282 | In Your Dreams Writer/Directors Alex Woo & Erik Benson on Writing Animated Features

IN YOUR DREAMS writer/directors Alex Woo and Erik Benson join us to talk about writing animated features - from storyboarding as a form of rewriting to building emotional stakes in fantastical worlds.

Alex and Erik break down collaboration in animation, adapting personal experiences for family storytelling, and why animated characters must be treated as real, complex people.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna.

Meg: And today we're so happy and giddy, I will say to welcome two old friends from our Pixar days, Alex Woo and Erik Benson. We're here to talk about their new Netflix animated feature in Your Dreams, which they co-wrote and co-directed.

Meg: Alex Wu is the founder and CEO of KuKu Studios. He's the creator and executive producer of the Emmy winning series. Go! Go! Cory Carson. Prior to KuKu, Alex was a director in development at Lucasfilm and Story lead at Pixar, contributing to beloved films like Ratatouille, Wall-E, Finding Dory and The Good Dinosaur.

Meg: He began his career with the Student Academy Award-winning short Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher, and is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Lorien: Erik Benson is a writer and director whose career span some of the most acclaimed animated films of the past two decades. He's currently developing an original film for Sony Animation, and previously Erik worked in story development at Pixar on the Good Dinosaur and Cars 2.

Lorien: In addition to serving as the story supervisor on the Academy Award-winning Toy Story four, Erik studied character animation at Cal Arts, where he developed a distinctive style that fuses comedy with a strong visual storytelling and rich character arcs. Welcome to the show, Alex Woo. 

Alex: Thanks, Lorien. It's great to be here.

Lorien: And Eric Benson. 

Erik: Hello!

Lorien: Hi, Erik!

Meg: I also wanna give credit and, and, and acknowledge that Erik Benson and I worked in the Good Dinosaur together, and he got story board credit with me on that, on that movie because it was one hell of a lift. And he's amazing and an amazing storyteller. So I wanna acknowledge that we're gonna dive in and ask them all kinds of questions about their great film.

Meg: But first, we're gonna talk about our weeks or we, what we like to call Adventures in Screenwriting. I'll start, I am so busy right now that I don't know which direction I'm going. Literally, it's one of those, we all have these weeks, right? We were like, wait, what day is it? Where am I? What, what am I doing in the next five minutes?

Meg: And, and there's a script due. So I'm literally trying to write and do all these other things like while I'm, while I'm eating lunch and things. So I find though, I don't know if you guys find this because I'm so tired and kind of just strung out on it. I'm just like, okay, what the fuck? Just write it.

Meg: Okay. What? And it's helping because I'm not able to overthink every single thing. Well, that's not true. I can think, overthink everything all the time, but. I, I'm, I'm just gonna let it go. I'm just gonna flow and just let it go. That's gonna be my motto for the rest of to get this script in. Just, it is what it is, man.

Meg: It is what it is. All right. Alex, how was your week?

Alex: My week was very good. It was very pedestrian. I've been really busy promoting In Your Dreams. Yes, of course. Yeah. But this week you know, the Oscar nomination voting happens this week, so, you know, we're not allowed to, yeah, we're not allowed to promote anymore.

Alex: So I've finally been able to come home after being away from my place for two months, and I had to, basically, I spent my week throwing out moldy food from my fridge. That's what I did, because I just, yeah, I just forgot that I was gonna be gone for so long and, all the food in my fridge was disgusting and gross, and I spent most of my week just getting rid of and cleaning the fridge.

Meg: It's a good metaphor.

Lorien: Yeah. I was just thinking that. I was like, how could I make that a metaphor about writing? And then I was like, I don't think I can pull it off today.

Erik: Well, we put moldy foods in our-

Meg: Yes. It's a great metaphor for writing. Absolutely. That's what rewriting is. Okay. That got moldy.

Meg: That got stinky. That's overdone.

Lorien: But then you have to walk away for two months in order to figure that out.

Meg: That's right. You do.

Lorien: Hopefully. But you can't. But you can't. It's perfect. You have to do it right now

Meg: You go, Lauren.

Lorien: I have so much going on, so many different projects and usually I'll spin out like, oh my God, I have so much to do.

Lorien: And then I'll go into a weird fugue state and panic and do something nonsensy for a couple of hours. But this week I've been practicing focusing on one thing at a time and executing it until I'm done or I have the next thing and I feel very productive, which for me is my measure of success, healthy or otherwise.

Lorien: And kind of powerful that I have the capacity to make choices to not be in my own way.

Erik: Nice.

Lorien: We'll see if that lasts beyond when I get off the show today. 'cause I have a shit ton of things to do when I get off. I have a script to do!

Meg: But you had a moment. You have a moment. A moment of it, of empowerment.

Alex: You have to take those wins wherever you can get it.

Meg: You so do. Eric, how was your week?

Erik: I think yeah, we're all in the same boat here. I have something due and I have to send it after this meeting. So yeah. Treatment is due today, this afternoon. So, but I like what you said, Meg, like I like those I love, and I hate those deadlines.

Erik: Right? You're just like, well, I gotta get it done right. I can't just shove food in my mouth all day. I have to actually write! No, no. No, but it's been great. Yeah, rushing, get that ready, get that done and get to a, you know, healthy mind of just, this is a version. It doesn't have to be the version but it feels like it was a nice sort of progression in where we're headed.

Erik: So yeah, that was the busyness. And then, yeah, we have flag football tonight with my kids, so we're gonna go to the Friday night lights and cheer 'em on later.

Meg: I love that. And I love what you said, Erik, and it's gonna help me honestly, today. It's just a version. It's just a version. So that's, thank you.

Meg: That is gonna really much help me today.

Lorien: It's not gonna help me. 'cause my final is due today.

Meg: Okay.

Erik: No, Lauren, you Yeah. You are screwed.

Meg: Yeah. Yeah, you're totally fucked. Okay.

Erik: Yeah.

Lorien: Great. Yay. Hopefully it's not moldy then I have to throw it away before I finish.

Erik: Actually add a little mold. Yeah, that really livened up. Once we introduced moldy muffins into our our in your dreams, it actually livened it up a lot!

Meg: YES! There is the moldy muffin and it's very scary. Oh my gosh. You could just start talking right now about-

Lorien: Congratulations on the movie, by the way. That's amazing!

Erik: Thanks! Oh, that was my sneaky segway!

Meg: Spectacular movie and that we're just this weird to say, we're proud of you, we're proud, but because we knew you guys as storyboard artists who were so, so talented and understood story and to see you guys take off this way. I don't know, I just, I just am so proud to have known you.

Lorien: But just so you both know, I'll always be the boss of you both!

Erik: I knew that. I felt that even when we were making that-

Lorien: always and forever. 

Erik: Well, once I got to the top, I was like, I'm not really at the top. Lorien is still the boss of me. Yeah,

Lorien: that's right. I'm glad you've taken that into your soul.

Meg: So Alex, you started KuKu Studios as an independent animation studio. Can you just talk to us a little bit about how you came up with the idea to do that?

Meg: That's a huge, huge thing to do and to step out. I mean, 'cause let's get real, Pixar is a safe place. It would, I'm sure as an artist, feel very safe. You could just stay there forever. It's guaranteed money and not that you don't have to work, but it's a guaranteed job. Right? Yeah. So, can you talk to us about that shift?

Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was very foolish of me to leave. I think come along, it, it really it started around I think 2013 or 2014 when, you know, the House of Cards, that show that put really Netflix originals and streaming on the map. I watched, I was like a Netflix subscriber for, I've been a Netflix subscriber for I don't know, as long as they've been around-

Meg: Since they came in the mail as DVDs.

Alex: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I remember watching that show and just being so blown away that like a DVD mailing company made a show that was that good. I think it just surprised everybody and I think that's when the seed was planted in me that oh, this company is doing something really interesting and they're really gonna change the industry in a really sort of big way.

Alex: And then fast forward a couple years, they sort of doubled down on originals and their streaming businesses sort of took off. And that's when I got the crazy idea to leave and start a small independent animation studio to try and, you know, take advantage of this revolution that was happening in the industry.

Alex: Which is why we called it KuKu, because crazy studios sounded stupid. Sounded, yeah. That's where I got sort of the crazy idea of, of leaving the, you know, the safety net of Pixar and you know, trying to take advantage of this, you know, streaming revolution that was happening before our eyes. And yeah, and that's why we called it KuKu studios.

Alex: 'cause crazy studios just sounded stupid and we thought Kuku sounded cute. 

Lorien: So I've always wondered what it meant. And now I know. I should have figured. Yeah. So, you co-wrote and co-directed this film together. How did the partnership start? And like how did you decide that in your dreams was gonna be your first feature?

Alex: Well, I think it started when Erik and I shared an office together at Pixar on Cars 2. I mean, really that was the beginning of our friendship and our sort of working relationship. Yeah. I don't know. We just became like best friends so quickly because I, I think we were born in the same year. Right?

Alex: You're, you're born in 81.

Erik: Yeah, we're four months apart. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. I was gonna play the whole Netflix made movies on DVDs. I didn't know that, but I'm too young for that. But yeah, I totally dunno that. Yeah., 1981.

Alex: Yeah. So I think all the movies that we grew up with were like exactly the same.

Alex: The ones that we loved were exactly the same, so we just had very, very similar tastes. And also I was insanely envious of Eric's talent and his, his like, you know, brilliant mind, his brilliant comedy mind, his brilliant writing mind. And that's always like a great foundation for a friendship is just you know, just being envious of somebody's talent.

Erik: Well, it was reciprocated. Yeah. But yes, I mean, I've had, you know, people, I've really been jealous of their abilities and they've become like frenemies, but not with Alex. Alex was like, I was super jealous of his abilities, but just yeah, we quickly became fast friends. Like we talk about it all the time.

Erik: We love the same movies. We're both Amblin kids, you know, we just you know, we talk the same film language. And so it was a very easy friendship. But yes, like I think, you know, we both have very different skills. You know, Alex, I admired his, you know, sense of drama, his sense of story structure.

Erik: His drawings are incredibly beautiful. And you know, even the way he thinks about boarding and shot choices is just incredible. So yeah, it's, you know, it's one of those things where, yeah, it's a friendship where you're like, where I'm lacking, he will fill up the rest of my cup. And like we could, you know, sort of exchange skills that way.

Lorien: Yeah. You both have such a distinct style and sensibility across the board. Across the board. Ha ha ha. Story jokes.

Meg: So you guy who, who came up with the original concept, who brought who in? Alex, you're the lead director, I believe. So I'm assuming it to you, but can you just talk a little bit where the idea came from?

Lorien: Yeah. So, so I left in 2016 to start KuKo. Erik was still at Pixar. I think you stayed there for another, like two years, two or three years.

Erik: Yes. I left in 2018.

Alex: Yeah, so another two years. So I left with Stanley Moore. Do you guys remember Stanley?

Lorien: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. 

Alex: So I wanted to start the company with Erik, but he, you know, his star was rising.

Alex: He was doing so well at Pixar. I was like, there's no way he's gonna leave to, to do this startup. And so, and then Stanley and I were working together on finding Dory and we had this great working relationship. I dunno, a lot of creative chemistry similar to me and Erik, I mean Stanley's younger than me, but we have a lot of very similar tastes and also very complimentary skills.

Alex: And so when we left to start cuckoo the first year we just spent sort of developing and brainstorming ideas for TV shows and movies that we wanted to see that we felt like nobody else was making. And one of the ideas was a movie about the world of dreams. It was actually Stanley's idea to do something in the world of dreams, and I was like, oh, that's so brilliant, because especially in animation, like there hasn't really been a dream movie that's been made on a really big, sort of big budget event level scale.

Alex: I mean, you have Inception, right, with Chris Nolan, but as far as like western animation goes, there was nothing. And it's a dream. The dream world is like this big universal human experience that, you know, crosses cultures, expands, crosses time, and, and so we just thought this is such a ripe world for-.

Alex: Exploration and animation. Like, why has nobody done a film in this world? And so we dove in and then we quickly realized, oh, this is why nobody's done it. Because it's really hard to give a dream movie stakes because like in a dream, anything can happen, right? Which is part of the appeal and which is why I think it would work so well in animation.

Alex: But then it's also, its biggest challenge because when anything can happen, nothing really means anything, right? Like how do you give a dream stakes when you know whatever happens, you just wake up and it has no consequence on your real life. So that was the big challenge. We ended up cracking it by introducing this idea that if the kids found the Sandman in the dream world, they could make their dreams come true in the real world.

Alex: And suddenly we had a way to connect what happened in the dream world with what happened in their real life. And so that was sort of the big revelation and sort of what unlocked the story for us. Then Stanley and I put the pitch together. We brought it to a bunch of different studios. We got a couple different offers.

Alex: We decided to go with Netflix because we had a great relationship with them because of Go! Go! Cory Carson and we brought Erik in. To actually be our head of story on Go! Go! Cory Carson in, in 2018. Why he took that job? I have no idea

Alex: I mean, yeah, it was like a dream come true because I had, you know, obviously I wanted you to, to start the company with you, but things were going so well for you at Pixar, and then I don't know what happened. But then in 2018 we were ramping up production on Go-Go, and. I think you me, called me in, or I called you, I can't remember what it was, but you were available and you were interested and you came on to work with us.

Alex: And then we finished production on Go! Go! and we got in your dreams greenlit, and we needed somebody to write it. And we, Stanley and I couldn't think of anybody better than Eric. At the time we were finishing up the first season of Go! Go! which is why we couldn't write it. And so yeah, Erik wrote the first draft of the script and got us our green light.

Lorien: So, you know, at Pixar we had the whole divide and conquer thing when we had two directors you know, yeah. One director would go off and do art. Another would be an animation, and then back in editorial it would all come together or fall apart, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did the two of you manage through the pipeline?

Lorien: Did, how did you divide and conquer or were you all like always together? What was your. Co-directing, co-writing style. 

Alex: I thought we worked a lot. We worked together quite a bit. I mean, the dividing and conquering that we did was a lot of times on the writing side. Yeah, there were certain sequences, you know, maybe you would take a sequence and then, you know, do whatever revisions were needed on that sequence.

Alex: And I would take another one and then we would come back together. I, I, yeah. If I, if I'm not mistaken, that's kind of how the, sort of, the division of labor sort of happened. 

Alex: But we were together for a lot of the film. I mean, yeah. I don't know. Erik, you wanna speak to that?

Erik: Well, yeah.

Erik: And, but there was a big chunk in the middle where I was gone, right. Like it, I wrote the first draft and got the green light and it felt like, okay, see you later guys. Good luck with that. I don't wanna live through you know, the three years of like boarding and reboarding and reboarding.

Erik: It wasn't that, but part of it was that, but the other part was, you know, I knew, you know, the reason I initially left Pixar was I knew we wanted to raise our family down in Southern California, and I knew we were coming down here and you know, I, you know, it was really mostly working with Alex again that I thought, oh, that's a great sort of way to step outside my, you know, nice comfort blanket of Pixar and yeah, do the, you know, the crazy indie film route that has always.

Erik: Been you know, something, I've just, you know, it's one of those things like, you either want to, you know, sort of get really messy and go back to really the basics of you know, we, you know, even like putting together IKEA furniture to, to, you know, then like board on that. Furniture always appealed to me, you know?

Erik: Yeah, both my parents, they, you know, they, I grew up watching them draw at a desk in their, in our home, right? And it felt like that was always something I aspired to do. So I felt like this was our shot to do that. So when I came to LA after that first draft, I was still with KuKu. And sort of, working and developing projects for Netflix, more animated features.

Erik: I mean, this was, you know, pre COVID, what was this? 2019 where it was just like, you get a show and you get a show. Do you want three movies and you want four? And you're, it's oh, take four, please. And then, you know, it was like you know, a wild time to just you know, we were pitching lots of ideas, thinking we could get another thing going under the KuKu banner, but quickly realized like, you know, a lot has to go into every one of these films.

Erik: You know, so I actually, I went back to Pixar for a time and then I wound up going back to Netflix, and then now I was with Sony just doing the development bingo or whatever you know, jumping from place to place, trying to get an original project going.

Meg: Well, it's because you're so talented.

Meg: Everybody wants to know that, that that's real. Yeah. That's what's happening. I have a question about storyboarding and I, I'm so interested, Eric, that your parents were both artists, but so, I think that a lot of people don't understand how collaborative animation is in terms of storyboarding, and I'm just curious in terms of, I, well, I know personally how much each of you contributed as storyboard artists and, and all storyboard artists.

Meg: But how, can you talk to us a little bit about, you're not just drawing, like the saying at Pixar was, you know, a storyboard artist would say, “I'm not your wrist”, meaning I'm not just drawing whatever you put on the page. Can you talk a little bit about a, as a storyboard artist where you learned storytelling, was that something you guys learned in school?

Meg: Was it something you learned from doing it? And then what is it like working with a writer as a story person yourself? And I don't mean the actual drawing, I mean, as a storyteller. Can you just talk to us a little bit about storyboarding, which I know is in your past, but I think it's very interesting to people who wanna write for animation, but they don't really understand this crucial, crucial part of how collaborative it is.

Alex: I learned storyboarding really from, I mean, I learned it in college but I really I think learned the craft while I was at Pixar.

Alex: Because, you know, the way they approach it, which is the way I think most. Film production should approach storyboarding is that they treat it as like the, it's, it's part of the process of writing. It's, you know, you start with the script, but then you take that and you give it to the story team and then they build on it and they're just writing with drawings.

Alex: And, and what I mean by that is like they're adding layers of ideas you know, for character ideas, character choices, character expressions, even character movement and, and also dialogue. So it's just, to me it's an additional sort of phase of writing. And that's kind of how I think about a story.

Alex: And I think that's why it was such a great training ground for, you know, for me to become a, a, a writer and a director, because that's all I was thinking about all day as a story artist. But I was just thinking about it on a smaller scale. I was thinking about it on the sequence scale. Not on, you know, the entire arc of  the story, but we are thinking about the entire arc of the story.

Alex: But that's really the job of the director to hold all of those things together. And then when we get a sequence you know, like a three to five page written sequence, it's our job to really hone in and refine that sequence and take it to the next level. From a writing perspective,

Erik: especially, you know, working with a great writer like you, Meg, it always felt like a nice time to go and get those pages and, and visualize it.

Erik: I think there's a lot that comes out when you start to see those pages, like instantly visualized. I mean, you take the week or two to draw it up, but once you can see it and you know, the artist pitches it back to you, then the writer can actually go, oh, I see how I wasn't clear here, or I can accentuate this and do this.

Erik: And so there's that. But then there's also, as you are boarding, which is why I still love storyboarding, is that it's my first time to watch the movie. You know, it's my favorite time because, you know, over the life of these things, you, you only get these. Nice little windows to experience it for the first time.

Erik: Right? And when I sit down to board those pages, sometimes you get these pages and you're like, oh, this is awesome. I can't wait. And I usually circle, you know, this is what this scene is about, this moment right here. And you know, make sure all the visuals sort of lead up to that and accentuate that in, in the, in the right way.

Erik: And yeah, I, I would always board in a sort of straight through manner. Some, some artists, they will do little key drawings of you know, I think in this moment it's gonna be a shot like this. And then they'll jump ahead and they'll say, I think it's gonna be a shot like this. I just circle my moment and then I just wanna play it out as I, as if I'm watching the movie.

Erik: So, you know, there's straight ahead animators. I'm sort of a straight ahead board artist where I just want to also surprise myself, you know, if I. And going along and, and boarding the pages. I want to see, oh, you know what is this more interesting? If the character did it in this way or if they didn't do what's on the pages, they did something else.

Erik: You know, sometimes you can, you can make a mess doing that, but I think it's a crucial part of the experimentation phase of boarding and visualizing the ideas, you know?

Meg: Yeah. I mean, I learned so much in terms of writing because when you immediately see it, you're like, oh yeah, no, that doesn't work at all.

Meg: Or, oh, that seems really good on the page. On the page. But it's not like there is no central thing. I thought there was, there isn't. Or then you get into edit and suddenly you're putting things back to back and they don't work anymore. And just to understand how, how story builds that way, is it, it's quite such a privilege.

Lorien: We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. 

Lorien: So when you're writing now Erik and Alex, you're the, the writer and you're writing the script, and I imagine you're seeing it in your head. Are you seeing it fully animated or are you seeing it in boards?

Erik: Yeah, I, I mean, I would say both. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I would say both.

Erik: Yeah. Sometimes I will, yeah, think in shots while I'm writing and sometimes I will think in, yeah, like the moments and you know, sometimes I will try and remind myself as, you know, as much you goofiness or, you know, comedy you wanna put in there. I always go, okay, I'm gonna write this, but also picture it as if these are real people doing this right?

Erik: And that helps me go, oh, you know, they would never say that. Right? You'd never wanna lose the authenticity by saying oh, well he is a dinosaur. He would do it this way. Well, no, you, you really wanna still feel the truth in that character, right? So you wanna write as if this is really happening and this is what I would actually do in this situation.

Alex: Yeah. I never think about it in terms of boards because I always, I'm always trying to envision what the final film's gonna look like, and I'm writing with that in mind. And the boards are just like a way for me to try and get as close to that final film as possible in a very cheap and efficient, you know, economical way.

Lorien: So Meg, when you joined Inside Out there was the, of course, the bump of “wait! live action is totally different than animation!” And then the. When you were writing, when did you, what was that process for you? Did you, did you, when did you start to see the characters as they are in concept art or already in animation?

Lorien: Rather, like how were you imagining it in your head visually when you were writing?

Meg: Well, I was lucky because when I came on inside out, they had already designed the five main characters. They didn't have the story yet, but they knew these are the characters and these are land. So I was very lucky that, and I love working with artists in terms of, I don't know if you remember this Erik, but on the Good dinosaur, we knew there were gonna be cattle wrestlers, but we had no idea, like we were going so fast that we were just like, I don't know, they're cattle wrestlers and they're dinosaurs?

Meg: We have no idea. And then all of a sudden key art comes in from the character designers and they have mullets. And I remember you, and you and I were like, you and I were like, oh, no. Okay, now we know who they are. Okay? Now we know who they're, they have mullets. Yeah. So I love the back and forth. It can also, and you guys know this and I'd love to hear if this happened in, In Your Dreams. In Inside Out, Pete Docter walked into the room one day and he goes-

Meg: “I was just over in production and art and, and we're moving long-term memory”. And I'm like, what? And he is no, no, it used to be at the edge of the mind and the last place she went, but now it's gonna be the first place she goes. And I'm like, it's a road movie. You can't just love it.

Meg: And he's like, yeah!

Erik: And we're here! 

Meg: But we're moving it. So I would love to ask you guys those kinds of moments and In Your Dreams, because you're both writers, you're both directors, you're creative beings, but things are shifting dramatically because of maybe outside things you can't control.

Meg: Or actually this is just a better art idea. Or can you talk about anything? 'cause we love to talk to the writers who listen about, you've gotta be iterative, you've gotta be able to move. Can you talk about anything when you were creating this film and any stage where you were like, we thought it was gonna go left, but it went right, and we adapted.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sort of similar to this Inside Out Pete Docter story about moving, moving the goalpost that happened with us. Like when we originally pitched In Your Dreams, we had a whole sort of map of how the dream world worked. So it was basically a bunch of concentric circles and we had, you know, we mapped it out with the science of the four stages of sleep and each ring was a different stage of sleep and you had to get to the center to get to the Sandman.

Alex: And we thought, oh my God, this is so brilliant. It's so cool. Because that maps onto like the actual science of how people sleep. And then when we got into it, it was so boring. Like nobody cared about that. So kind getting

Erik: Into the third concentric circle right now, that's gonna be amazing!

Alex: You know, it's one of those ideas that like you, you know, conceptually you think it's really, really cool, but then when you actually play it out, it's just it just doesn't work. It's boring and it feels repetitive. So that's one thing in our film that, you know, we were so, and actually it helps sell the movie.

Alex: 'cause when we pitched it, people thought that was so cool. But then when you actually put it up on reels and watch it, you're like, oh, this is kind of redundant. 

Lorien: Yeah. The rules of the world. Like it's such a big world. And establishing those rules, like you said, it must have been so complex and complicated that the beginning and then you have to simplify and simplify and get it down to, so what was the core element of the dream world?

Lorien: What was your, did you have a stake in the ground? We used to call it at Pixar, Simplexity? Is that what that was?

Erik: I didn't know that! 

Lorien: What's the simplest way to encapsulate this complex idea? 

Alex: I know, that's such a Simplexity term. 

Lorien: It's Simplexity, I know. You know, okay, in the dream world, we have to be able to see it from this point of view.

Lorien: A five-year-old has to understand it and an adult has to also feel like, I get that, but it's not oversimplified for me.

Erik: Yeah. I think we boiled it down, Alex, correct me if I'm wrong, it was really just. Everybody just needs like kind of a visual marker if we're gonna, are we getting closer or further from the goal?

Erik: And we realized, okay, well if they're going after the Sandman in the land of dreams, all we need is sort of, we're headed towards that star, you know, and we need to find him. And when we find him, we will find, you know, the, he will give us our dream come true, right? So it felt yeah you know, a lot of that shook out in, Inside Out.

Erik: I remember, Meg, it was just like, okay, it's just, you know, we need them to find you know, the lost memory and then, you know, bring it back. Right? You just want to boil it down to the simplest terms to go, oh, I get it. Yeah. You don't have to, you know, there, there's, you know, even on some of the other projects, I think I'm drawn to just like really complex, complicated ideas.

Erik: But I think you know, somebody I was working with, they were just saying like. Just give me if, if it's a, if it's a complicated idea, just give me one sort of dump of all the information. You get one, go at it, and then that's it. Don't, don't, don't spread it out over Act two going, and now we have to do, you know, get to the hippocampus of the third concentric ring, and then we'll get closer to the Sandman.

Erik: Don't do it, do it. Give it, give me the rules once and then just make it as simple and digestible as possible.

Meg: But what you guys did so well, I thought was, you did give us very clear, we have to get to the Sandman and Nightmara? Is that how you pronounce her name? I think the nightmare. She's in and she's gonna block us.

Meg: It's very simple in, in the best sort of way, but now you, now you're un, you're peeling the layers and adding things in on that trajectory, like the lucid dreaming. Right. Or like we have to hold hands, which is speaking to their agency, their learning. And I love the handholding because it really is this amazing barometer of the relationship moving.

Meg: Can you talk a little bit about those ideas? You know, anything you remember about when they arrived? I, I love stories about, you know, the day, I still remember the day We, I, I was like, what if, 'cause I was so desperate and inside at one I'm like, okay what if there's like core memories and they're like, you know, like Jonas talks about Disneyland all the time.

Meg: So what if Disneyland, what if Disneyland was like a core, I was so desperate to think of something. Yeah. And like I became this thing that now people like to use and I don't even understand it. Well, can you talk about coming up with the lucid dreaming or the handholding, which I love so much? Yes.

Lorien: The handholding was so charming. 

Alex: Yeah, I mean that's I mean that was, I think that was your idea. Like you brought, 'cause we needed, we wanted to find a way to incorporate lucid dreaming, but we didn't know how to do it in a, in a, in a visual and non abstract and cerebral way. Because lucid dreaming is, it's a little bit psychological, right?

Alex: Or it's really abstract. It's like the idea that, you know, you're dreaming and once you know you're dreaming, then you can start controlling it. But like, how do you represent that visually? It's really difficult. And then we also ran into the problem that Stevie and Elliot already knew that they were in a dream!

Alex: By entering into this world. So, so yeah, we were looking for some sort of visual device that would allow us to go, oh, that's how they're gonna trigger this, this capability. And I can't remember what the day was, but I think you came up with the idea of them holding hands because it was so integral to the relationship and the idea that when they worked together, they can, they can lucid dream.

Lorien: And we were like, oh my God, that's so brilliant. And yeah, that was one of those like aha moments where we sort of like unlocked the story.

Meg: Erik, how desperate are you worried that when you came up with that

Erik: So desperate.

Meg: Yeah

Lorien: You just look at the window and see your kids holding hands, you're like, how about that?

Erik: Yeah, yeah. That's right. No, that's, yeah, it feels yeah, it was probably, yeah, in the, you know, second draft or something where we needed it. You know, you always get in these positions where it's just okay, we can think of a million ways to do this, but like, how do we force our characters into doing the thing they don't wanna do?

Erik: Right? I remember the sort of inspiration coming from that and always sort of pushing Stevie and challenging her in ways of okay, if you, you can have this dream power, but in order to do that you kinda have to hold your little brother's hand. You know, you wanna, you wanna make her uncomfortable in that way and then sort of like be the thing that she goes, wait a minute, we are good together, we are a good team.

Meg: I love that.

Lorien: Yeah

Meg: I love that.

Lorien: I really loved how the ending of the movie doesn't like magically resolve their problems. It's not a happily ever after there's a real family and they're still gonna have struggles, but Stevie and Elliot are closer together now, so at least you have your siblings. Right.

Lorien: And I really love the parallel of Nightmara and, you know, she's the villain. And then wait, she's helping us, but she still retains her like darkness. She's not binary. It's not like good or bad, it's not happy or sad. It's like the com complexity of humanity of being alive. And I thought that was really beautiful.

Lorien: Did you have endings where it was all resolved or were they broke up? Because it is a little bit ambiguous and I had a lot of conversations with my daughter about it after we watched it. She's 13 and it was she was, she was satisfied, but she was also like, but what's gonna happen? And I was like, that's life kiddo.

Meg: That’s the message of the movie!

Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We definitely never had a version where everything was all buttoned up and it was a happy ending. 'cause we, the reason we made this movie was to try and provide sort of an antidote to the parent trap movies that we grew up with.

Alex: I mean, I love Parent Trap. It's really fun. It's a lot of wish fulfillment, but it's like not a great film for kids who are dealing with reality. And so, we never entertained that possibility. We did for long, the longest time. We did have the parents end up separating at the end of the film.

Alex: But the reason we didn't go with that is because every time we put up the reels and we watched it, and we had we, we did a couple of focus groups, group tests with that version of the movie, the audiences were always disappointed at the end. And we didn't want them to leave the film feeling disappointed in life and pessimistic about life.

Alex: That's not what we wanted to, you know, leave audiences with at the end of this film. And that's 'cause that's not how I feel about life. And so it was really difficult for us to find the, you know, to land that ending. Like, how do we make it grounded and real, while also giving people optimism and hope?

Alex: And it wasn't. So I'm gonna reveal a little bit, I'm gonna get very personal here, but my, my, so this movie was very much inspired by my own family. So my, when I was like, about six or seven years old, my mom, she left our family for a little while. And I think, you know, she was very young when she had me.

Alex: My dad was very young and I think motherhood was sort of thrust on her and she felt you know, her life was sort of being taken away from her. And she wanted to see who she was outside of being a mom and being a daughter. And so she went away for a little while and it was obviously very scary for me and my brother.

Alex: And that's, you know, that scene when Stevie watches her mom drive away that's. Almost verbatim what happened to me when I was a kid. And that's what sort of sparked the inspiration for the personal story of this film. My mom eventually came back, and then when I was in college she left again.

Alex: And she moved away for three years. And then she eventually came back home. And then during the pandemic, during production of this film because my dad was home all the time I think she was like, I'm done. I'm divorcing your father. And she, so she called me and she was like, I, you know, I've, I've, I'm like finally gonna, you know, rip the bandaid off and we're just going to, I'm just gonna live on my own.

Alex: And my whole life, my parents have not had this, you know. They’ve had a functional relationship, but it's been imperfect. And I've always tried to keep them together. I'm very much Stevie. I've always tried to hold my family together. And at this point I was like, you know what whatever you wanna do, mom, I will support you.

Alex: It was the first time I was able to let it go. And because, and that's why I actually, I had to fly back to Hong, this was during the middle of the pandemic. I flew back to Hong Kong and I made the movie while I was in Hong Kong working California hours. It was gnarly. I was like, it was like 18 months working, like the midnight shift from midnight to 10:00 AM every day sleeping during the day.

Alex: But you know, telling my mom that I was gonna give her, you know, whatever support she needed to make this choice, I think freed her from the feeling that she had to do it for the family. And she ended up deciding, you know, what. I'm actually gonna stay. And so, but you know, she said that multiple times before, so I was left with the feeling yes, they're together today.

Alex: Who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow? And that was where I think we landed on the ending of you just don't know what's gonna happen in the future, but it doesn't really matter. My mom's always gonna be my mom, my dad's always gonna be my dad. They're gonna always love each other in their weird, dysfunctional way.

Alex: And we're always gonna be a family. And that's, that was how we sort of landed on the ending that we ended up with for the film.

Meg: That is so beautiful and I so appreciate you sharing it with us. We talk a lot on this show about lava. We call it the kind of very deeply personal human experiences that can really fire our creativity and connect to other people going through similar things.

Meg: Let them know they're not alone. And I’ve loved the end and now I actually know why I loved the end. It felt so true. It felt so true. And that I know exactly what scene you're talking about when she's watching her mother. It felt so true and brave. So I just, I love that. And Erik, you just put up your hand, so I wanna not interrupt you.

Erik: I was gonna say Alex, you should tell them that the, the, what I love when he tells that story is I know the, what's happening behind the scenes, which is he's making a movie about all this, and his parents have no idea what the movie's about. They have no idea, not until what was it, the week before the premiere?

Erik: You're like, Hey let's sit down and talk. Like I want you to know something.

Meg: How'd it go? How'd it go? When they saw the movie, how'd it go?

Alex: Well, when they saw, okay, I'll tell you what it was like when I had the conversation with them. 'cause I, you know, I didn't tell my parents what it was about because I, I was worried that they were gonna say, you can't make the story because it's too personal.

Alex: So it was the week before Anisee, that's when we were launching our teaser and sort of announcing our movie. And my parents were gonna go because it was like some of this big moment and we were gonna turn it into a family trip. My mom ended up not going because I know her and my dad probably got into a fight or something.

Alex: But anyways, I had to sit them down and I had to tell them, Hey, by the way, this movie is sort of, this is what it's about. And it's sort of inspired by our family. It's not you and dad specifically, but it is inspired by what. You know, the dynamics of our family. And I was very worried that my mom especially was gonna be like, don't you know, why are you humiliating me?

Alex: Because she's the one that sort of chose to leave and come back and she could come across as like the bad guy or the villain, but she, to my surprise, was okay with it. She was like, look, I get it. You're an artist. You're drawing from your life. This isn't about me specifically, but it's about your experience of what happened with our family.

Alex: My dad, on the other hand, was really uncomfortable with it. You know, I'm Chinese, my parents are Chinese. Asian culture is very much about honor and shame and he felt like this was airing out all our family's dirty laundry and like bringing shame to the family. And he was like, why are you doing this?

Alex: And I told him like, it's not about you guys specifically. It's about my point of view on it. And you know, the characterizations of our mom and dad are very different from you guys. And I think the reason I'm doing this is 'cause I think it'll help a lot of people who are going through similar situations to know that they're not alone.

Alex: And let know that life isn't perfect, families aren't perfect, but that's okay. And so, yeah, it was, and then of course my mom got mad at my dad 'cause she was like, this is your son's career. Don't get involved, don't get in the way. And then so finally, like my dad was like, look, it's fine. It's already done.

Alex: You can't change it, but at least tell people that we're still married. 'cause I think for him it was really important that he didn't come across as like a failed husband or, you know, so-

Meg: Did he see it? What did he think when he saw it?

Alex: Yeah, so when he finally saw the movie, I think he was relieved 'cause he, you know, the depiction of dad in the film is nothing like my dad.

Alex: And the depiction of mom is nothing like my mom. So I think it was, there was enough distance from it that he understood that it wasn't about them and about us specifically. And he really liked it. Actually, both of my parents were really moved by it. So yeah, neither of the parents are bad or to blame there's no fault in it.

Lorien: So yeah, neither of the parents are bad or to blame there's no fault in it. It's just, yeah. It just sometimes falls apart a little bit.

Meg: Which was so sophisticated and beautiful! You know, like it's, and you have that actually acting out, like it's in the movie, it's not gonna be perfect. Right. And she doesn't want perfect. Right. I thought that was so beautiful. So many beautiful challenges and that you've put into story in a really active, emotional way.

Erik: That was very tricky for us too, is the balance of whenever we, we, because we kind of want it like, you know, it's always in our sort, you know? Wheel house to go, oh yeah. What are they fighting about? Like what's, what's the issue?

Erik: Right? And whenever we got into unpacking that issue, ultimately, it would, either one of them would wind up being the villain. You know, there were times when we'd steered a little more towards moms. She's like following her dreams and I gotta do this. And you're like, what? You're just gonna, the family's coming with it, brought up all these questions.

Erik: Then we started steer it back to dad, who was just like, oh, I'm following my dreams. And we, we would get into these, we'd just go, okay, maybe it's okay to hate dad. Like we, you know, we don't mind hating dad. No. And then we wound up the more we, I think honestly, like, it's right in line with I think what the balance we found at the end of the film, which is we are telling this story through the kids POV, and they don't.

Erik: You know, when kids hear an argument, they don't necessarily need to hear what it actually is about. It's just the emotion of, my parents are struggling, right? They are ha they're having this challenging moment. So the more we dialed it back and, and said it in Stevie's, POV, we're like, okay, this feels a little better.

Meg: What mistakes do you see writers make when they're new to animation?

Alex: I think that they don't treat animated characters as real characters. You know, I think some writers think of animation as, I mean, cartoons is like a, I don't know why it's become sort of like a derogatory term, but they, you know, I like cartoons, but I think sometimes they think about animated characters as cartoon characters.

Alex: And I never think about characters like that. I think of them as real, living, breathing, you know, people or, you know, I mean, if they're animals, there's the, they're just like characters that like, you know, and encounter in real life. And a lot of the sort of the pushed caricatures that some writers use to depict characters in animation, it just feels false to me.

Alex: And that's sometimes I see that

Erik: It's also I think a lot of writers who've jumped into animation, they forget how collaborative it is. Like you were talking, Meg, it feels you know, they think I wrote this script and now we're gonna make it, draw it all, and then we will have our movie.

Erik: And in, in reality, it is really just the first blush or even the, the, the. One step in the evolution of, of the whole picture. And that's why it's so refreshing to work with writers like you, Meg, and you, Lorien, and who know the process because you know, oh, this isn't my, my only shot at this. We're gonna, I'm gonna hand it over to artists and we're, they're gonna hand it back to me and we're gonna keep making this thing as best we can.

Lorien: We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. 

Lorien:For TV animation, it's a lot more like the churn of being on a TV show. It is more script driven. And but you have to really be so much more aware of what you're talking about. They're characters, they're beings, they're people, you know, no matter what.

Lorien: And they're three dimensional. You're not writing for babies and I'm sorry, but the cartoons I grew up with were very sophisticated and, and talking about adult stuff, like Bugs Bunny, I dunno what he was talking about half the time when I was a kid, but like that was grown up stuff. Yeah. We loved it.

Lorien: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. But there that, I think that's a. That's the misconception, and I always ask this question of animation writers because everyone needs to hear it. How is an animation script different than a live action script?

Alex: It's not. There's no difference. 

Erik: Yeah. I, yeah, I try to not-

Lorien: Well, it's not, and so everyone's well, how do I write for animation?

Lorien: I'm like, you get script software and you type in it just like you would as a regular script, right? That's right. Like it's, there's no formatting. There's nothing different. That's right. Okay.

Meg: Yeah, just right. So we ask every guest a craft question. And so today your guys' question, and you don't, you can literally just say a couple of words.

Meg: It can be from the storyboard artist of you, or it can be from the writer, it can be from the director, however you guys wanna think about this question, but what are the elements of a good scene?

Alex: I mean, I'm just thinking about the scenes that jump out at me. Some of my favorites are, you know, I met Tom Cruise at the Governor's Awards.

Alex: I saw your reels about it. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it was, it was such an amazing, surreal experience. But I was talking to him about Rain Man and how much that movie was such a huge inspiration to me. And also an inspiration for this film, specifically because it's the sibling dynamic and the sibling relationship is so strong in Rainman.

Alex: And I really wanted to capture that in our film. But the scene that sticks out to me in that film is at the end when they're like, they touch heads for the first time. And yeah. What makes that scene so powerful and so memorable is I think it, like it reveals a change in a character. And yeah, I love scenes like that where you sort of-

Alex: Can capture the moment of a character's internal change in, in a sort of external

Meg: behavior, right?

Alex: In a tangible, palatable way.

Meg: in their behavior, their choice. Erik, what about you?

Erik: Yeah. I guess it would kind of be related to that. It's you know, and we talked about this too, but yeah, the authenticity, finding that within the movement, the, the, the truth of the scene.

Erik: You know, I would always try and circle it whenever I would get story pages, but even as I'm writing, you know, I like to find the truth of it. But not only that it feels like when you're writing, you want to reveal that truth in an interesting way. Like it, and I feel you know, I was watching Terms of Endearment two nights ago, and I, you know, it's one-

Lorien: WHY?

Erik: Wait, as in a bad movie?

Lorien: No! that movie just wrecks me every time!

Erik: Right. I didn't, I didn't see it. I had no, I, you know, I had only known oh, maybe this, this'll be good. 

Meg: It's one of the best movies ever made!

Erik: Well, 10 minutes in. It's one of those movies where you're like, how, how have I not seen this? This is incredible.

Lorien: Give my daughter the pills!

Erik: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Shirley McClain is amazing. But yeah, that movie had a scene, actually about 10 minutes in. It was probably the one where I'm like, how have I not ever seen that? And it was the night of Debra Winger's wedding, and she's getting high with her best friend in her room.

Erik: And then her mom calls her into her bedroom. And it's already interesting because her daughter's high. She wants to hide it in a, you know, and not, you know, so she's very giggly. But her mom, you could tell she's having a very serious moment. I want to have a serious moment with you. I'm trying to find a gift for your wedding and I don't know what to get you.

Erik: And, it's bothering me. And then her daughter's like no, it's fine, mom. You can get me dishes or things or a car or a house. I'd be happy with all that. And then she goes, no, you know why I don't want to, I, I couldn't think of a gift for you, is because I don't want you to marry Flap, Flap is like Jeff Daniels’ character.

Erik: And she's, I think it'll ruin your life. And she says something great. She says, and, and make a wretched, make wretched of your destiny. Right? And all of a sudden, like Deborah Ringer's like change, like her whole attitude's changing. She's like sobering up and she's wait, what are you telling me mom?

Erik: And then, Shirley MacClain even hits her again with this. You're not special enough to overcome A bad marriage and already it was just like, oh my God,

Lorien: Why are you doing this to me?

Erik: I know. And then, and then then it's four different layers and it's oh my God, if that's your attitude, then I don't want you to come to the wedding.

Erik: And then you think, and this is why I bring up this scene. It's such a great scene. You think Shirley MacClain, like she internalizes that and she has a moment where she's thinking about it and you're like, yes, you're coming to your senses, you're going to realize you're being silly. And, but Shirley McLean goes.

Erik: You're right. That's exactly right. It was the hypocrisy that was bothering me. I shouldn't come to your wedding. And I was like, okay, this is the, yeah, like that is such a great scene because you're asking these questions throughout it and it just surprises you in such a wonderful, interesting way. But also, yeah, it's the authenticity of these-

Meg: The truth of that!

Erik: Incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. 

Meg: I have to go back and watch that movie now because I,

Erik: It's so good!

Meg: Holy shoot.

Erik: Yeah.

Meg: All right, you guys, we could literally talk to you all day, but we have to let you go do other things and, and I at this point rest from your award your word extravaganza.

Meg: We always ask every guest the same questions at the end. So we're gonna ask you guys what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing? 

Erik: I think I would say, yeah, just, seeing it for the first time. I always get excited about I, I, and I feel you know, it comes from, you know, the sort of my childhood and you know, being able to visualize these things as they're happening.

Erik: But as you sit down to write or board, I love being the audience. I love going, Ooh, I wonder what's gonna happen next. And either surprising myself or failing to surprise myself and going to have lunch.

Meg: Alex.

Alex:  For me, it's actually when you get to show you're right or your work to an audience it's great to be an audience yourself, but when you can connect to an audience, to somebody else and the writing works that I think for me is the best feeling.

Alex:  It's because the reason I love movies is because it's a way to connect your internal soul with somebody else's internal soul. And you can't do that just by talking to people. I mean, I guess you can, sometimes you can have really great conversations, but so much of who we are is hidden inside of us, and like art brings that out of us.

Alex:  And so you can connect with audiences, you can connect to their sort of hidden parts to your hidden parts through this vessel of film and stories and art. So that's my favorite part of it is like. Connecting with the audience.

Erik: No, I like to do it for myself.

Lorien: That was a funny dynamic. I watched them play out right there. I could see you, Eric going, oh my God, I gave the wrong answer, talking about myself, SWAT and Alex. It's connecting to souls. And you're like, I like it for me!

Erik: Can you push the AI button and just swap my answer for Alex's voice and Alex's answer for my voice?

Lorien: All right. What pisses you off about writing? 

Alex: Oh, my own inabilities. My own inadequacy, my own, I mean, it's writing I find is it's, it's most of the time it's so hard and so impossible. And then occasionally you get that breakthrough or you get the idea and then it's the easiest thing in the world.

Alex:  But getting to that point is the part that I hate the most. 'Cause it's. Yeah, I, it doesn't come that naturally to me. It's a lot of banging my head against the wall for hours until I get a breakthrough. So, Eric, your answer is his, his inadequacies as a writer.

Erik: Good answer, Erik!

Erik: Good answer, Erik Benson. I also don't like not being able to immediately see if it works. Does that make sense? Like I guess it's not necessarily attached to the writing process, but it's oh, I wish, like I could have two of the greatest actors right now, read this and see if I'm getting emotional?

Erik: You know? there's something to just overall to the process of I hope this works. And the uncertainty of that, of just we'll see, you know, six years from now, you know. It's

Meg: So true. All right. What if you could have coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give them?

Erik:   Don't do it.

Meg: That's amazing.

Erik: There's always something I go back to because when I was an intern at Pixar, I definitely was struggling. I was just like, I don't know if I can keep up with all these amazing, talented people. And I remember there was like, somebody saw me in a flop sweat, like running to the bathroom you know, right before I had to make a big pitch or something.

Erik: And this is probably going counter to all the things we've said about you know, animation is real movies. But I remember running to the bathroom in a flop sweat and he just stopped me. He stepped in my path and he was like, Hey, whoa. It's just cartoons, man. And I remember it slowed me down and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erik: Just cartoons, man. And sometimes I feel like that's a war at a battle. Light wage every day, right? It's no, this has gotta be the greatest thing ever. And then I, I always have that voice come back in and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just cartoons, man.

Lorien: I used to do you know, we're not curing cancer here. You know, like we, it's important what we're doing,

Lorien: But like, everybody take a breath. Have a hot dog.

Erik: I feel like that's what got me through our crazy, like jumping back full circle to our six week crazy story marathon. We're gonna bore the whole good dinosaur in six weeks, was you Lorien. And that's really like you wore our story manager in the trenches going, Hey guys, we're not gonna cure cancer.

Erik: I was like, right,

Lorien: But I'm gonna make you draw for 12 hours straight.

Erik: Right. I can go and get a snack.

Lorien: I will bring sushi in. Someone will feed it to you. Yeah, just, yeah.

Erik: Yeah. But don't take lunch. Just give-

Meg: she had that giant board and I would walk by and it would be like a general, it was a general sending out storyboard artists.

Meg: It was amazing. It was amazing.

Lorien: Last question. What's your proudest career moment to date? 

Alex: I mean, for me it was the, the premier was pretty, pretty great. I don't know, we had the entire crew there. My parents were there. My brother wasn't there, but I don't know. It was just so wonderful to have everybody who worked on the film be in that theater.

Alex: So excited to watch the final film. And it was, you know, it was everybody on our crew at Sony who worked on it. It was all the cast. And that night was just kind of electric. And it felt like sort of the culmination of my 44 years of life. I don't know, I'm gonna clean, I'm gonna clean moldy food outta my fridge.

Meg: Erik?

Erik: I actually, and we talked about it earlier, I think it was when I signed up for the KuKu Madness, the craziness it felt like something rewired in my brain that it was, I didn't know what was gonna come of this. But I knew I was just going to choose the people I wanted to work with and, you know, and get behind an idea.

Erik: You know, Alex's personal story was so moving and I thought it was such a great idea. I thought, okay, no matter what happens with my career success or failure, if I keep choosing that, choosing good people and good ideas, then I, I'm not gonna look back with any regret. So, yeah, I felt like that was a big moment.

Meg: You guys. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Super fun.

Meg: Thanks so much for coming on the show. Super fun.

Alex: Thank you for having us!

Lorien: It’s so fun to see you guys!

Meg: We so appreciate you guys coming on the show, and congratulations on the movie.

Erik: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Lorien: Thanks so much to Alex and Erik for coming on the show, In Your Dreams is now available to stream on Netflix.

Meg: And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.