John and Craig discuss short films: what makes a great short, when should you make one, and what should you realistically expect out of it? We also update our predictions on whether the career of “screenwriter” can survive potential global catastrophes.

We then answer listener questions on staff writer wages and using URLs in a script.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig talk intermissions and why more movies should have them.

Links:

• Remembering Sundance Institute Founder, Robert Redford


• John’s post on Robert Redford


• Digital Dungeons and Dragons Die


• Tally to vote for Scriptnotes Live Shows


• Scriptnotes Episode 334, Worst Case Scenarios, Transcript


• Maccy App


• DEVO Documentary on Netflix


• Megana Rao on Instagram and X


• Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!


• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!


• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter


• Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription


• Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube


• Scriptnotes on Instagram


• John August on Bluesky and Instagram


• Outro by Luke Davis (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.

UPDATE 10-15-25: The transcript for this episode can be found here.

The post Short Films and Existential Threats first appeared on John August.