Focused - 44: Maybe You'll Get a Real Job, with David Wain

Episode Date: April 3, 2018

You might not realize it, but creative professionals in the entertainment industry are also free agents. In this episode we talk to writer/actor/director David Wain of "Wet Hot American Summer" and "The State" about his life as a free agent, from hitting MTV right out of college to the lean times that followed. Turns out that juggling a busy schedule, learning to say no, and not being able to plan vacations far in advance are all features of his line of work.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Stell. I'm joined, as always, by my fellow host, David Sparks. Hi, David. Hi, Jason.

It's interview time on Free Agents this fortnight. And this is great. We've been talking about it a while, getting somebody from the entertainment industry, because a lot of the people who work in that industry are also free agents. And you came through with somebody that you knew, who is a performer and writer and director of movies and TV shows and sketch comedy and all sorts of other things. Yeah, a friend of mine, David Wayne is an actor, writer, director, you know, he checks all the boxes. He's also a geek. He's been on Mac Power Users several times over the years. And when I dropped him a note and asked him if

he wanted to be on The Free Agents, he said he couldn't wait. So let's get started with David Wayne. David Wayne, welcome to The Free Agents. Hey, guys. How's it going? We're so happy to have you on. For those of you that don't know David, he's a writer, director, actor, man about town. I first discovered David when I was, I think I was just out of college when you were doing The State. And I was a huge fan of that. And since then, he's been doing a lot of his own stuff. Wet Hot American Summer. And it's the original movie along with the iterations on

Netflix, the movie Wanderlust. David, were you the developer for Children's Hospital? I know you did a lot of stuff on that. Yeah, well, it was Rob Corddry's idea, but then there were three of us that kind of put it all together and produced it. And I directed it and helped write it and stuff like that. If you go to IMDB, you'll see that Mr. Wayne is a very creative guy and always making stuff. And Jason and I were talking about how folks in your industry really are forcibly free agents. You guys don't really have a choice. And we thought it would be fun to talk to somebody. And when I sent you the email, you were very kind to agree to come on the show.

I also just have to say, I've known you, David, for a while, but I've actually been following Jason's career for way back when. And I didn't, frankly, I didn't realize that we were around the same age. I assumed you were like a veteran guy who was like... One of these hard-bitten magazine type people? Dead tree journalism? I feel like when I was reading your columns early on, when I was when we were both seemingly in college, it felt like I thought

you were like 50. My first job out of grad school was writing for Mac User Magazine, so I started early. I was doing like all this online stuff in college and like online magazines and the web is the future and then i ended up spending 15 years trying to drag print magazines into the internet so i was like how did that go we got there in the end

but you know but by the time it didn't matter anymore it's it's funny too david and i were talking about this so one of the moms in my kid's school is a longtime uh actress um most no most notably in horror movies and i was talking to her at a like a halloween party or something which is fitting um and and it was that same realization that came over me which was wow you know actors and uh directors and screenwriters and a bunch of people in the entertainment industry that we think of as being you know the studio system stopped like 70 years ago like most of most people go from job to job and uh so david and i started talking about it and and he said hey i've got an idea and and now you're here it's very exciting because it's not a world we know much about, but it does sound like there are a lot of similarities.

Well, you're catching me at a point when I don't have a job, which is another reason why I'm happy to be here. It's like David was telling me yesterday when we were kind of preparing for the show, he says, you know, I've never been an employee, you know, not for real. No, I haven't. I mean, I was working when I first got out of college, I was doing jobs. Like I was working at MTV in the news department, uh, as a field producer, trying to get stories and help out with whatever I could, but it was at best, you had a freelance position that maybe could be open-ended or you didn't know how long it would last.

So, it felt more like a job of sorts. But that was the best you could do. And that was probably the most close to an actual job I ever had. But it's a project-based thing. And the project's done and you move on to the next thing. Which is interesting. So, for this show, we usually have somebody on that had some stint of time they did for the man. Right.

But you've never had to do that. Well, I was very lucky. I had a lot of luck right out of college working at MTV, on shows on MTV. And no, I never had a job. Well, you say that, but I know how hard you work. So you actually do work pretty hard. But it is interesting. So you didn do work pretty hard, but it is interesting. So you didn't have to deal with breaking free, but at the same time, your whole professional life, you've been dealing with this kind of gig mentality.

Well, I've had to work my ass off for the 30 years in order to maintain this existence where I don't have to get a job. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why we wanted to talk to you. Yeah. There's this myth that with a regular job that it, it theoretically could go on forever, which,

you know, is not real, but it is something less so. And, and increasingly less of the gold, that gold watch, it's just 50 years of service. But,

um, you know, that is the thing that, that is, it's theoretically there until you, they lay you off or you choose to leave. It could just kind of go on internally. But, you know, that is the thing that is, it's theoretically there until you, they lay you off or you choose to leave. It could just kind of go on internally. But, you know, with you, I would imagine you've got like, I've got this project and I know I'm going to be working on this for this many weeks or months or years or whatever, but it's going to be finite. And then you're going to need to have maybe line something up behind it.

And honestly, I wish it was like that most of the time. Usually you have a project, you don't know when it's going to start, you don't know how long it's going to take, you don't know how long it's going to last, especially doing what I do as a director and as a producer. You start something, you maybe pitch something, and then you maybe get the financing. And they're like, okay, we're hoping to start in the fall, but then it gets pushed, or then it gets made sooner because you're working with an actor's schedule. start in the fall, but then it gets pushed or then it gets made sooner because you're working with an actor's schedule. And so it's very hard to plan and it's very hard to decide how much to try to take on because if you only are working on one thing at a time at all, you could be down for

months waiting for things to happen. Or if you take on too much, then you have the opposite problem where you're like screwed and you don't know how to get it done. So you have to figure out your best guess every day how to figure it out. And you're coordinating with partners. There's so many complicated aspects to this. Rob Cordery was telling me, you know, he had this great job, you know, on The Daily Show, and then he got his TV series which everybody wants right and he quit that job he moved his whole family out here and i think it would they made like two or three pilots and then they said no we're gonna not gonna do that and suddenly he was out of work yep that happens all the time and and that particularly happens in that network tv series world where uh something

gets picked up for series and people move out here to LA to do it and they get an apartment, they get a car and then it gets canceled immediately. And they're like, Oh, and so a lot of people I know have been on a series for five years here in LA, but they lived in New York before and they never actually move here. They just stay in a hotel for nine months a year because they don't nine months a year because you never know when you can actually count on it. I wonder if at some point it becomes kind of like you're just afraid of it just for the karma reasons. It's like if I move out here, they are definitely going to cancel it. Oh, for sure. Well, I know that whenever I really need to get a job, I schedule a vacation.

And then I know that the minute I get on the plane, they're going to be like, and come on in right now. Are there different kinds of jobs too? I would imagine, I mean, the, the idea of a series or something as well, there's a chance this could go for a long time. Are there also jobs that you can potentially take that are, that, you know, are just very short and easier to slot in? Like, you know, come out here and direct a, you know, direct a commercial or direct a TV episode or something like that, where it's two weeks and then you're done and you don't have to worry about like how it slots into the rest of your life as much directing an episode of a half hour single camera TV show is a is a very good job because it's

basically two weeks it's a week of prep and a week of shooting and that is a perfect you know job that I've only done it a few times but if you have the time and you get the offer and then you make good money and it's not very hard actually. And then a lot of directors make money doing commercials. I haven't really gotten into that world. That's sort of a world you have to make your way into. But that's another relatively short-term, very high-paying area. And then I've gotten a lot of side work as an actor which is another one where you go for work for one day two days um and slot those in but again it's like you're always playing with

dice to know somebody says i'm offering you this thing in three weeks can you do it and you're like i think i right now there's nothing on the calendar but if something comes up within those three weeks then it might get bumped and you don't want to piss people off. It's an ongoing guessing game of what will fit in the docket. You know, you had a lot of success young. I mean, I don't know how old you were when you did the state, but I was pretty young. So you had to have been pretty young at the same time. Well, we started doing the group when we were 18, and then we got on MTV when we were about 22, 23.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's not the case for a lot of folks, you know, and I wonder, did you realize how hard it was and this grind that you were getting into when you started? I did not. I didn't appreciate it or understand it at all. We were in college and having a good time being in New York at NYU and doing comedy. And I think the 11 of us in the group, we worked really, really hard and we cared deeply about what we did. But we also thought we were the best and that it would just keep getting better.

And we kind of fell into this situation where we were at the right place at the right time and got a show on MTV not too long after graduating. And not that we were completely deluded about it, but I don't think we really appreciated just how lucky we were until after it was over. And so when did you realize how much you do have to hustle that you are a free agent and you've got to be juggling and looking for future work at all times? Well, when I was about 27 is when after the state had been off the air for a bit and the group tried to do a few things and those fell apart eventually. And then I was like, okay, I'm really out of running out of money, running out of work. And I didn't know

how to pay the rent. And I'm realizing, you know, I was working with my friends to try to come up with new projects. And I did, I came up with a lot of things that eventually actually got made. But at the time it was just a lot of, because a lot of your time spent in the creative arts, certainly in movies and TV is spent doing work on spec eventually, essentially, which is pitching, developing,

often writing, auditioning, meeting, promoting yourself in some way, and you don't get paid for any of that. And as a producer, similarly, even if you can make a deal for a project and a writer gets paid, as a producer, you don't get paid until it actually gets made. So there's just a lot of speculative work in the hopes that you'll get a big payoff maybe later did you feel any pressure from you know people in your life from your family from your friends about like because this i was thinking about this like i could have gone out and been a freelance

writer after college probably but i definitely had my mom like saying you're getting a job right this is going to lead to a job it's like yes and i won't work for a magazine did you did you have that kind of around you even though having done the state like people saying get a real job now jason i still have it i'm 48 years old i've been doing this i've been making a living for 30 years doing this i'm 48 years old my dad at age 90 you know i say hey i just you, created and did my own successful series on Netflix. And he's like, well, I good. I hope it leads to some good jobs to a good job at some point. Maybe it'll lead to a good assignment. You know? Yeah. There's a member of my family that's convinced that I have, um, I have been disbarred or failed as a lawyer every time I

see him now. They're like, Oh, so now that you're no longer a lawyer, are you still able to feed your family? And I'm like, yeah, we we're okay there's an old-fashioned simplistic way of looking at like if you've got a job or you don't have a job and so if you're looking through that prism i don't have a job i think i think it took my mom about two years to understand that i was working every day and that my family was going to be okay even though i didn't have a job anymore. But it took her a while to grasp it. And I think she still doesn't entirely understand all the things that I do, but I feel like it's settled down there where we, you know, we kept the house, so we'll be okay. But it's hard. It definitely, there's, I mean, I joke about this, you know, conformity, like society wants you to conform.

We talk about that a lot, but it's totally true. Like people are like, well, wait a second. Why don't you have a regular paycheck from a regular employer? That's what adults are supposed to have. More and more, though, that's less the thing, right? I mean, so many people kind of cobble together their own designed careers these days, it seems. This episode of The Free Agents is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace.

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of a website or domain and to show your support for the free agents. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash free agents and the code free agents to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for all of their support. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. Going back a few years when you were 27, I mean, you're a lot younger than you are now. And Jason and I are now, I'm sure. I'm almost 30. There you go. And I'm sure that members of your family were even putting more pressure on you at that point to say okay you had your fun now you know you got to join the family business or whatever yeah although i i think ultimately luckily i did have a family that was supportive i mean

supportive emotionally and financially they helped me out during those low times. And during the whole making of my first movie, Wet Hot American Summer, I went into deep debt because that movie cost me more than it made me for many, many years. And the other main thing I was doing was a nightclub comedy show in New York called Stella, which eventually led to a TV series. But at the time was like a $300 a week gig that I spent a ton of time working on. Um, but luckily I had a family that didn't pressure me in any super real way. Cause I had gone to film school. I really had committed to this line of work.

And so, um, I just kept pushing through hoping that eventually things would pick up which they did only when i was 35 it was a it was a long period so even with wet hot american summer you that's a case where you've got something that is um well known now but wasn't and and you know is it fair to say sort of like a cult movie but it didn't pay off a lot yeah when it first was made it was a small indie movie that barely got released and was a huge financial bomb and a critical bomb and so it was just sort of a non-entity it it has since then miraculously just skyrocketed in stature and led to other things in a million ways and become kind of a benchmark movie for many people which is incredible um but

at the time that you know the fact that some people were super into it offered me nothing concrete hard to pay your groceries with people's enthusiasm. Well, and my parents, I remember them, they said, our friends came up to me and they were like, oh, my goodness, our kids love your son's movie. It's so cool. And my parents would say to them, well, great. Can your friends send our son five bucks? How did you get through that rough patch? I mean, from 27 to 35 is a long time. Well, I mean mean it was really

to 34 i guess i i honestly i did have little work here and there i mean i got uh some freelance assignments of different kinds i'm trying to remember exactly but it was hard i mean i i had an apartment that i had um a small apartment I owned in Manhattan, which I was thinking about selling and I almost did, but then ended up keeping it just in time. And yeah, I got little writing jobs and I was working really hard on trying to make that movie.

I mean, making the movie wet hot American summer took an enormous amount of time during that period and yet didn't make a lot of money. But I did some comedy stage stuff and very little bits and pieces on cable shows and stuff, but definitely had to drain all of the savings of money that my parents gave me basically after I graduated school. And frankly, if I didn't have that luxury that most people don't have, I probably wouldn't have made it through that without some bigger shift I would have had to do. So then after American Summer comes out,

I think it's a great movie. And I think a lot of people would agree now. But like you said, it wasn't as successful as you wanted it to be uh were you ever discouraged or what was your next move i was hugely discouraged but i mean basically michael schultz and i who had made that movie together we got enough juice from it to get a lot of meetings from it which is again this thing of you know we would fly out to los angeles we'd rent a car we'd find a place to stay and we'd go to a ton of meetings where they would say we we loved your movie. Let's talk about future projects. And then we'd go home without anything to show for it. Because these, you know, some, somebody says, we want to do this, or let's talk about this or less. But until you actually get something to that next level where they write you a check, it can be very dispiriting. And those were tough times around when I was 32, 33, the one movie under my belt, but not any much more to show for it.

And I remember that one time I was up to direct this one movie. I think I might have told this story on Mac Power Users. But I really thought this was going to be my turning point. And I could – this was when I was 33. And I was going to get this big studio movie that was perfect for me. I understood the script really well. I knew the people involved. The production company wanted me for it.

And I spent a month preparing the pitch and I flew out to LA and I'm walking across the studio a lot to pitch it to the head of the studio, why I'm the best guy for the job. And I have this huge binder with all these visuals and everything. And I get a call from the agent right as I'm about to walk in the door saying, don't even take the meeting that somebody else got the job, forget it. It was really just like a knock out and so i got it i remember getting my rental car though and looking at myself in the mirror and thinking you know what i'm not gonna quit and if i don't quit now then this is just who i am and

what i do and it was a very ultimately happy liberating moment so just to say i'm committed to this this line of work and this kind of pursuit, and I care about it enough that I'll just keep hacking at it until I get some luck. And you did. And I did. Eventually, by the time I was about 34, we got a chance to do a pilot for a series based on these shorts we had been doing with Stella, the comedy trio at Comedy Central. And that eventually led to it getting picked up for

one season of a series in the summer of 2005. And since then, with great luck, I've been pretty busy ever since then and been working consistently. I've never gotten rich and I've never had a massive hit, but I've definitely kept it going and been very happy. So, so David, you know, going through those down times, what, what got you through? I mean, there's people out there listening that aren't even in entertainment, but they're dealing with the same thing, no matter what their free agency is is a lot of it was trying to figure out what i want and what i'm doing like i started i was going to therapy at the time and trying to just focus myself on what matters and i think one of the things that i that i kept going back to is feeling like i need to figure out

some way that the ups and downs of what's happening in my career are not mirrored in the ups and downs of my own emotional life. Like I could not be hooked into that. I had to have my own, you know, I know you've talked about like meditating, like it's, I had to have that my own path of myself that was not dependent on what was coming in and out the door because that's so out of your control. And so I spent some time and effort just developing myself in that way. And that helped me get through this stuff. And I just did keep busy. That was the other thing. Like, even though I wasn't getting paid, I was constantly doing stuff. I was doing projects with my friends. I was writing stuff. I was shooting stuff. I was performing, I was constantly doing stuff. I was doing projects with my friends. I was writing

stuff. I was shooting stuff. I was performing. I was developing my skills in every which way. And I did sort of produce a ton of material at the time. It just didn't happen to mostly be lucrative. How do you plan? It might be more relevant now that you've got stuff going on, but you mentioned how hard it is with jobs come and go. How do you plan your schedule? How do you block things off? Like you said, how do you schedule vacation to know that it's going to get ruined because a job's going to come in? How do you juggle? How do you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to? Because it sounds quite frankly, terrifying to me, this idea that everything is kind of coming in and sliding around on the schedule and you're constantly having to juggle things. So how do you deal with that? First of all, I don't think it's unique to what I do necessarily at all. I think almost everyone who works in a freelance job, and so many people I know have so many multiple jobs, like they're writing and they're doing a podcast and they're also working on a book and they're whatever, you know, whatever

the various combination of things people do, like the two of you. But in my version of it, it's really a lot of guesswork, but more and more, I really think about each thing that comes in the door, whether it's tiny or big, and try to make the right decision about, is this worth upending something else for? Is this worth my time? What's the upside of doing this? Because a lot of times, a job could turn into a two-year commitment or it could be a one-day commitment. And sometimes you don't even know which is which. But I look at my calendar and I look at my slate of things and I try to make good choices. And since for the last 10 years, I've also had children, which is a whole other time challenge.

I'm always trying to keep my life going and my own personal self okay. And so it's just, I mean, time management is definitely an ongoing challenge slash interesting area that I'm constantly working on. And by the way, I just read today's post on hyper-scheduling from It's going to become a drinking game on this show I think I have to say you mentioned it yesterday I went and read all of it yesterday and then I read the new one today and I was so

inspired and I did it today and I mean I've actually tried this exact thing before as you what did you call it somebody else calls it block scheduling or something yeah but I was inspired to do it again. And I do think it's already like made today better than previous days in this month. Like, I think I like it.

I like it a lot. One of the things we talk about on this show is having the courage to say no, because, you know, I think reflexively you want to say yes. Somebody wants you to work on something and you're like, yeah, great. That's great. Has that evolved for you over time your ability to look at something and be like it's really flattering that you want me to do this i need to not do this well certain things um yes and there's certain categories of things that i never say no to and i and i'm trying to rethink that or currently like usually things that speak to my fantasy life, like when someone asks me to do something that involves playing music, like playing the drums or anything that sort of hits on my hobbies, I'm like, I'm there, whatever it is, I'll just do it.

And often if it's acting work, because I like, you know, the ego of being in front of the camera or something, I usually say yes. But now I realize I just can't blanket say yes to anything. I have to think through. And it's often those small things that add up. A friend says, hey, I have a script. Will you read it? Or a friend says, can we get on the phone for half an hour and give me advice about something? I want to do those things.

I do do those things. I try to do those things. I do do those things. I try to do those things. But I also know that everything adds up. And it's a zero-sum game. And you guys know this. And so it's a very complicated balancing act of being realistic with my time. And knowing that I have to kill the big frogs first what do they say yeah something like that yeah something about frogs i've gotten much i mean the tools that i mean i i just went through

a very long two-year period where i was insanely busy because i was doing two giant projects at once which was an eight episode wet hot american summer miniseries and a movie for netflix called a futile and stupid gesture and i did them both kind of at the same time um and so my time management was a different kind of complicated but i had a whole structure around me to do it and there was a lot of it was out of my control because it's a shoot schedule and it's a post schedule and there's all these other things and a lot of people involved with it now that i'm out of that it's been a few months that i'm now more in charge of my time and so i'm like okay now i can actually play tennis and now i can go to the doctor and now i can get a haircut and now i can do this extra stuff with my kids i couldn't usually do and i can take them to school and i can and so now suddenly i woke up one day and i'm like, wow, I never work. Um, or I never get around to the

actual bigger work that I need to get done. And so I've now shifted back into like, okay, I have absolute non-negotiable time, um, where the distractions go away and it's Pomodoro and we're, we're doing it. This episode of free agents is also brought to you by fresh books. All of you freelancers out there, you know how important it is to make smart decisions about your business. Our friends at fresh books can save you up to 192 hours with their cloud accounting software for freelancers. It's ridiculously easy to use by simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, getting paid online. FreshBooks has drastically reduced the

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Thank you to FreshBooks for supporting free agents everywhere. You've always been a bit of a geek, and that's the reason why you came on Mac Power Users so many years ago. Does that help you as a free agent? Oh, a thousand million percent. I mean, I know you and I've talked about this over the years. Sometimes I get, um, caught up in the, in the process and the fiddling and that takes the time away from the work. But I would say in total, um, using

various technology and you, and just studying both just the concepts and the tools of how to be productive and how to get stuff done in a positive way have helped me immeasurably. And I think I've become, you know, far more productive than the average person by cutting out so much of what I see. I see people around me wasting so much time doing things that they don't need to, because they're not aware of tools. And so I'm very, uh, happy to, to have that as a, as a geeky part of my arsenal. Yeah. But I always, you know, just having known you through the years, I know another thing you do that I think differentiates you is you go lateral. I mean, you're not just an actor, director, writer, but you also get your hands dirty with the editing and all the other kind of elements of production,

which gives you more, more things to do when you're looking for a gig, I guess. Yes, true. Although I don't really, like I would never work solely as an editor. I mean, I would if I had to, but it's more that it actually just is the way that i work when i'm when i direct something i need to be more in the weeds especially in the edit room and a lot with the prep and stuff so it only just means that i spend many more hours on my flat rate job um and uh the fact that me and a lot of the people I work with are all hyphenates, it makes it hard to sometimes, for example, I'll write a script with a friend and now we want to get it made. But then the next chunk of time, he's got a job as an actor doing this. So that might push off the ability for us to do our thing for a year.

that might push off the ability for us to do our thing for a year. But yes, I have learned a lot of more like of the tech skills that have helped me. I mean, I just like cutting away the layers. I don't want to wait for someone to set up something so that I can edit my film. I want to know how to do it on my own. And so, I've learned Photoshop and all the editing software and scheduling and all the things that I think the more a conductor knows how to play every instrument, the better conductor he or she will be. If you could run the zoo, would you prefer to have your work be, you know, scheduled in advance? I'm going to be here for eight weeks or I'm going to do here for eight weeks or i'm going to

do this for for 12 weeks and then i'm going to have a break and then i'm going to go over here or do or do you like the aspect of it where something can pop out of the blue and and you know you get a job for a couple of weeks and you didn't expect it and then something else happens i guess speaking from my vantage point the grass is greener and I do yearn for more predictability and more routine. And I get jealous of my members of my family who are like, so, you know, next September, we're going to go on a trip to Barbados. I'm like, and they're like, do you want to join us? I'm like, what? I have no clue what I'm doing next week. But I probably, you know, I think there's, I probably would miss aspects of the spontaneity

of what I do now. For better or worse, what I do love about my job in total is that it changes the lifestyle of my work is always changing. I'm sometimes working out in the field with 100 people and sometimes I'm alone in my office and everything in between. You've got opportunities and you're a creative guy. You've got all these different projects you're cooking on. And I know sometimes you're forced to make decisions based on availability and funding and things like that. But when those

aren't a concern, when you have to choose between two of your babies, how do you figure that out? I mean, what criteria do you use and how do you make that decision? It's very tough. And I often make a decision that's not what somebody else would make. Um, over the years, I've generally chosen the things that were more mine, quote unquote, or that are more organically formed. So I can't even use a real life example, but you know, formed so i can't even real life example but you know i would much rather do the tiny cable low budget series that i created versus being getting a job on a much bigger higher paying series i was going to say netflix has got all the data right netflix could probably have a meeting with you and say david here's what here's what's going to be big and it's like here's the demographic and here's the countries and here's

the subject matter here are the netflix categories do you have something with all those things i'm sure that you could get data like that and and and i'm not sure what kind of a creative challenge that would be but i'm sure that netflix has all that data they yeah they have data like crazy yeah but but they they don't share it that way you know they they usually just say what do you got and then they they do the number crunching they you know i don't even ever i'll never know how many people watch the stuff i've made on netflix because they just famously don't share that information but maybe that's good in that you're just you're just pitching them things that you like and think would be good rather than trying

to program to their to their whatever their data is in total it is great and i'm not i'm not you know catering to the market or catering to what the marketing people are saying i'm literally just doing something and they'll be like we think in this and they don't need to they're not saying we think this because here's the data set they're just saying here's what works for us and and and frankly when we pitched the wet hot American Summer Series, they initially said no, because they ran their numbers and they were like, it would only work if we did it for this budget level, which would be impossible. And the only reason we got to make it is because we said, we'll do it for the impossible budget level. Just let us try. And it was a bit of a Trojan horse because it was

impossible. You know know it's interesting because you have really been a witness to this landscape change in the entertainment industry i mean it it has you know the way you know the democratization of distribution and the easier you know the production as well yeah yeah through your career uh has that affected you as a free agent as you been going through this have you been paying attention to it and what are your thoughts well i mean i've i've worked in these new media a lot you know i did a web series two web series really before either before web series was really a thing and then did a 15 minute series children's hospital um and and and then did a bunch of stuff for netflix and it's constantly changing and it's still a wild west

nobody's exactly sure which companies or which platforms or which delivery systems are the ones that are going to last versus the ones that are fly by night and i remember i think it was tim ferris saying like if you're trying to guess the next thing you're probably going to be wrong um or or if you're trying to like if you're trying to follow those trends you're probably already behind but if you just kind of use your gut and say this seems like something that i like and i'm interested in then that might help you get ahead of the curve but certainly even just a few years ago when we did our first project at netflix it was still nothing compared to what it's grown into today um and then a couple years before that netflix didn't even exist in the in the production world and so it's it's been in

watching the shifting landscape is a little scary but mostly it's exciting for me and now amazon and apple and all these other guys are getting involved too so and that and that'll three years from now we're not going to recognize any of what we're talking about with this i mean they it's moving so so fast with the right now it's i forget what the number is um john landgraf at fx counts it it's like they're 580 scripted series or something like that some ridiculous number and they're 8 billion from netflix and apple's going to start with a billion this year do you feel that in your career do you feel like there's more desire for content for stuff that you create can you feel in your career like oh they, there are way more buyers, there are way more meetings and more potential than there was five years ago?

I do think that it's expanded. But of course, you know, everyone's in their own specific world. But I do feel like, I mean, one of the things that's great about me being among me and my peers is that there's so many TV series that it's becoming more like maybe books are where nobody has heard of every show there's nobody and there's and and so i have close friends who have been on tv shows for five years and i didn't even know you know because there's just so many shows you can't possibly even know the titles of a quarter of them and so there's something liberating about that. You don't feel the pressure to know because it's impossible. And you can just kind of, it becomes more of like a working profession. Like I'm doing this show for the people who watch it. And 99% of shows never become part of the national conversation. There's only one or two Game of Thrones and then everybody else is kind

of making their show for their audience. And it's, there's something I sort of like about it. And then my kids will discover that show in like six years and binge it like crazy. Right. I mean, it is a little scary that it's all just stays there. Like that's the weird part. Like Netflix's menu just keeps growing and growing and growing. i is there ever going to be you know do they ever just say all right it's too many things on here but i guess not that's like the internet or google you know i do wonder if if at some point there will be a boomerang where somebody and it might be you it might be somebody you know where something just kind of is fine and then like four years later like it's like a meme on the internet it gets discovered and netflix says that the

sirens go off and netflix headquarters are like we should get these people on the phone this thing hit suddenly has hit it big because i know i see my daughter um consuming netflix and this happens where it's like oh what about this show and suddenly everybody she knows is watching some random not new netflix show and and i wonder things do happen all the time and certainly when things come on to Netflix, I mean, I made a movie five years ago, They Came Together, which did nothing in theaters or in the press

or anywhere when it came out. And six months later, when it went on to Netflix, suddenly everyone's like, oh, that's a great brand new movie. I love it. Even Wet Hot American Summer kind of had that revival. Wet Hot American Summer was a non event until it came out on dvd and that's when it began a very slow climb of word of mouth and passing back and forth over years um it didn't become we didn't make the money back

the tiny amount of money we made uh we spent to make, we didn't make it back for, I think, eight, nine years after release. And then 17 years later, we made a whole new series about it and then another one. You were talking earlier about when you were 27, you realized, oh, wait a second, this is hard and I have to plan. I have to, I have to plan. Um, um, what is, what was the hardest part for you, you know, through this career that you've had as a free agent? Um, I mean, I think one of the ongoing hardest parts, which I think all creative people deal with is this notion of, am I, uh, an imposter? You know, do I have anything to, am I, is this, have I faked it or lucked through it up until now? And now it's all done. I feel like I've been lucky that I don't have that chip in my head as much as some people. But I think everyone deals with this idea.

And especially when you're working in the area of comedy, humor, I think in particular, is so intangible and ephemeral. And every joke you write is theoretically a joke that's never been written before. And so, you're starting from an absolute scratch blank page every single time. And you're just hoping that those instincts will keep firing because it's not like, okay, I know how to make shoes and these are the steps. It's like, no, we have to come up with something fresh, which by definition is easily definable. And so it's a lot of trust. And so I think those struggles when you're like, okay, especially then, okay, I have kids now and I have a family to feed. And you're like, wow, now I really, this better work.

I better be funny. Well, I always laugh because my kids, I make jokes for my kids all the time. And they're like, dad, you are the least funny person in the world. And I'm like, I better be a little funnier or else we're all still going to starve. I think that imposter syndrome isn't just for creatives i think i think almost everybody experiences i'm sure it's a human quality um yeah or yeah some of them out at with my friends too and they're like david you're so funny and i'm like i i don't take that as a compliment i mean it's them saying david you have the ability to

sustain yourself i never really thought of it that way. What's the, what's the best part about this free agent life that you've led? I mean, I, there's so many best parts. It's like a fantasy life. I've, I've, I have fun every day. I laugh every day. I'm always, I mean, not always, but I'm often interacting with different, different kinds of people. I've gone to different types of places that I never would go, especially when you're shooting and location scouting. You end up in homes and businesses that you would otherwise have no business learning about. And I don't think I've ever had the same day twice. And that's something I'm super grateful for, especially as someone who gets easily bored. And I've worked with incredibly talented people that blow my

mind. And it's just a pleasure to watch them, you know, take my words or to collaborate with them. And so it's a lot of fun and it beats having any sort of actual job. How do you handle being away from home? I would imagine that you're at home for a while and then you're off somewhere for maybe weeks at a time. Have you just learned to deal with it? Do you relish that? It's a very different life for me. I'll go away for a conference.

David and I were just talking about this in our last episode. And you come back and you're just completely exhausted. But part of what you do probably requires you to go for extended periods of time to who knows where. Well, I have a lot of friends who have that situation much more than me. I mean, a lot of actors or other types of performers are constantly on the road and almost never home, and also a lot of crew people these days. For me, I was kind of doing that between New York and L.A. a lot in my 30s. And then when I had my first child 10 years ago and when he about five years ago, when he started kindergarten, we made the decision to move to Los Angeles for exactly the reason

that so I didn't have to be away 10 months a year. kindergarten, we made the decision to move to Los Angeles for exactly the reason that, so I didn't have to be away 10 months a year. And I frankly have just so far lucked into a situation where I really have not had to leave LA much in the last five years. And I've also prioritized that I have not sought out work outside of LA. and so I can be home with my kids a lot. Whether that will continue that way, I don't know. The next feature film might be shooting in New Zealand, for all I know. But to whatever degree I have control over it, I'm trying to stay where my family is. What's the one bit of advice you wish you had when you started?

Go back to the 27-year-old. If you were sitting in a room with them, what would you tell them? First of all, make sure to appreciate all the gifts of, of youth and of being without responsibility, you know, at those times when your, your only responsibility is to like pay your rent or whatever and not not worry about other people or any other major costs um and to take that time and and uh appreciate it um and other advice i would give that i that i didn't do at the time i guess um i don't know it's hard to say because i have a very weird chip in me that looks back on things with rose-colored glasses, even though they were sometimes so miserable.

And so I feel like the path I had is the path that was meant to be. So if I went back in time, I would mess up the space-time continuum. It's true. You can't do that. And I would end up with Chuck Berry or something. Well, we can't have that. I don't want to do that. No, I mean, your experience has got that. I don't want to do that.

No, I mean, your experience has got you where you are today, right? Exactly. I mean, those years we were talking about from when I was 27 to 35, I was very unhappy for a lot of that time. But actually, it's a good question. I don't know exactly how I would have done it any differently to be happier except for to have had different luck or something you know i'm gonna have to get back i don't have to get back to you on this one sometimes you just got to keep marching that's all i mean that's kind of what i did i just was like well just keep on and i got so used to failure one day i wrote down the 33 projects that i had tried to do over the last several years and,

and they all fell apart. And it was more of like a pity party for myself. I was just like, I wanted people to understand how hard this is or something. Um, and just keep going. I remember reading the Stephen King book where he had like a peg on his wall where everything that got rejected,

he would stick it on the peg. I like a letter. I forget the exact what he had done. He had kind of a monument to failure, but he just kept doing it. And it sounds to me that's what your thought was, too. Like, you went to NYU, this was your choice, and you were going to just keep going no matter what. It's also just part of it. I just feel like it's like if you're at a—I can't think of a better example.

it's also just part of it. I just feel like it's like if you're at a, I can't think of a better example. If you're like at a gun range and for every bullet that doesn't hit the exact bullseye, you consider that a failure. It's like, no, it's just this part of the,

what you're doing. Like you cannot possibly get a home run every time you're at bat, you know? And that's what my dad always was told me how Babe Ruth was the home run King. Cause he was also the strikeout king. And I think about that all the time. It's just like, go up at bat, go up at bat.

Well, David Wayne, thank you for coming on The Free Agents. It's my pleasure. I hope I was entertaining and informative the best I can be. Absolutely. proving our theory which is that yes people involved in the entertainment world are also living that free agent life and dealing with a lot of the same issues that those of us who are lawyers or writers or podcasters do and not having a real job making our parents wonder if we're going to be okay and all of those things i will say one thing that that that reminds me of is when i first had a kid i was so scared of how the hell am I going to get anything done?

And so for the first time, I rented a little room as an office outside of my home. And it was so helpful that my productivity skyrocketed in as soon as I had my first child. Cause I was, skyrocketed in as soon as I had my first child. Um, cause I was, it was my beginning of truly compartmentalizing my time in a way that was necessary and really helpful. Yeah. And also you had that feeling. I remember when my first daughter was born, the first time I held her, I was like, it's no longer about me. If I don't produce,

this person doesn't eat. And that is a big motivator. I saw Francis Coppola once speaking and it was in another era, as you can tell by what his answer was, but someone said, what's your best advice for a filmmaker? And he said, if you're a man, my advice is to get married and have kids because it will light a fire under

your ass every day to get work done. And if you're a woman, my advice is to not get married or have kids because it will stop you from doing your career. So I wonder if he would update that today. Hopefully the world works a little bit differently now, but I don't know whether it does or not. God willing.

Yeah. We sure hope it does. As we've said, I'm a big fan of the both of you and I'm happy to have been asked to do this. Well, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. You know, I got to say been asked to do this. Well, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it.

You know, I got to say, listening to you talk, I feel like your free agent journey is harder than most because it really is. It does feel like sometimes you're just blowing in the wind. You don't know. Yeah. But again, that's just, it's part of it though. And you started early, right? We did get to be established and get people to know who we were.

And then we're able to take some of our kind of recognizance with us to our independence where you you know you started out and you had you had the state but then you know you're still trying to establish yourself i think that's a lot harder to come right out of the gate and have to try and establish yourself from not a lot you know we we had the advantage of waiting until we were in our 40s to do it yeah but i'm i'm glad that I had my first big downtime in my 20s. Some people have had a great run that lasts longer. And I feel like if I never knew what it was like to be down until my 30s or 40s, it might have been a lot harder to deal with. Right. And then if you've got a mortgage and kids and things like that, the downtimes are much more stressful and awful, I would imagine, than if you're just somebody in your 20s.

As it happens, my career and my salary just happened to increase quite a bit right around when I started having kids. So, it's good. Good timing. Well done. Well planned. All right. So, I didn't realize you had a movie on Netflix now, too. What is that about? All right, so I didn't realize you had a movie on Netflix now, too. What is that about? It's called A Feudal and Stupid Gesture, and it tells the story of the National Lampoon and Doug Kenney, the guy who founded it, and how he then went on to make Animal House and Caddyshack. It's an amazing story about comedy.

And that's why the poster has the riff on buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog. And it stars Will Fort and emmy rossum and donald gleason and matt walsh it's a great i mean i i i hate to toot my own horn but i really like it i don't really i don't really hate to toot my own horn i'm going to watch it so i can't wait and um and everyone go go over to imdb and check out all the amazing stuff david has done it's uh it's quite an impressive body of work. And thank you so much for giving us your time here on The Free Agents. And please check out my new card trick that I just put up on Instagram.

I forgot you're a magician too, and a drummer. Anything I can do to distract myself from getting work done, I will do. I've been there, brother. I've been there. All right, David, that was great. David Sparks now. So many Davids in this episode. Yes, all the Davids. And we'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Free Agents. So if you would like to send us your questions or comments, that's the episode where we talk about what you ask us to talk about. So you could tweet at us at Free Agents FM. You can go to relay.fm slash free agents and click on the contact link on the left sidebar and send us an email that way.

Or you can go to our Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash freeagentsgroup and connect with all of the fellow free agents and listeners to the show that are in that group. Yes, you can. And get your feedback in. We really appreciate hearing from you. And it's a lot of fun talking about it on the show. We will see you all in two weeks. Bye, everybody.