Persons Responsible: Will Campos, Matt Arnold, and Freddie Wong
Genre: Non-Fiction, Story-telling, Unscripted
How far did I listen: Epistop ~35-ish
Warnings: Bad jokes? The occasional Flop.
Notes: The basic premise of this podcast is that three professional-ish screen writers sit down and give themselves an hour to make a movie out of an idea, franchise, or concept that hasn’t been done (well) yet. Some examples include Magic: The Gathering, ARMS for Nintendo Switch, and the probably internet (in)famous Jar Jar Binks movie. At the end of the episode, one of the writers has to pretend to pitch the Ridiculous Creation to an imaginary movie executive.
I find real-time story construction a very interesting idea, as it shows what tropes writers fall back on, how to create compelling conflict, and how ideas change over deliberation. And these three often deliver on this very interesting premise with thoughtful characters, stories, and ideas being portrayed. However, because there is very little structure to episodes and the qualifications for topics is... nonexistent the quality of the episode is variable. Sometimes an episodes concludes with a video that you would actually pay money to see, but other times you listen to an hour of three men talking themselves in circles.
So that being said, when this podcast is good, it’s great (and that is the case most of the time). When it flops, it gets pretty boring (3-4 of the 30 that I’ve heard) and sometimes a little painful to listen to. Additionally because this is an unscripted podcast there are some of the pitfalls of normal conversation. People can talk over others, interrupt, or unexpectedly shout things which if you’re easily confused by convoluted audio, can be a bit of a problem.
However, overall, this is an INCREDIBLY fun podcast and also helps you learn about some ticks writers have up their sleeves and oddly specific lore about topics you never knew HAD lore (looking at you, Monopoly).
