Borowitz Report now, you know,
but he was one of the EPS on, on, on the show.
He would grab me and he would say, OK, we need 3 new jokes.
And I, I know exactly which onesthey are.
How about this, how about this? And we would be walking to the
stage and, you know, Will and, and, and Alfonso Ribeiro would,
(44:03):
would, would be watching us and like, oh, OK, there's new jokes.
OK, Thank goodness. Because we, we just died.
We just died with the stuff you wrote last night.
So. So you go in and you're, and
you're kind of pitching back andforth as you're on the way.
And we trusted each other enoughto know that we were going to
come up with something better bythe time we got to them.
(44:25):
And then the fun, the Inside Baseball Fund was sometimes we
would rewrite the, you have to rewrite the entire run.
The, you know, there's, there's an exchange 6 lines A/B, A/B,
A/B. And, and so we would go to
Alfonso and we'd say, instead ofsaying this, save this, instead
of saying this, save this. Instead of saying this, save
(44:45):
this. He was like, well, what does
that mean? It's like, don't worry about it.
And then we'd go to Will and we'd say, OK, instead of this,
say this, and this is this, this.
And he would say like, well, wait, wait, what?
It's like you'll figure it out. And we wouldn't tell them what
was going to happen. And so they would listen.
They get into the scene and the guy would say this, you'd toss
it up. And then Will's eyes would light
(45:07):
up because he knew that he had this great joke.
And so he would say his line andthen Alfonso's eyes would light
up because they're like, oh, nice, I got a good one.
And BAM, you know, and it's almost as if they're coming up
with them in real time, but it'sthem discovering like, oh, this
is, this is candy and, and off you go.
(45:27):
And you know, when you love the process, then that's just like,
you know, put me in the gym, letme, you know, let me go.
And I, I, I miss those times. I meant I'm you know what
movies, especially animated movies, the joke is you write a
joke and you wait four years to hear somebody laugh at it.
You. Know so painfully accurate.
(45:49):
It's, it's terrible, you know, and so I'm not going back to
stand up, but I do, I do enjoy that, that, that, that rapid
fire. The way that you just lit up,
like I could see what you were seeing walking through those
halls and on the stage and and working with your actors live.
Do you have a favorite memory ofeither a character you help
(46:14):
bringing to life or a storyline in an episode?
Or do you have a a favorite one that just will forever hold a
special place in your heart? Which baby?
Which baby do I love the most? We're talking about killing
babies. We pick the favorite babies.
I think it's, it's interesting because I, I, I would probably,
(46:36):
I think it would put a lot of babies in the same crib.
I mean, I, I think it is it, it is part of the, it's, it's part
of the process. I mean, I have two, I have two
boys and I would say I have no, I have no second son.
So, and, and it's really just a love of the process.
I just have always, you know, since I was a kid, I've just
really loved that idea of like, I'm going to tell a story and
(46:58):
everybody's going to listen. It's going to be great.
They're going to, and they're going to go like, Hey, Rob,
remember that story you told? I, I just, I just love that, you
know, so, so every morning I can't wait to get to, you know,
I can't wait to, these cards aregoing to be filled and filled
again by the time I'm done. And, and I, I, I love that.
(47:21):
I, I, I kind of like to preservethat even with my wife.
I don't, I don't tell her what I'm working on until it's over,
until I'm there and we get into the theater and especially I'll
see Princess and the Frog, whichis a lot about our courtship,
private school kid and hard working woman and a man alive.
(47:41):
So she's just like elbowing me all the way through the movie,
like, Oh my God, I can't believeyou put that in there.
And, and then she just sent to tears at the end of it and, and
I said, so did you like it? This is the greatest movie ever.
And she hugs me and, and that's,and that's it.
You know, I mean that, that really that that's, I mean, you
(48:02):
can tell, but the, the, but thatis the joy, even at its worst,
that is the joy. Because like when it gets bad,
I'm like, OK, here we go. The, the payoff of this at the
end is going to be so sweet because we will have fought our
way through this, this battle, you know, and and that's, I
(48:27):
think that's what, that's what it's all about.
I mean, as someone who was a Disney kid who grew up back in
the like the days of BHS and Little Mermaid and everything,
it was so incredible to see Tiana and see this world that
you all created. And just, I mean, going, I, I, I
took my my guy babies to Disney end of last year and seeing the
little girls in costume and withthe ride coming out and it just,
(48:53):
I can't imagine how surreal and how much joy that must bring you
to be a part of that. That is so just eternal.
That's. When I go to, you know, when I
go to Comic Con, I was just at Wondercom and let me send you
the picture. But I, I was at Wondercon and
I'm walking through the the lobby and there's little Tiana.
(49:15):
There's a little girl at a Tianaand the, the family, because I
said, hey, nothing to you, but I, I wrote the movie and I'm
like, Oh my God, whatever. So I got my picture taken with
her and oh, you missed you just missed her grandma.
She's she's dressed as Lewis. And the grandmother was in a
full alligator suit with a, witha, you know, with a trumpet.
(49:38):
And and it's like, OK, yeah, I, I, I, I, I picked, I picked the
right choice in winning that argument with my father.
I think I, I, I picked the rightchoice for for a career.
All right, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about
Captain America Brave New World.How did the opportunity to rate
(49:58):
this film come about? Yeah, well, those guys are
great. It, it's, it is really amazing
because I, I of my dreams, I2 dreams when I first, you know,
my, my 20 year old self, when I first started writing one was to
write a Disney animated feature because of course I had the, you
know, comic strip in, in, in, inschool and I could, could kind
(50:22):
of draw and I, I kind of saw that for myself.
And the second was to write a Marvel movie.
And, and so it's, I think it's every little boy's dream.
You know what, as you're, as you're sitting there collecting
comic books and you're, you know, you're in that world.
It was one of those things wherewhere they Nate Moore had read
something that I wrote and called me in to talk about
(50:44):
actually one of the earlier movies.
And and so I pitched on it got really close and it it it went
to somebody else. And that was aw, it kind of
broke my heart. And then they brought me in
another producer over there, brought me in on another project
and that got really, really close, you know, second place.
And, and that didn't happen either.
(51:05):
And so during quarantine, they, you know, he calls, he says, you
know, Kevin really likes you andhe, you know, he, he has one,
you know, we've got one for you because we have some time to
develop. And I didn't know what it was
going to be. And he says, oh, well, it's,
it's, it's cap 4. And I was like, what I got
through my phone. I just ran around like a crazy
(51:25):
man. And rightfully so.
This is literally every little boy's dream.
Yes, exactly. Just jumping over for, you know,
like Cap 4. You kidding me?
So, so yeah. And then you get into it and
the, the the fun is that those guys are so sharp.
They are, you know, just amazing.
(51:46):
Everybody knows every comics, comic book by page and, you
know, by panel and you're deep into it.
They send you, they give you access to all of the comic books
ever, ever written. So you can kind of go in and
just kind of, you know, read everything.
(52:06):
And, and the key is just, you know, tell a good story.
You know, they, they, they really, they emphasize the, the,
the right things, you know, characters, story and, and you
go, it's, it's, it's not easy, but you know, none of it is, I
mean, none of the good stuff. Like it's like I mentioned
before, none of the good stuff is easy.
(52:27):
But it's, it was super fun. It was just great.
It was an honor to be to be ableto play in that sandbox.
Yeah. What were some of the gifts as
well as obstacles of learning towrite for those incredibly
ornate and detailed action sequences and stunt sequences?
(52:47):
Oh, man. Well, action sequences, action
sequences, musical sequences, big jokes.
They're they're very similar. And in that you are kind of
writing, you're writing the scenes up until the point where,
(53:10):
you know, to an emotional peak where somebody's either going to
break into song, punch somebody in the face or, you know, or,
or, or, or, or, you know, or, orwhatever, you know.
And so, so they be or tell a really funny joke.
And, and so that's what it becomes about.
Is it you're writing? You're, you're, you're writing
(53:31):
the scenes so that you so that it's not a surprise, not a big
surprise when some big action thing happens or it's not
whatever You're, you're, you know, things are on that level.
And the handoff is very similar.So you know, when you're
writing, when I was writing Prince and the Frog, I'm writing
up to a point. And I said, OK, well, they're
(53:53):
going to break into song here and this is the song that they
should break into. And you're not writing like
every punch and every pairing and stuff like that.
You're saying this is this is the scene, this is the outcome.
You know, the song shouldn't just be in isolation.
(54:13):
It shouldn't just be a pop hit that you you do.
The song should have a big beginning, middle and end.
And the fight scene should have a beginning, a middle and an
end. And at the end it should end up
here. And so so you're right, kind of
like what you think is a really good action scene.
But then there are guys who are just incredible 24/7, like, you
(54:35):
know, some writers who are who are really, really great at
that. Some, you know, stunt
coordinators who are fantastic at it and you just let them go.
And then you you marvel at what they're able to do.
And having that be one of your like 2 main goals, was there
(54:56):
already like kind of ideas percolating of what you wanted
to bring into the story that yougot to write for Captain?
Oh yeah. Well, it's like, be a fan first,
right. You know, be a film goer first,
be a filmmaker second, that the key to it is to take it
seriously. You know, there's so many movies
(55:17):
that I think like, well, the people that made this aren't
really a fan of this genre or this character or whatever.
They're just kind of making fun of it and I think you can have
fun within the genre, but you don't need to make fun of it
because who's going to go? Whose favorite movie is that?
Right? So you go to it and you're just
going to sit there and go, hey, I think I'm being played.
(55:39):
So so that was it was like my approach first, you know what
tone I was going to have for it.I think Anthony Mackie is an
incredible performer. I think he is, he is, he's one
of the funniest guys A completely like a really great
grounded actor, fantastic physical actor.
(56:00):
There's nothing that guy can't do.
I I haven't heard him saying, but you know, I'm sure he could
belt one out. So and, and so when you have
something like that, it's like it's like driving a sports car.
You can really, you know, you can have him do an action
sequence and tell a joke in the middle of it and then and then
keep going. So, so, so that part of is is
(56:23):
is, is really fun. When you are working in these
big unbelievable genre films andthen Tiana and sitcom, you've
gotten to play in so many just spectacular sandboxes.
Do you have any rituals or like any way that you like to change
(56:43):
your environment that you work to help you create in that
direction? I think environment wise, I
think it's that I like to kind of start off when I'm on a big
project. I, I do like to start off, I'm
a, I'm a research junkie, OK? I really do.
(57:06):
I really do enjoy, like, OK, I want to know everything.
Yeah. I want to know the good, the bad
and the ugly. So I, I want to watch like from
Princess and the Frog. I said give me everything that
has the word Princess in it in the Disney library.
And they're like, Are you sure, Rob?
Let us bring in. There's a lot of stuff and, and
(57:28):
so I got just stacks and stacks of, of stuff and, and it was all
of the, you know, all of the, you know, the, the, the, the
classics and then, you know, theTV shows and all of that.
I just wanted to see if I'm a, if I'm a Princess fan, what am
I, you know, what am I watching?And in fact, Charlotte is based
(57:49):
on what I thought that that was,you know, these girls with all
the dresses and they, you know, and they want to hear the
stories and the whole thing. I mean, that is, that is
absolutely it. So, so to honor that, that the,
the, the people that were consuming all of that here is
Charlotte. And, and so, and then after that
(58:13):
to kind of say I went the other way, which is to say, OK,
romantic comedy. This is basically a romantic
comedy. What's out there.
So I watch all the Judd Apatow stuff, all these, all these
great classics. And I just kind of I bathe in
that, you know, if they're just in a constant role.
(58:33):
And then and then I kind of settle back and I say, OK, I
think I know. I know where I'm going.
You know, I know what this worldis.
Nobody's going to surprise me. There's not going to be like,
oh, well, wait, you know, this is part of the genre.
And and then I say, OK, here's my take.
Here's where you know, I'm getting out my machete and then
(58:54):
I'm, I'm carving my way through the through the thing because
they said that the the bad again.
But the the Princess movies, thePrincess movies are great for
their time. But you know, I've, I've kind of
coached girls soccer and, you know, girls pee wee soccer and
(59:14):
they are not, the girls are not like that anymore.
They don't wait for Princess. They don't, you know, someday
their Prince will not come. And, and so, so the thing we did
with with it happened one night was we reversed it.
You know, the, the Claudette Colbert character is the Prince
and, you know, and, you know, and, and and, you know, and
(59:37):
she's the one that kind of knowshow to get through, get through
the night. And.
And that worked. That's that worked really,
really well. And, and put him in a position
that where he was, you know, he could he could grow.
She could grow. And the and the, and the story
worked out nicely. But that's it.
(59:58):
Yeah. Rob, Sally, it is that time we
end every episode the same way. What is one thing you wish you
could go back and tell your younger self?
It gets better. And tell yourself that today.
I'll tell you because I used to think I used to kind of like
(01:00:20):
live on that just thinking like,I'll sleep, I'll sleep when I'm
dead kind of thing. Like just just keep, just keep
swimming. You know that, that, that you go
and you go and you go and you go.
And there's actually an African proverb that I used a lot when I
(01:00:41):
was writing Princess and the Frog, which is pray then move
your feet. And, you know, it's like, see
it, you know, see it, but you got to work for it.
And yeah, if, if, if Rob, old man Rob were to go back and you
know, I just say like, you know,it's there's that doubt.
(01:01:04):
And I would take the doubt away.But actually, as I say it like,
no, the doubt is what makes you is what drives you.
It's the challenge. If, if I knew it was going to
happen, I'd probably, yeah, I would probably ease up on the
pedal and whatever, but I didn't.
And I was like, OK, well, you know, I'm on my list of
(01:01:25):
achievers. There's there's first black, a
lot of things. And which means that everybody
was saying no, you know, and andso for me, it was it was like,
you know, somebody's got to be first.
Let's just go and, and to just drive through that.
(01:01:47):
And so, yeah, I would, I would, I would tell my, tell my younger
self like, you know, keep at it.Yeah.
Thank you so much for what you contribute to our industry.
The joy you clearly bring to your craft and the voices that
you are creating and those characters that you're giving
live to. It's it's a joy to, it's a joy
(01:02:07):
to be an audience member of yourwork.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
Hi everyone, thanks for listening and being the absolute
best part of our creative community here at What's My
Frame? If you'd like to learn more
about our guests, please check out the show notes and please
join us on socials at What's My Frame?
To stay in the know for upcomingevents, I'm your host, Laura
(01:02:27):
Linda Bradley. We'll see you next Monday.
Hi everyone. Today and What's My Frame?
I'm joined by writer and producer Rob Edwards.
Rob is are in classic animated films for Disney including The
Princess and the Frog and Treasure Planet.
This year he has three films including Marvel's Captain
America, Brave New World, Sneaksand The King of Kings.
Rob is a 20 year veteran of television where he wrote and
(00:22):
produced. Notable credits include The
Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Full House, A Different World, Studio
60 on the Sunset Strip, and In Living Color to name just a few.
His graphic novel Defiant as a best seller and is currently
being made into a feature. Rob's insight and advice on
self-awareness, self acceptance in support of writing and the
(00:42):
rewriting process is really beautiful.
Now let's get to the conversation.
Welcome to What's My Friend, Howyou doing?
I'm doing great, Laura. I am so excited to dive into the
many different chapters and evolutions of your work, but for
anyone who isn't familiar, couldyou talk a little bit about what
(01:03):
drew you to the industry? What wow, what made you want to
write and tell stories in this way?
And I guess also very of the times, what makes you want to
continue because I know we're going through a lot of growing
pains right now in the business.Yes, OK, good, good.
Oh, wow, you're going to hit allmy hit all the good stuff.
(01:23):
Yeah, let's see. I I, I always say I, I I was
never the class clown. I was always a kid in the back
of the class and made fun of theclass clown.
And, and that was kind of the first for me, the first
introduction to like, Oh, hey, it's fun being, it's well, it's
fun being funny. And it's also fun kind of
observing and, and, and having fun that way.
(01:45):
And then that just crew into like, and it's terrible for any
teacher. I apologize right now, But it
grew into passing notes and thento writing stories, you know,
and then like I, I can draw. So I, I, I wound up with a, a
comic strip, but I, I would justdraw a picture, you know,
pictures of people to make fun of them.
(02:08):
And just like, oh, I'm entertaining the back row is, is
fully taken care of. And, and that just, yeah, that
just turned into, I think it wasencouraging school to write
short stories. I went to boarding school.
So it was a interesting thing. And and so I just wound up,
like, getting shepherded along by some of the some really great
(02:32):
teachers who exposed me to, you know, great science fiction
writers. And from that, I just started
writing short films, you know, grew up in Detroit.
So it's kind of like me and Sam Raimi, we're about the same age.
And we were doing kind of super 8 movies.
(02:52):
Yeah. And then it just came time.
OK well, what are you going to study in college?
Like, OK, well, let's do this. And yeah.
And then from there, it's just like, how can I, can I make a
living at this? Is there a way that I could, I
could eat and, and do this? That'd be fantastic.
And and all just worked out nicely.
Who were some of your mentors inthe early days once you were in
(03:16):
LA and pursuing it as a career and it was no longer something
that was beneficial and entertaining and something that
just fed you creatively, but also it was it was on a career
path at this point. Yes, Well, I found out because
this is an educational community.
I'm going to get in trouble witheverybody.
But I, I was a film school student.
(03:37):
I was, you know, and I, I, I didwhat I thought was fairly well
in college. And then when I graduated, I, I
found out that zero, none of it crossed over.
I, I would show people my stuff and they would say, well, what
do you, what is this? I said, well, it's metadiegesis
and, and it's, you know, figure ground relationship.
And people were like, no Rob, no, stop that, stop that.
(04:00):
Now. When I was in college, I wrote
fan letters to a bunch of writers that I, that I liked
and, you know, 20-30 at a time. And a couple of guys got back to
me. And one of them was this guy
Thad Mumford, who'd who'd written MASH and won an Emmy
Award. And, you know, it was just a, a,
(04:20):
a really great guy to me. And so he, you know, hey, if
you, hey kid, if you ever in town, I'll take you out to
lunch. And so that, that grew into just
a straight on mentorship where he looked at my scripts and
I'll, I'll tell you the first one that he, he, he looked at,
he said, he said, well, I laughed once, you know, this was
(04:43):
the, this was like a 40 page script.
And he says, he says, I, I laughed once and I said, wow.
And he says, OK, if you want to go through it, you know, I'll go
through and I'll tell you what you did wrong or, you know, have
a nice life. And I said, no, no, no, you
know, please, Sir, may I have another?
And, and he, and so he gave me the notes and they were great.
(05:07):
And he and he said like, OK, well, you know, most people lick
their wounds at this point. I said, no, no, I'll see you
next week. I'll see you, I'll see you next
week at this table. So when I rewrote the script, I
gave it back to him. He says, OK, I laughed 3 times
and he gave me the notes again. And then I did the same thing.
(05:27):
Quick turn around. You know, I just wrote all
night. I was, I was delivering coffee
at the time. And, and I third time he said,
OK, we can work with this. And that was like, oh, you know,
collagen 3 weeks basically. And, and so from then on, you
(05:48):
know, he, he gave me the notes, I rewrote it.
And then he said, well, we can continue with this or I'm sure
you've learned a lot from this, from this process.
If I were you, I would just start another script.
And I said, yeah, you're right. And I started the new script
with, you know, fresh muscles and, and just did a much better,
(06:10):
much better job and just kept going and going that way.
But yeah, Thad Mumford was really, really instrumental in
in, you know, in getting me fromnothing.
Just a just an everybody to likea an actual working writer.
It seems like it came kind of naturally to you, but any advice
for most artists have a hard time separating their self worth
(06:32):
from their creative process. And if there are critiques or
notes or rewrites or criticisms,even if they are constructive,
it's very personal. And it's just like he said, they
go and lick their wounds and youknow, it's them.
It's not me kind of a thing. How did you have that
self-awareness and self acceptance of they the 2 are
(06:54):
separate? Yes.
Well, I think that that is, it'ssuch a great question because I
think it's everybody all the time.
You know, I've, I've been writing now for like 40 years
and I still, you know, I get, I get stung.
You know, you go on IMDb or, youknow, or, or you go worse yet,
(07:15):
you know, Rotten Tomatoes. And then you get, you get it
served to you and, and it hurts.Part of the process is accessing
your emotions, you know, so you have to really be readily
accessible. There are scenes in Princess and
the Frog where I was, people would pass by my office.
I always kept the door open and I would just be bawling.
(07:37):
I would just be crying my eyes out and be like, what's wrong?
What's wrong? Rob, are you OK?
I was like, read the pages and let me know and people would
pass by my doorway also crying like a day after.
Because you have to access thosethings, you know, in order to
make other people cry, you have to be, you know, you have to
(07:58):
know what makes you cry. And in order to make other
people laugh, you have to know what makes you laugh and
excitement, all that kind of stuff.
So you kind of live this, you live on an emotional edge anyway
because you want to just be opento those things.
And so everything hurts and, and, and you just have to be
able to say, OK, well, this isn't this isn't me.
(08:24):
This isn't, you know, he's not saying Rob, you're, you know, a
terrible person or whatever. He's saying this thing doesn't
work. And so at a certain point as a
cabinet maker or whatever you are, you have to say, OK, this
thing doesn't work. That's my job tomorrow.
If it still doesn't work, well, then I'm a bad person.
(08:47):
But if it, if it, if I fixed it,yay.
You know, there you go. And most, most scripts that I've
seen, and I, I teach at USC, I teach at Syracuse.
And, and so a lot of times you give the notes and you get the
script back and it's exact same thing because they didn't take
the note. And, and the key is that that's
(09:08):
the way to mediocrity is just never get better.
You know, at Disney, you know, once again, Princess Princess
and Frog and Treasure Planet, the rewrites were like, they
weren't just, oh, we're going torewrite.
It was like 75% of the movie would get, would get rewritten
between screenings. There's six screenings, 3
(09:29):
months. You have three months to, to, to
between screenings and you get the notes and the notes are
like, they're not, nobody is trying to be nice.
You know, whatever. They're trying to win an Academy
Award. They're trying to, to make the,
the, the best movie of the year.And, and so you get, you know,
(09:51):
yeah, they, they, they just go right in.
And sometimes it's massive elements that don't work.
The third act is rarely works. And the, you know, and sometimes
the midpoint is, is a, is a slog.
And how you, if the third act doesn't work, usually because of
first act doesn't. And, and so you're kind of going
into it sometimes like just the DNA of the movie itself.
(10:15):
And, and once you get into it, there goes half the movie.
So, you know, the so the first screening 75%, second screening
50%, you know, you're happy whenit's only 25% of the movie that
that that's getting changed. So, yeah.
And, and but that is how they get good.
You don't want anybody shooting that first draft.
(10:36):
Oh, God, no. You know, whatever, you know
that that should just be burned.You know of the ground salted
where I know where you bury it. Nobody should see that.
So and that's the process. But you have to love the
process. You really have to you really
have to embrace, you know, trustthe process, lean into it,
(10:57):
embrace the the suck is what I call it.
You know where you get like a lot of notes and you guys have
to go a lot of it's going to be a long week, you know?
Now I wasn't aware that there was the six screenings for an
animated feature. When you say screening, do they
(11:17):
actually have the animation and you are watching it?
Has it been voiced or is it moreof a read through?
Yeah, you're watching. It's kind of a hybrid.
Well, in sitcoms you have read throughs and read throughs and
whatever similar process, you want to see it in as cheap a way
as you can. You know, you want to see, you
(11:37):
want to have some idea of what the final is going to be, but
you but you want to kind of just, you know, taste it.
You don't want anybody filming it and costumes and all that
stuff. So in animation, the most
expensive part of the process isthe actual animation is guys
sitting down for a week, you know, doing a sentence.
(11:58):
And so, but the storyboards are much less expensive and, and
having Rob instead of, you know,Keith David do the part is super
cheap because he just called me.I go down to the booth and I, I
just, I do the lines as I think they, I, as I think Keith David
(12:18):
will eventually do that. And, and so I'm doing my worst,
my worst Keith David impersonation, whatever.
And I'm, I'm just trying to approximate what it is.
And then we screen that for all the directors and the writers
and producers at Disney. And then we go, we would, we
would go in that particular instance, we would go up to
(12:40):
Emeryville and we would screen it again for the Pixar guys.
And you get 2 sets of notes and you know, and so there's a lot
you get, you get a binder about that big of notes because you're
not just screening it to those guys.
You're screening to everybody inthe building, everybody who who
works for Disney and everybody has two cents so.
(13:03):
Each time you have three months to go away and as as the writer,
is it primarily your responsibility to take that
binder, digest it and then work on it, or do you have any
assistant writers that are supporting you in that?
No. I wish I have.
More of a like a solo team. Somebody who you could just put
(13:23):
your great ideas into Who? Would, you know, work on this
part? Yeah.
No, I, I think I'm not sure if that would work it, it barely
works in in sitcoms, you know, where, where you have a staff
and inevitably, you know, even the best Staffs, the final draft
goes through the executive producers typewriter anyway.
(13:46):
So you are, you may have, you know, even the best writers
sometimes, sometimes you get a really great, you know, Unicorn
writer who writes exactly what you think.
And you and you can kind of go like, oh, this is, you know, no
notes, no below, go straight to stage.
But most of the time you're kindof like, this is what I was
(14:07):
thinking and type, type, type. So no.
But usually what it is is that three months is not all writing.
That three months is going from the screening day, right.
Lock picture editing, the the panels, the drawings.
(14:28):
Yeah, music, I'm going backwards.
Music, temporary dialogue, the actual drawing, multiple passes
of the drawing and then the writing.
You're coming back and you're saying, and you meet with the
directors and you and you say, OK, this is wrong, this is
(14:51):
wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
And how do we prioritize those notes?
And after that, then how do you say, OK, what are the most
important things we need to do or the least important things we
need to do? Do we have any fixes?
And everybody, the head of story, sometimes some, there may
be two or three other people, but it's usually a small room,
(15:11):
maybe 6 people. And we'll try this, try this.
What about this, would this work?
OK, this works this way, that works this way.
A lot of times you have to go back and, and watch the movies
and, you know, see how other people have solved your
problems. Yeah.
And then you finally say, as thewriter, you say, I think this is
(15:34):
the way. I think this is the way, you
know, let's see what happens. And you, the writer, the writing
being, OK, I'm sorry, I'm getting things on top of things,
but the writing is the cheapest part of the animation process.
You know, I can write a page andand that's just a page.
To me, that's just like, OK, great.
I can do that in an hour. That is $1,000,000 worth of
(15:59):
animation. You know, for Disney, it's a
it's $1,000,000 a minute to to animate a Disney movie.
Yes, so at least. And so, so my part of the
process is easy and I can changeit in no time at all.
Oh, that joke didn't work. How about 6 more jokes?
(16:19):
Oh, oh, that line. OK, well let's let's lighten up.
This way when you start drawing it, it takes a takes a bit more
time and you know, the fixes on drawings, Oh no, this character
needs to come out. So you need to redraw 8 panels.
You know, this character should be sad.
Oh no, you know, you got to redo20 panels and and so that so so
(16:44):
so that happens. So that's the process.
I mean, it really is. You have 6 guys, sometimes 8,
maybe 12 story artists waiting for you to, to give them stuff
to draw and they can't wait. They're not going to wait three
months, you know, and then draw it and last day.
(17:05):
So you are writing as quickly asyou can.
You know it's three to five pagesequences, you know, for each
guy and you're hoping to feed asmany mouths as you can.
So I have to think, make quick choices, write it down, take a
look at it and maybe rewrite it.As soon as I write it, as soon
(17:26):
as I pass it out, I start rewriting it and I say, hey, you
know, I know you're doing that. But I I did another pass at it.
Take a look at this. And the artist himself will say,
Hey, Rob, you know, while I found a way to get from here to
here better. And I'll say like, oh, great.
Well, let me build on that because I have another idea and
(17:49):
I'm going to send you some more pages.
And, and so off they go. And, and so it's a collaborative
process and that's what makes it, that's what makes it work.
But it is you do not have the luxury of just kind of sitting
back and having a, you know, coconut smile and, you know,
just. Letting the ideas be.
Inspired. Yes.
Waiting for the sun to set in the beautiful way.
(18:12):
When you are handing off these pages to your story artists, how
do you like to describe? Because I'm sure these are very
3 dimensional personalities and be it people or creatures or
animals, they're very, very realto you.
So how do you give that first nudge in a direction of what
(18:34):
this this character is going to look like?
Yeah, well, that's the thing, right?
Is it a lot of that in being a good animation writer?
The part of it is you have to resist the temptation to do
exactly what you just said, which is to say, you know, hey,
(18:55):
I have this idea. Here's a scene And I, I did a
couple of drawings and you know,and this is what it should kind
of be like. And this is how I want to stage
it. And this is the lighting that
comes in and blah, blah, blah. And then give it, give it to
them and, and they'll go like, oh, wow, Rob did all the work
and there's no fun left for me. Well, just trace what Rob did
and give it back to him, right? That's all you get.
(19:17):
But if I give them the pages andand they say, well, talk me
through it, honestly, Nope. It's on the page.
It's on the page. Figure it out.
And and then you get these brilliant things back because
the artists themselves, they engage and they get, you know,
into it. It's like it's like if you give
(19:38):
an actor a line reading, you just see them kind of die
inside, you know, you know, you you want them to say, like, I
got AI got a twist on this line.Oh, this is going to be great.
I can't roll camera. You know, watch me, you know,
watch, you know, watch me win myOscar.
That's that's what you want. And then the second version,
(19:58):
once you get that back, you say,hey, you know what?
I had this drawing in my drawer.I just want to, I just want to
show you this thing I did. And you know, it's stupid, I
know, but you know, maybe this gets you somewhere.
And then they go like, oh, no, this is not, this is not bad at
all. And then off they go back to
where they were and, and you're and then it gets better.
(20:20):
But it starts off in a, in a much, much better place.
And you're not kind of just telling people what to do.
I had never thought of it like that.
I think it's just because my imagination is whenever I write,
I I very much like picture and Ihadn't, I hadn't even thought
about that in the animation world that you're taking away.
They're fun. Yes.
Yeah, don't want to do that, Notat all.
Everybody is, yeah, there's, there's this term called
(20:41):
plussing, you know, and it just means like, oh, I took your
thing and I made it, I put flowers on it.
And, and you don't want to deprive an artist of of that
because that's, that's how they engage.
Exactly. I mean, I, I think going off of
that, what is it about the industry that has continued to
keep you in love with it becauseyou also you continue to keep
(21:05):
pushing your own limits and boundaries of your creativity,
but what keeps you in love with the industry as it continues to
change under our feet? Yeah.
What's there's two questions in that because the the the
beautiful woman I fell in love with is not is not the the the
(21:27):
witch of the West that we that we live with today the I love
story. I love telling stories.
I'm still that kid in the back of the class in Detroit, you
know, passing notes. And I still get a, I still, you
know, when Captain America came out, I sat in the front row and
I just look back at everybody going like, oh, well, you know,
(21:50):
whatever. You see people on the edge of
their seat and stuff. And the same thing with, with
Princess and the Frog, where, you know, there's a, a point, of
course, in the movie, not spoiler, but where everybody
gets very quiet and then the tissues come out and then, you
know, and you see people. And if you've seen the movie a
dozen times in theaters, there'sa kind of a wonderful dance,
(22:12):
almost a poetry to it where you see like, OK, here it goes.
It's it's raining, you know, and, and it's gonna happen and
you turn back and you see people, some people are trying
to be strong and some people, whatever.
And you just see the, the crowd of people, 500 people in the
theater all kind of doing the same thing, which is, you know,
(22:35):
heads go on, on shoulders and our hands go around, you know,
shoulders and, and you know, like I say, tissues come out and
people, people start to, you know, whatever.
And they, they look at each other and, and there was this
wonderful thing. And I'm kind of like, Hey, I, I
helped make that, you know, and that's why you do it.
(22:58):
You know, my, my, my first question always when I write
something is whose favorite movie am I making?
Whose favorite movie? And I, and I write to that, I
put that person in the room withme and I'm like, OK, here's the
here's, here's the person that is going to be most affected by
it, you know, is going to enjoy it the most, is probably going
to see it more than one time. And am I blowing it?
(23:22):
Am I, am I, am I doing somethingto kind of destroy that
person's, you know, that person want is leading it wants to like
it, wants to love it. And, and, and am I doing
something that will destroy that?
Or am I doing something that's really going to make them, you
know, go nuts? I was just recently in the
(23:46):
theater to watch the the audience for King of Kings and I
couldn't. It was, I had a feeling, but it
is wild to see like a room full of kids.
These are kids, you know, and kids are like, where's my phone?
And, you know, and can I play, play video game?
And they were all like, like saucers, saucer eyes.
(24:08):
And in their same kind of thing,they're crying and they're kind
of nudging each other and they're, you know, whatever.
And they're coming out like, oh,let's go see it again.
And you see that those are the, you know, in all the threads and
all the stuff, that's what people are saying.
Like, oh, man, can't wait to seethis again 40 years later.
(24:28):
I see that comment on that stupid thread and I'm sure the
person didn't even didn't think twice, but I was like, oh wow, I
just had a great time in theater, you know, and, and, and
I go, OK, let's, let's keep going, let's keep rolling.
The second part is what's happened to the industry now.
(24:49):
You know how difficult it is to get to that moment.
You know how you know how how webecome a bit risk averse and
pain averse and if it hasn't been seen a million times and
has no worth. And that is it is tough to do
things in that environment. But you know, because I mean,
(25:15):
we're in an age, we should be inthis age where you could make
movies for next to nothing rightnow.
And, and there's so many wonderfully talented people, so
many film schools and so many, you know, just an embarrassment
of riches. And, and I don't know what we're
doing with it, you know, trying to get ideas sold.
(25:38):
And I've, I've, you know, for the three that I, I got made
this year, that means there were30 that people said no to.
And and I'm not just going it when when I go into pitch, I'm
not I I I go in the way you go in to pitch.
I have an A list director. I have a piece of talent that
is, you know, well sought after.I have a great idea, great piece
(26:00):
of IP and still there, you know,one after the other.
You know, people are saying, no,I have a graphic novel, you
know, defiant, which is Robert small story.
And we heard no a lot. And so I just said like, OK,
well, let me just write the IP. Let me just get proof of
concept. I'm going to write write a
(26:22):
graphic novel that we will base a movie on.
And and so that is, you know, and and that is actually going
really well. You know that even as a stand
alone, like just a graphic novel, we're getting a lot of
attention. We're getting a lot of praise.
(26:42):
I think it's going to win some awards comes out in June
Juneteenth. So you know, so that one is that
one is doing well and hopefully that will kind of break the
curse. But it's been, it is, it is
very, very difficult to just geta good movie made, a good mid
level movie made that doesn't have that where people don't,
(27:04):
you know, crush buildings, you know?
Yes. No, I I've seen people jokingly
make observations about the industry and be like, well, if
you want to make that film, you should make the book first.
Make that a best seller and thenmake the movie.
And I think what started as a joke, people were like, oh, no,
I think that actually is how it's happening now.
(27:24):
And I mean, from the actor side,we've been told for so long, you
know, just, you know, just go make, just go shoot.
Just go make things to show casting.
And that was one of the reasons that I started getting more
involved with some SAG educational program being
because we're just kind of beingsent out to do and make.
And it's like, but how like how do you, how do you start
(27:45):
building the pieces to actually have some final product that is
usable versus just you wouldn't spun your wheels and and spent
money you didn't have but. Yeah, and and, you know,
probably it's, you know, I mean,and if if I'm being nice, I'll
say I'll say that it's it's a version of, you know, a run
(28:05):
through. When I started, the executives
were people who were former producers.
They've made a bunch of movies before.
They were kind of like, you know, I would say that if you're
a if you're a a coach in the NFL, right, you played high
school, you played college, you played pro.
You were, you know, some kind ofa linebacker coach or something
like that. Then your defensive coordinator
and now you're now you're a coach, right.
(28:26):
So you've seen your way through it and you and most of those
guys had a some idea of what a movie should be or, you know,
what they needed to to do. Now it's kind of like somebody
comes in and everybody's the same thing.
You know, you're on a zoom and you kind of, you know, you, you,
you, you go and you Google somebody and you see their
(28:47):
LinkedIn and like, wait a minute.
Last week you were at, you know,Walmart and, you know, hang on,
you've been there for three months and you, you know, and
this is this is not, you know, Imean, I had an executive one say
like, oh, hey, I just bought this book called save the cat.
It's really interesting, you know, have you read it?
I'm like everybody, you kind of read that in kindergarten.
(29:11):
It's it's a it's a it's like what, what else have you read?
You know, because if we're goingto talk save the cat, you know,
and not talk Trudy or or McKee or you know what, which book are
we going to write this movie from?
You know, and that's a tough, it's a tough place to be in.
(29:33):
And so, so as we, you know, as you are preparing your, your,
your, your viewers for or your, your, your listeners for the,
for, for what is in store, I mean, be, be prepared because
that is, you know, the world is a little bit different.
It's super, super cautious. And that if you have an idea
(29:54):
that's really crazy, really wonderful and, and creative and
original and stuff, find a way to to sell it to the people that
are that, that you actually wantto buy it or, you know, find a
way to make it yourself, which is kind of where I am, right?
Yeah, with all of those folks weighing in during your creative
(30:18):
process, but also all of the fiery hoops you have to jump
through to get something made inthe current climate of the
industry, how do you stay true to your artistic voice and your
creative process? Or how do you recharge your
creative batteries when you've you've put so much out for work
wise? That's a few questions, but.
(30:39):
No, no, I mean, it's a well, it,it does plug into the same
thing. I mean, I, I think ultimately
I've had this great pleasure of,I find myself in really great
rooms. I'll see.
I've worked with a little, a lotof really fantastic people.
And so when I was on Fresh Prince, the Borowitz's were
(31:01):
always saying, hey, you know, find your, you know, make
yourself laugh. And when I worked with Aaron
Sorkin, I worked with him on Studio 60, he would always say
like, hey, we're making, we're making TV for the people in the
room. And at Disney, they would say,
you know, where are you in this?The, the, the Pixar Disney era,
(31:22):
it was be a film goer first, be a filmmaker second.
And all of those things are generally saying the same thing,
which is know who you are. You know, if you love movies,
make movies that you will love. And so, so put yourself in the
chair. And I would say like, put
(31:42):
yourself in the chair, you know,imaginary popcorn, imaginary
M&M's in the popcorn, you know, a Diet Coke with, with lemonade
and, and, and you, and, and thenyou kind of kick back and this
curtain rises and you say, what,what do I want to see?
You know, what, what do I most, there's always that moment of
(32:05):
anticipation when you're in a theater and that, that thing
goes up. You know, you watch 20,000
trailers. But then, but then the, the,
the, the, the logo comes on and you're like, oh, you know,
here's a guy running through a hall or a guy, you know,
whatever. And, you know, a gun or, you
know, woman giving birth or whatever that is a wedding, a
funeral. And, and you say like, oh, oh,
(32:27):
this is going to be a great movie, right?
Or you say like somebody just starts talking and you go, oh,
God, you know, is this going to be one of those?
Oh, no, I know the filmmaker. What am I going to tell?
No, but not just kidding guest, kidding, all my friends.
But the. Very small town.
But really, you, you, you are, you're sitting there and you're
(32:49):
saying you're trying to get a rise out of yourself.
So what are what are the beginnings that you like?
And what are the characters thatyou like?
And what are the, what is your North star all the way through?
And if you're making movies thatat least you can, you can enjoy
and can be proud of and can showyour family and friends, then I
think you're on the, on the right track.
(33:09):
If you're trying to, if you're trying to conform to the
algorithm, you know, you're, you're just going to bury
yourself because the next step is AI is going to take your job
and you know, and, and, and that's the end of it.
So know what it is that makes you laugh, cry, and, and, and
(33:30):
what, what moves you, what entertains you.
Yeah. How did you shift your creative
and your writing style or process from coming from the
sitcom writers room to animationand being a lone wolf in the
process of writing? Yeah.
Yeah, well, it was not. It was, I thought it would be
(33:52):
much easier. I thought like, oh, it's just
another button on, you know, final draft.
I can just say, you know, this is going to be great.
Yeah, I'm, I miss because I I got another point and I'll say
like, I've done so many sitcoms.I've gotten to the point where I
could write an episode overnight.
In fact, you know, once you can do that, then you become that
(34:14):
guy. You know, you're like, oh, you
know, you go to a run through and it's like, oh, it doesn't
work. Hey, Rob, you know, what do you
got? And you you say, well, I got, I
had this idea. Let me see.
OK, I'll see you guys in the morning.
And you know, in that case, you take maybe one or two writers
and you just kind of are hammering away all night and
(34:35):
then you turn in something in the morning.
And so I got to be that that guy, that fassel with sitcom
writing. So when I got to movies, I said,
OK, great, I'm just going to take three weeks off and I'll
I'll write a screenplay and it'll be so much fun.
Yay, me. And I wrote a, a teleplay is
about 3545 pages long, you know,and so I wrote my first
(35:01):
screenplay and it was 45 page long and I said, OK, this is
probably not a good one because I think they're supposed to be
120 pages. And so I wrote another one and
it was 55 pages long and I said,OK, I need to completely start
all over from the beginning. And when I was writing sitcoms,
(35:22):
when I started writing sitcoms and when I had that, those
brutal lunches with Thad Mumford, basically what I did a
lot all that time was I would watch sitcoms and just make
notes all the time. I would, I would write down all
the jokes and I would write downlike the time codes, like when
everything was happening and, and I, and I, I would just study
(35:45):
them. I just had these books of, you
know, of, of sitcoms. And I said, OK, well, great.
I need to introduce a character.OK, here are 20 episodes where
they've introduced a a character.
How did they do it? And I would just read those
things in isolation. And I would say, OK, I think
that this is the way that they go.
The guy comes in, he has an intention.
(36:06):
There is some kind of obstacle. Maybe it's it's, it's, it's one
of the other characters or whatever.
But we find out the good and thebad of the character pretty
quickly in about two or three pages.
I'm like, OK, great. That's what I need to do.
So put it in, you know, Hi, I'm the plumber.
I come this week to sink. Oh, no, you know, I'm really
clumsy, right? And so off you go.
(36:26):
The and so, so that was I, I just did that with movies and I
just sat down with movies and movie after movie after movie.
The good thing is I love watching movies.
So that was that was wonderful. I still do that.
I'm working on a movie right now.
I just started watching because it's similar in in in in in in
(36:48):
form. Not it's not about Dragons, but
it's a similar kind of like in aworld, in a fantasy world where
there's these characters and youknow, dealing with this other,
other thing. And so I'm just watching it and
going like first, how to train your dragon is brilliant movie.
It is bar none. It was just like, it's just,
it's just amazing every second of that thing.
(37:10):
And, and then and it helps teachme how to write that kind of
movie. Now eventually I'm going to just
throw away everything I've learned and I'm just going to go
do my own thing. But that was what it, that was
what it took when I did hours when I was working with Aaron
Sorkin on Studio 60, the same thing.
(37:30):
I just sat down. I said, hey, can you send me 6/6
of Aaron's favorite scripts, whether or not he's written
them? And I just went over those page
by page. I made my notes, you know, post
its and whatever. And, you know, it looks a little
(37:52):
insane. It's almost like I'm trying to
solve a crime at a certain point, everything's color-coded
and I'm just kind of going back and forth and, and some of those
things will just be one joke, one line, you know, that they'll
just sit there. So, yeah, so, so, so when I go
from from discipline to discipline, you know, when I
went to animation, I studied John Laffer.
(38:13):
I studied the Pixar stuff. That stuff was great.
And it wound up being the fix tothis is Inside Baseball, but it
wound up being the fix to to Princess and the Frog because I
said Pixar, specifically John Laffer really likes buddy
comedies. And you know, you look at all of
(38:35):
them, Toy Story and Monsters Incand you know, especially Finding
Nemo, you know, their buddy, their buddy Rd. pictures.
And, and I asked somebody about that and they said, well, you
know, one of John's favorite movies is the defiant ones.
And I said, oh, well, that's great.
So I took a look at the defiant ones and I said, well, you know,
(38:57):
and somebody said, Hey, while you're at it, why don't you take
a look at it happened one night.I was like, OK, great.
So I sit there, I study. It happened one night and that
went up on a board and you know,and all that, like how do buddy
wrote pictures work? Just so I know.
And then and then, hey, can I write a really a really great
(39:18):
one? And and so, so off you go.
So that's the fun of it is goingfrom discipline to discipline
and seeing if seeing if first you can kind of understand it
because the fans of those genresare the fans of those genres.
They've seen them all. So you can't just do the thing
that they've seen already. You have to put something else
(39:40):
on it and hopefully innovate it in some in some wonderful way.
And then hopefully, like the film goer first, you know, bring
yourself to it and and and have some emotional stakes, you know,
that that will move people. But but that's the fun of it
actually. You were told some of my
favorite like what I grew up on watching and just the nostalgia
(40:05):
and like the world that you werea part of in the room.
What did you learn from hearing those notes and those
conversations of what wasn't working?
They've been sent you to pull those all nighters and any any
advice that you can gear towardsactors now that we are
thankfully in a resurgence of comedy.
Comedy is always savage, so noneof the terms are good, but it's
(40:28):
like kill your babies is the first thing that came to mind is
that you. Nothing is precious and and the
worst thing you can get into if you're writing a comedy is to
get too precious with something because sometimes there's the
good joke may be, oh, in order to get to that joke, I have to
do this little tangent that's going to lead to this little
(40:49):
thing. And then, OK, I set this thing
up and then I do the joke and then I get back to the story and
never works. You know, you always have to
say, OK, look, it's really funny.
You're a really funny person. Hugs.
I'll take you out to dinner. But this joke's got to go.
And and you and you just slash, you know?
(41:11):
The way I have seen so many sitcoms where no one did that,
and you're just like, watching it as an audience member and
you're like, how did we get overhere on this completely
different episode of the show? And then they're like, now we're
back. Yeah.
And you're like, and you're like, and it's hard, it's hard
on the actors 'cause they're like, well, wait, I thought my
intention, you know, the first question they ask is like, wait,
(41:33):
wait, what's my intention in this scene?
You say, well, your intention ishere, but then also, you know,
you want to, you want to eat thebanana and put the banana on the
ground. When the guy's going to walk by,
he's going to slip on the banana.
Isn't that going to be great? Like, no, it has nothing to do
with the bank robbery that I'm doing over here, you know?
But it's funny. But it's funny, it's super funny
and and you know, jokes are a dime a dozen.
(41:55):
I mean, you know what you learned?
I, I did for a while as I was inmy kind of, you know, birthing
years, you know, fresh out of college.
I did stand up for a long, for awhile just to kind of see, you
know, am I party funny or am I, or can I be funny in front of an
audience, you know, with actual jokes.
(42:16):
And so I would always write a new routine and I would go up
and I, I got pretty good at it. I, I, I started headlining and,
and, and doing some stuff aroundtown.
And so that was, that was the fun of it.
But you start to learn that a joke, that jokes are really, you
know, they are a dime a dozen. Most of the time you're just
sitting there like, OK, I need ajoke for this.
It's got to be like this and whatever it's got to be this
(42:36):
this long and I go, how about this?
How about this? How about this?
How about this, How about this? All twenty of those jokes may
have been great, but one is going to survive and then that's
going to go in and then you justmove on.
In most comedy rooms. They don't care.
You know, people are just like, hey, I bet I pitched a joke.
You didn't get in. You know, it's it's no problem
on Fresh Prince. It was it's not just even the
table read and the you know, once again, table read is savage
(42:59):
and we, you know, a lot of things go rewrite night after
the after the first run through is all night, mainly because
sometimes you are rewriting the entire, you know, the entire
thing. Or that's when you know, they
send me home and I and I go and I rewrite the entire episode and
it's a whole new episode. But those things get get pretty
(43:20):
get pretty savage for good reason, because they really have
to kind of be able to hold, you know, hold their hold the weight
of the episode. Then unlike a Fresh Prince, we
would, we would shoot the shoot the scene and maybe there's 20
jokes in the scene or whatever and maybe three of them don't
(43:41):
work. And you go like, you know, we're
in trouble. And Andy Borowitz and I would,
you know, Borowitz of the Borowitz Report now, you know,
but he was one of the EPS on, on, on the show.
He would grab me and he would say, OK, we need 3 new jokes.
And I, I know exactly which onesthey are.
How about this, how about this? And we would be walking to the
stage and, you know, Will and, and, and Alfonso Ribeiro would,
(44:03):
would, would be watching us and like, oh, OK, there's new jokes.
OK, Thank goodness. Because we, we just died.
We just died with the stuff you wrote last night.
So. So you go in and you're, and
you're kind of pitching back andforth as you're on the way.
And we trusted each other enoughto know that we were going to
come up with something better bythe time we got to them.
(44:25):
And then the fun, the Inside Baseball Fund was sometimes we
would rewrite the, you have to rewrite the entire run.
The, you know, there's, there's an exchange 6 lines A/B, A/B,
A/B. And, and so we would go to
Alfonso and we'd say, instead ofsaying this, save this, instead
of saying this, save this. Instead of saying this, save
(44:45):
this. He was like, well, what does
that mean? It's like, don't worry about it.
And then we'd go to Will and we'd say, OK, instead of this,
say this, and this is this, this.
And he would say like, well, wait, wait, what?
It's like you'll figure it out. And we wouldn't tell them what
was going to happen. And so they would listen.
They get into the scene and the guy would say this, you'd toss
it up. And then Will's eyes would light
(45:07):
up because he knew that he had this great joke.
And so he would say his line andthen Alfonso's eyes would light
up because they're like, oh, nice, I got a good one.
And BAM, you know, and it's almost as if they're coming up
with them in real time, but it'sthem discovering like, oh, this
is, this is candy and, and off you go.
(45:27):
And you know, when you love the process, then that's just like,
you know, put me in the gym, letme, you know, let me go.
And I, I, I miss those times. I meant I'm you know what
movies, especially animated movies, the joke is you write a
joke and you wait four years to hear somebody laugh at it.
You. Know so painfully accurate.
(45:49):
It's, it's terrible, you know, and so I'm not going back to
stand up, but I do, I do enjoy that, that, that, that rapid
fire. The way that you just lit up,
like I could see what you were seeing walking through those
halls and on the stage and and working with your actors live.
Do you have a favorite memory ofeither a character you help
(46:14):
bringing to life or a storyline in an episode?
Or do you have a a favorite one that just will forever hold a
special place in your heart? Which baby?
Which baby do I love the most? We're talking about killing
babies. We pick the favorite babies.
I think it's, it's interesting because I, I, I would probably,
(46:36):
I think it would put a lot of babies in the same crib.
I mean, I, I think it is it, it is part of the, it's, it's part
of the process. I mean, I have two, I have two
boys and I would say I have no, I have no second son.
So, and, and it's really just a love of the process.
I just have always, you know, since I was a kid, I've just
really loved that idea of like, I'm going to tell a story and
(46:58):
everybody's going to listen. It's going to be great.
They're going to, and they're going to go like, Hey, Rob,
remember that story you told? I, I just, I just love that, you
know, so, so every morning I can't wait to get to, you know,
I can't wait to, these cards aregoing to be filled and filled
again by the time I'm done. And, and I, I, I love that.
(47:21):
I, I, I kind of like to preservethat even with my wife.
I don't, I don't tell her what I'm working on until it's over,
until I'm there and we get into the theater and especially I'll
see Princess and the Frog, whichis a lot about our courtship,
private school kid and hard working woman and a man alive.
(47:41):
So she's just like elbowing me all the way through the movie,
like, Oh my God, I can't believeyou put that in there.
And, and then she just sent to tears at the end of it and, and
I said, so did you like it? This is the greatest movie ever.
And she hugs me and, and that's,and that's it.
You know, I mean that, that really that that's, I mean, you
(48:02):
can tell, but the, the, but thatis the joy, even at its worst,
that is the joy. Because like when it gets bad,
I'm like, OK, here we go. The, the payoff of this at the
end is going to be so sweet because we will have fought our
way through this, this battle, you know, and and that's, I
(48:27):
think that's what, that's what it's all about.
I mean, as someone who was a Disney kid who grew up back in
the like the days of BHS and Little Mermaid and everything,
it was so incredible to see Tiana and see this world that
you all created. And just, I mean, going, I, I, I
took my my guy babies to Disney end of last year and seeing the
little girls in costume and withthe ride coming out and it just,
(48:53):
I can't imagine how surreal and how much joy that must bring you
to be a part of that. That is so just eternal.
That's. When I go to, you know, when I
go to Comic Con, I was just at Wondercom and let me send you
the picture. But I, I was at Wondercon and
I'm walking through the the lobby and there's little Tiana.
(49:15):
There's a little girl at a Tianaand the, the family, because I
said, hey, nothing to you, but I, I wrote the movie and I'm
like, Oh my God, whatever. So I got my picture taken with
her and oh, you missed you just missed her grandma.
She's she's dressed as Lewis. And the grandmother was in a
full alligator suit with a, witha, you know, with a trumpet.
(49:38):
And and it's like, OK, yeah, I, I, I, I, I picked, I picked the
right choice in winning that argument with my father.
I think I, I, I picked the rightchoice for for a career.
All right, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about
Captain America Brave New World.How did the opportunity to rate
(49:58):
this film come about? Yeah, well, those guys are
great. It, it's, it is really amazing
because I, I of my dreams, I2 dreams when I first, you know,
my, my 20 year old self, when I first started writing one was to
write a Disney animated feature because of course I had the, you
know, comic strip in, in, in, inschool and I could, could kind
(50:22):
of draw and I, I kind of saw that for myself.
And the second was to write a Marvel movie.
And, and so it's, I think it's every little boy's dream.
You know what, as you're, as you're sitting there collecting
comic books and you're, you know, you're in that world.
It was one of those things wherewhere they Nate Moore had read
something that I wrote and called me in to talk about
(50:44):
actually one of the earlier movies.
And and so I pitched on it got really close and it it it went
to somebody else. And that was aw, it kind of
broke my heart. And then they brought me in
another producer over there, brought me in on another project
and that got really, really close, you know, second place.
And, and that didn't happen either.
(51:05):
And so during quarantine, they, you know, he calls, he says, you
know, Kevin really likes you andhe, you know, he, he has one,
you know, we've got one for you because we have some time to
develop. And I didn't know what it was
going to be. And he says, oh, well, it's,
it's, it's cap 4. And I was like, what I got
through my phone. I just ran around like a crazy
(51:25):
man. And rightfully so.
This is literally every little boy's dream.
Yes, exactly. Just jumping over for, you know,
like Cap 4. You kidding me?
So, so yeah. And then you get into it and
the, the the fun is that those guys are so sharp.
They are, you know, just amazing.
(51:46):
Everybody knows every comics, comic book by page and, you
know, by panel and you're deep into it.
They send you, they give you access to all of the comic books
ever, ever written. So you can kind of go in and
just kind of, you know, read everything.
(52:06):
And, and the key is just, you know, tell a good story.
You know, they, they, they really, they emphasize the, the,
the right things, you know, characters, story and, and you
go, it's, it's, it's not easy, but you know, none of it is, I
mean, none of the good stuff. Like it's like I mentioned
before, none of the good stuff is easy.
(52:27):
But it's, it was super fun. It was just great.
It was an honor to be to be ableto play in that sandbox.
Yeah. What were some of the gifts as
well as obstacles of learning towrite for those incredibly
ornate and detailed action sequences and stunt sequences?
(52:47):
Oh, man. Well, action sequences, action
sequences, musical sequences, big jokes.
They're they're very similar. And in that you are kind of
writing, you're writing the scenes up until the point where,
(53:10):
you know, to an emotional peak where somebody's either going to
break into song, punch somebody in the face or, you know, or,
or, or, or, or, you know, or, orwhatever, you know.
And so, so they be or tell a really funny joke.
And, and so that's what it becomes about.
Is it you're writing? You're, you're, you're writing
(53:31):
the scenes so that you so that it's not a surprise, not a big
surprise when some big action thing happens or it's not
whatever You're, you're, you know, things are on that level.
And the handoff is very similar.So you know, when you're
writing, when I was writing Prince and the Frog, I'm writing
up to a point. And I said, OK, well, they're
(53:53):
going to break into song here and this is the song that they
should break into. And you're not writing like
every punch and every pairing and stuff like that.
You're saying this is this is the scene, this is the outcome.
You know, the song shouldn't just be in isolation.
(54:13):
It shouldn't just be a pop hit that you you do.
The song should have a big beginning, middle and end.
And the fight scene should have a beginning, a middle and an
end. And at the end it should end up
here. And so so you're right, kind of
like what you think is a really good action scene.
But then there are guys who are just incredible 24/7, like, you
(54:35):
know, some writers who are who are really, really great at
that. Some, you know, stunt
coordinators who are fantastic at it and you just let them go.
And then you you marvel at what they're able to do.
And having that be one of your like 2 main goals, was there
(54:56):
already like kind of ideas percolating of what you wanted
to bring into the story that yougot to write for Captain?
Oh yeah. Well, it's like, be a fan first,
right. You know, be a film goer first,
be a filmmaker second, that the key to it is to take it
seriously. You know, there's so many movies
(55:17):
that I think like, well, the people that made this aren't
really a fan of this genre or this character or whatever.
They're just kind of making fun of it and I think you can have
fun within the genre, but you don't need to make fun of it
because who's going to go? Whose favorite movie is that?
Right? So you go to it and you're just
going to sit there and go, hey, I think I'm being played.
(55:39):
So so that was it was like my approach first, you know what
tone I was going to have for it.I think Anthony Mackie is an
incredible performer. I think he is, he is, he's one
of the funniest guys A completely like a really great
grounded actor, fantastic physical actor.
(56:00):
There's nothing that guy can't do.
I I haven't heard him saying, but you know, I'm sure he could
belt one out. So and, and so when you have
something like that, it's like it's like driving a sports car.
You can really, you know, you can have him do an action
sequence and tell a joke in the middle of it and then and then
keep going. So, so, so that part of is is
(56:23):
is, is really fun. When you are working in these
big unbelievable genre films andthen Tiana and sitcom, you've
gotten to play in so many just spectacular sandboxes.
Do you have any rituals or like any way that you like to change
(56:43):
your environment that you work to help you create in that
direction? I think environment wise, I
think it's that I like to kind of start off when I'm on a big
project. I, I do like to start off, I'm
a, I'm a research junkie, OK? I really do.
(57:06):
I really do enjoy, like, OK, I want to know everything.
Yeah. I want to know the good, the bad
and the ugly. So I, I want to watch like from
Princess and the Frog. I said give me everything that
has the word Princess in it in the Disney library.
And they're like, Are you sure, Rob?
Let us bring in. There's a lot of stuff and, and
(57:28):
so I got just stacks and stacks of, of stuff and, and it was all
of the, you know, all of the, you know, the, the, the, the
classics and then, you know, theTV shows and all of that.
I just wanted to see if I'm a, if I'm a Princess fan, what am
I, you know, what am I watching?And in fact, Charlotte is based
(57:49):
on what I thought that that was,you know, these girls with all
the dresses and they, you know, and they want to hear the
stories and the whole thing. I mean, that is, that is
absolutely it. So, so to honor that, that the,
the, the people that were consuming all of that here is
Charlotte. And, and so, and then after that
(58:13):
to kind of say I went the other way, which is to say, OK,
romantic comedy. This is basically a romantic
comedy. What's out there.
So I watch all the Judd Apatow stuff, all these, all these
great classics. And I just kind of I bathe in
that, you know, if they're just in a constant role.
(58:33):
And then and then I kind of settle back and I say, OK, I
think I know. I know where I'm going.
You know, I know what this worldis.
Nobody's going to surprise me. There's not going to be like,
oh, well, wait, you know, this is part of the genre.
And and then I say, OK, here's my take.
Here's where you know, I'm getting out my machete and then
(58:54):
I'm, I'm carving my way through the through the thing because
they said that the the bad again.
But the the Princess movies, thePrincess movies are great for
their time. But you know, I've, I've kind of
coached girls soccer and, you know, girls pee wee soccer and
(59:14):
they are not, the girls are not like that anymore.
They don't wait for Princess. They don't, you know, someday
their Prince will not come. And, and so, so the thing we did
with with it happened one night was we reversed it.
You know, the, the Claudette Colbert character is the Prince
and, you know, and, you know, and, and and, you know, and
(59:37):
she's the one that kind of knowshow to get through, get through
the night. And.
And that worked. That's that worked really,
really well. And, and put him in a position
that where he was, you know, he could he could grow.
She could grow. And the and the, and the story
worked out nicely. But that's it.
(59:58):
Yeah. Rob, Sally, it is that time we
end every episode the same way. What is one thing you wish you
could go back and tell your younger self?
It gets better. And tell yourself that today.
I'll tell you because I used to think I used to kind of like
(01:00:20):
live on that just thinking like,I'll sleep, I'll sleep when I'm
dead kind of thing. Like just just keep, just keep
swimming. You know that, that, that you go
and you go and you go and you go.
And there's actually an African proverb that I used a lot when I
(01:00:41):
was writing Princess and the Frog, which is pray then move
your feet. And, you know, it's like, see
it, you know, see it, but you got to work for it.
And yeah, if, if, if Rob, old man Rob were to go back and you
know, I just say like, you know,it's there's that doubt.
(01:01:04):
And I would take the doubt away.But actually, as I say it like,
no, the doubt is what makes you is what drives you.
It's the challenge. If, if I knew it was going to
happen, I'd probably, yeah, I would probably ease up on the
pedal and whatever, but I didn't.
And I was like, OK, well, you know, I'm on my list of
(01:01:25):
achievers. There's there's first black, a
lot of things. And which means that everybody
was saying no, you know, and andso for me, it was it was like,
you know, somebody's got to be first.
Let's just go and, and to just drive through that.
(01:01:47):
And so, yeah, I would, I would, I would tell my, tell my younger
self like, you know, keep at it.Yeah.
Thank you so much for what you contribute to our industry.
The joy you clearly bring to your craft and the voices that
you are creating and those characters that you're giving
live to. It's it's a joy to, it's a joy
(01:02:07):
to be an audience member of yourwork.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
Hi everyone, thanks for listening and being the absolute
best part of our creative community here at What's My
Frame? If you'd like to learn more
about our guests, please check out the show notes and please
join us on socials at What's My Frame?
To stay in the know for upcomingevents, I'm your host, Laura
(01:02:27):
Linda Bradley. We'll see you next Monday.
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