Episodes

Pitch Festivus is almost here! Jake shares the secrets for how to make an elevator pitch that will help you master what you need for any pitch contest.

Learn how every TV series functions just like Thanksgiving dinner in this new podcast about how to build your TV series engine from pilot to series finale.

Learn how to write exposition without bogging down your screenplay through Jake’s script analysis of the Dune 2021 adaptation.

Using Dexter as a model, learn how to write action in a screenplay and how to turn cliché moments into unforgettable ones.

How can you overcome your fear of pitching? Learn Jake’s approach for overcoming fear and pitching your script like a pro.

Learn to write great dialogue and complex subtext by looking where you might least expect it: Netflix’s charming reality TV show Love on the Spectrum.

Jake shares professional tips for prioritizing your writing goals as well as personal experiences for how to create your own writing lifestyle.

Learn from Ted Lasso how to take a “seen it before” idea, and turn it into a transcendent screenplay.

Learn to develop multidimensional characters that you and your reader can care about, by connecting to your primal emotional needs.

Learn how to write the perfect logline for your movie or TV show by understanding the key elements of top films and TV shows like Jaws, Brokeback Mountain, Bojack Horseman and Get Out.

Learn from Halston what makes a character likable and how to make an audience root for an “unlikable” main character.

Through a deep analysis of Wandavision’s genre, structure, theme and engine, Jake shows you how to apply the lessons of Wandavision to finding your own voice as a writer.

How do you fulfill your destiny as a writer? Jake examines how Pete Docter explores this question in two of his best works, Up and Soul, and reveals how struggling to be the writer you want to be may be the very thing that’s holding you back from being the writer you already are.

Jake discusses the hook and engine of The Mandalorian, the structural, character and thematic challenges that limited the engine to only two seasons, and how to apply those lessons when crafting an engine for your own original series.

Jake discusses three elements of One Night in Miami: the way the screenplay lands its political message, the slightly old-fashioned way it uses exposition (it’s not perfect), and the simple power of a character’s secret as a tool for building structure.

Jake breaks down the hook, engine and structure of Cobra Kai, how to find your hook, and what to do if the engine of your TV series runs out of steam.

Jake dissects the trick ending of The Little Things and other great films like The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects and Se7en to answer the how do you write a trick ending in your screenplay?

Jake and special guest Steven Bagatourian discuss writing for hire screenwriting gigs, pitching and how building a career as a writer starts with finding your own voice.

Jake breaks down the screenplay adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and the art of adapting a play for the screen.

Jake breaks down the many ways The Queen's Gambit flaunts the traditional rules of structure, and shows you how to overcome friction points in your own writing.

Keeping your New Year’s resolutions as a writer begins with learning to think a little more like your characters. The person you are today is not going to be the person you are at the end of the screenplay.

Jacob Krueger does a deep analysis of Ozark, Season 1, Episode 8, to show both the dangers of exposition and how to approach it in your own TV writing.

Jacob Krueger analyzes the pilot of Ozark and shows the link between theme, hook, engine and secondary structure.