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Justin thorough is an actor and a writer and his latest role is in a little film
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called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice uh Justin is also a pivot fan that's how we met
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him welcome to Pivot finally thanks for having me thanks for having me on the show I am a huge pivot fan we're
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thrilled to have you here and we're thrilled to have you with such success Scott go for it if you were talking to a
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group of analysts or investors about what's going on in Hollywood how would you describe the industry right now like
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what do you coming what are your what are your thoughts on scripted television the streaming Wars what what do you give
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us a state of play from Justin too without disclosing anything to anyone you know I I've gone out with a couple
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projects this year that I think uh over the last 10 years would have been um easy buys you know like like this is a a
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thoughtful interesting script that's engaging um that has many elements that
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we haven't seen on television and you know a couple of those have not been accepted and it was the first time where
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I thought oh wow there really isn't an appetite for um wonderful uh at the moment that's not to say that it's I
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don't know whose fault that is could be my scripts could be that these are just
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not good scripts and my my radar has gone completely whack no I've heard that
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from a lot of people you know I've heard that from a lot of people yeah and I
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it's not discriminating it's that they don't know what's about to happen and so
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they don't want to take yeah think I think there's a moment of fear you know
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it's it's like you know if you're and I'm not a stock market guy but if you
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were a stock market guy um like you guys sort of follow um you're kind of just
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going yeah okay look let's just we're going to put our chips on cocacola we're
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going to spread our chips you know across you know whatever it is IBM and apple and and you know they're they're
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like we're not going to you know we're not interested in a cool little startup
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that might win a couple Golden Globes anymore you know um uh we're going to just play it safe I'm hearing a lot of
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and on the writing front on those sort of meetings that I've taken they're like
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do you have anything and then they basically without describing a medical procedural drama set in a hospital in
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Chicago they basically describe that and you're going well you're just talking
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about um you know ER gry's Anatomy or something and you're thinking wait what
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we're making we want to make those like um but I think you know I'm an optimist
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so I think those this will bounce back I think um I think you know the good news is is
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we still have an enormous uh an enormous amount of outlets an enormous amount of
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channels and frankly I think it you know it it gives YouTube an opportunity to play you know uh in a bigger they still
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have a big pot of money I think that they could play with and do some interesting things or you know I still
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don't quite understand how Tik Tock is going to make some money but you know
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they're certainly positioned to what do you do when you're signing onto a
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project now not just theaters versus streaming but where to go cuz you you you have a little more uh agency cuz you
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do more stuff right well Scott's the big Hollywood Mogul now he's the one selling
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scripts getting green in the room left and right% I'm glad you finally acknowledge that I'm glad you're in
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touch with your feelings are not threatened by our friendship Justin um and I'm out here in the desert
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just looking for a drop of water when you just said YouTube like when you're
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making project decisions you know it was a while when the tech companies came in
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and now they're buyers right apple is a real buyer of pretty good stuff right
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some of it good some of it not but a lot of it good absolutely where do you how do you make a decision of who you're
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going to affiliate with now because there so much well now we're starting choices and at the same time you know
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without describing what each characteristic is I think each place has um you start to go oh this feels like it
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wants to be at ex you know that's the decision that everyone makes you so a script comes in or or is created and
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then you go all right where are we going to take it and they go you know who would be and then you sort of isolate
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your three best buyers for it you know if you have a hard charging R-rated comedy um that's that's really
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going to be you know um trying to find the the edges of the room um comedically you're not going to probably go to Apple
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with it necessarily because um you know they're I think they're you know their
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businesses iPhones they you know they don't want to do anything that messes that up nor should they um uh you're G
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to probably go to Netflix because that's Ted Sandos who's who's shown to have
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some some real spine when it comes to putting edgy comedy out there um so it's
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it's um it's sort of like that I don't know and for dramas I don't know you
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think you know well this is a very peon you know um maybe you know a a much harder needle to thread uh drama about a
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blah blah blah well we might go to effects with that because um you know you know only make a couple things a
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year uh their output isn't as high as Netflix but but FX this really feels like it belongs with them you you want
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to find your partner I mean it's it's kind of like dating you know um if you
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want you know some sort of a you know whatever you're you know whatever you're
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if you're wanting to swipe right or left you know you want to sort of find the
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right um You just want to find the right partnership because inevitably if you if
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if in those situations where you make a piece of content which the word I hate um uh and it's not a happy marriage it
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will not be a successful show you know you want everybody singing in the same key if that makes any sense when when we
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talk we talk about AI all the time on the show and there's been a lot of news
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in Hollywood this week California governor Gavin Nome just signed a pair of bills that will give actors more
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protection over their digital likenesses landscape plans to start using generative AI in the creation of its new
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movies and TV shows according to the Wall Street Journal as a writer and and and particularly as a writer but also as
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an actor how do you look at these things it was a big contention during the the strikes um you how do you look at AI
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right now and do you use it what do you like about it what you know and again full skit credit to my friend Scott he
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you know when I would hear you guys talk about it like this is coming this is a tool this is a thing um I'm writing a
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script currently I reached out to Scott and I said okay what do I download how does it work is it private you know like
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what are they taking from me what are they not and he said probably the the most accurate thing he says it's you
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know AI as far as writing goes and as far as you know being able to write the right prompts for it is largely pretty
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anod so I dropped in it took me a while to figure out you know what parameters I
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wanted to sort of put in and what prompts I needed to give it to sort of really get where and where it was going
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um and gave me back something exactly as Scott predicted which was anod it was very kind of vanilla um but it had a um
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it had a couple little toe holds in it where I thought oh this is that's interesting I hadn't considered that so
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it was in the few instances where I've sort of used it or you know had a bit of writer block and going
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oh maybe um it's kind of like a writing partner in a way and that it it can kick
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back an idea that you weren't necessarily expecting um yeah so yeah ideas it's
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ideas that you didn't yes it's ideas that I didn't I didn't think it likewise
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can be helpful in saying in just answering simple questions in a way that Google doesn't you know like um work on
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this period thing and I needed to know sort of the origins of the word [ __ ] and
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and um you know whether this thing whether that word Works in a in a period piece you know and so in this time frame
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um give me examples of the time you know that you know that the word [ __ ] was used or first examp whatever um and it
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sort of just gets to the point a little quicker than than than Google does you know um with citations ET oh wow I'm
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excited to see that now I'm excited to see that anyway Justin tho you are we
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are your biggest fan actually and you can catch him if you want to see him in Beetle juu Beetlejuice and he's he's
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terrific in it it's really great thank you so much thanks Justin I want to come
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back Scott and I want to talk about my feelings later thanks gang