It happened pretty organically. Most of the LFTS team works remotely — to be clear, we all live in LA, but LA traffic means traveling a few miles can become an hour drive, so we collaborate online. The first time we all hung out in person, we ended up chatting about movies for several hours. We’re all knowledgeable about film and filmmaking, but we also all have different backgrounds and bring unique perspectives to film analysis. So as that conversation was winding out, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised by how fun and surprisingly in-depth it was. At that point the next step seemed pretty obvious: “Why not turn this into a podcast so we can do this on a regular basis?”
Once we decided that we were going to do a podcast, we had a lot of conversations about what the right format would be. We would ask ourselves as many questions as possible, explore all the options, and then discuss what felt right. How structured should our conversations be? How many movies do we analyze in an episode? Do we want any recurring segments? How could we get guests involved?
We then did a couple pilot episodes that we shared with the Lessons from the Screenplay Patreon supporters. They gave us some feedback on what was working and what wasn’t, which helped a lot.
After each recording, we have a “notes session” to look for ways to improve. Each of us (the four regulars and our producer) shares two things we think worked and one thing that we need to improve upon. This helps us refine the format and develop our rhythm as a group.
