Pitching and Earning the Director's Trust

John welcomes Danya Jimenez & Hannah McMechan, the writing team behind KPop Demon Hunters, to chart their path from film school to first feature.

They look at navigating early career difficulties like finding your voice and trying to get reps, their method of building a writing partnership, and how a bad pitch led them to writing one of the biggest movies of the year.

We also follow up on breaking in later in life and writing with ADHD.

In our bonus segment for premium members, what does Hollywood get wrong about Gen Z? Danya and Hannah share what drives them crazy about how their generation is portrayed on screen.

Links:

• Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan
• KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix
• No Strings Attached
• The Black List x Women in Film Episodic Lab
• Nicole Perlman on Scriptnotes, episodes 164, 222, 373, 381
• Brick
• Pluribus on Apple TV
• Claire Saffitz makes Dirt Bombs
• The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow
• Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
• Chernobyl on HBO Max
• Chappell Roan – Love Me Anyway
• Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription (now with fewer emails!)
• Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
• Scriptnotes on Instagram
• John August on Bluesky and Instagram
• Outro by James Llonch (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.