Better Radio Writing Submission Guidelines

Hello Friends,

We are currently hard at work on a new season of Better Radio, a scripted sketch comedy podcast by Rob Schultz and Russell Anderson, and writing submissions are now open.

What’s the show about?

In the distant future, an Archeo-Astronomer travels the stars listening to transmissions broadcast from Earth, researching where exactly things went wrong for our planet.

Each transmission (re: sketch) needs to work in audio only. This is not necessarily the same thing as having no visual component - this might be your chance to do things you could never bring to life on stage, or in video.

All scenes must necessarily take place after 1935. Anything we hear that takes place earlier or is supernatural in some way must, logically, be part of some other piece of media. (We don't need your framing device explained to the audience, but knowing that you're in fact writing a sitcom, or a monster movie, or a broadway cast recording, may unlock something for you.)

How do I submit?

Send your script to BetterRadio at NotArt.org by or before Bastille Day, 2018!

.highland documents and .PDF files are our top choices of file formats. 

Please name your file NAME-OF-SKETCH_YOUR-NAME.file

What do we like?

We strongly prefer the conceptual over the topical. Self-contained ideas over reference-fests. Parody is a coin toss.

We like character monologues that we can build into scenes with interesting sound design.

The opportunity to do a cross-over or side story featuring your existing characters from a different project is something we’re very interested in. If your script or pitch falls into this category, please do send a link to the other show.

We like scenes that happen to be set in other decades for flavor. Remember, the show is set in the distant future. It’s weird and sad if all the scenes are about the news of 2018.

Feel free to go beyond the stock 5 settings for an SNL scene. We’ve done film noir, fake commercials, radio call-in shows, game shows, press conferences, and indeed, old-time radio drama. Remember that we have all of audio-visual recording history available as a playground.

The rules

Individual writers and sketch teams are both welcome to apply. Non-exclusive submissions are okay - that scene in your drawer from six months ago is welcome as long as it’s well- suited to radio.

Time and space are finite and not all submissions will be recorded. If yours is not selected, it’s probably not personal.

If we do select your scene for recording, we offer a writing credit on our program in exchange for the non-exclusive right to produce your scene and to publish the script. (You still own your work and may use it in other ways.) We may edit your script.

We will contact writers about submissions we would like to use by or before early August, which is when recording will begin.  The new season will air in October, and be accompanied by a live taping at The Pack Theater in Hollywood on September 29.

Reference

To hear what we’ve done before, visit the show on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/betterradio or Overcast at https://Overcast.fm/itunes320972864/better-radio or just stuff this in your podcatcher: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BetterRadio

Please direct your submissions to BetterRadio at notArt.org, and feel free to forward this to your writerly friends.

Your pals,
Rob Schultz &
Russell August Anderson

Muphry's Law: A Closer Look

Muphry's Law, McKean's Law, Hartman's Law: You're totally going to have a spelling or grammar mistake in that thing you wrote attacking someone for their grammar or spelling. 

It's true facts, and I think it's great. I say, why not put your own error in their somewhere so at least you know where it is? Like being the first person to scratch the paint on your new car. 

It happens to Seth Myers in a bigger-than-usual way in this clip around 0:56. Enjoy!

#2,438: Avengers: Infinity War

Girls Trip - ★½☆☆☆
I’m too white or too old or too not-a-movie-theater-full-of-people to appreciate this movie properly. Also, separately, in addition to that, I can’t remember the last time I was so faked out by an ending. This movie ends, and then, just, like, goes and goes and goes.

The Death of Stalin - ★★½☆☆
It’s perhaps the mark of a truly black comedy that it’s so consistently silly and yet never fun.

Avengers: Infinity War - ★★★★★
Loved it. The cast-of-thousands battle scenes stand in such contrast to the standard lasers-and-noise DC movie endings; it’s probably a testament not only to the directors ability to establish and maintain geography, but all the years of getting to know and care about the characters.

I’m so happy to have gotten my predictions wrong, because it’s way more fun to be surprised than to go ‘ah, I knew it!’ The closest that anyone I know got to the truth of things was with a guess that Thanos was the Red Skull. Wrong, but I was still happy for the guesser when we saw that red smiling face. For my part, I'd been spending my valuable time trying to convince people that Thanos would die in the first act of this movie and Iron Man, mad with power and other infinity stones, would be the real villain. That's not how it shakes out, of course, but I hope that in the back of certain minds during a certain scene, someone might have been worried that I was right!

#2,435: Love, Simon

Ready Player One - ★½☆☆☆
This is what you get when you make the whole movie out of the last act of Tomorrowland.

Credit where credit’s due, my audience loved the Shining references.

Pacific Rim: Uprising - ★★★☆☆
Pacific Rim 2 feels a bit like it maybe should have been a straight-to-video sequel, but it's fun, it knows what was good about the original (robot fights), and next to Ready Player One, it shines.

Much like the original, this movie is a thin connective web of scenes you'll skip past on netflix designed to vaguely justify a bunch of robot fights. See it if you’re into robot fights. Although, if not if you’re *too* into robot fights and going to end up complaining about something. If you're that guy, maybe give it a pass.

Love, Simon - ★★★★★
Man, this was great. We're still early enough in the year that pretty much everything that comes out is on the top ten list for the year, but for now this is topping the list.

I just like when a smaller (let's say under $200m) movie like this can come out and stand in contrast to the past few months of robot fights, and manage to do it with significantly deeper stakes and tension than something bland and abstract like the fate of the world. Best high school movie since Bad Genius, and a fun way to do a mystery.

#2,432: Tomb Raider

Thor: Ragnarok - ★★★½☆
Things I thought were weird:
- How we're making a big deal of All-New Thor, like the other movies had no jokes.
- How filmed improv is a drag on repeat viewings of pretty much any movie, even a superhero movie.
- How everyone is surprised to find out that the girl with Valkyrie tattoos on her face is a Valkyrie when they see the Valkyrie tattoo on her arm.
- That you can control a god with lightning powers with a fancy taser.
- How much this movie now reminds me of The Last Jedi.

Unsane - ★★★★☆
I like Soderbergh's experiments. The simple, horrible premise is super effective - it's a plausible threat! I thought the iPhone gimmick was a little distracting at first, but I got over it once the story picked up.

I did find myself surprised at how dark this movie was. Like, some parts were really dark. Like, hey, someone turn on a light in there.

Tomb Raider - ★★½☆☆
This would have blown everyone’s minds if it had come out twenty years ago instead of the Angelina Jolie version. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, it’s a terrific 90s action movie, but it’s no longer the 90s. We’re now in the era of filmmakers who grew up in the 90s adopting, adapting, and improving on the films they loved as kids.

Seeing Dominic West kind of made me nostalgic for The Wire. Specifically, the season that doesn’t have McNulty in it.