Tracking the Emotion with ‘The Studio’ Writers Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck and Frida Perez

In “The Studio,” Seth Rogen stars as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of embattled Continental Studios. As movies struggle to stay alive and relevant, Matt and his core team of infighting executives battle their insecurities as they wrangle narcissistic artists and craven corporate overlords in the ever-elusive pursuit of making great films. With their power suits masking their never-ending sense of panic, every party, set visit, casting decision, marketing meeting and award show presents them with an opportunity for glittering success or career-ending catastrophe. As someone who eats, sleeps and breathes movies, it’s the job Matt’s been pursuing his whole life, and it may very well destroy him.

From first glimpse, you may think The Studio is a nice cozy warm comedy about waxing poetic on the Golden Era of Hollywood. Yes… sure it is… but it’s not cozy. It’s an edge of your seat, belly laughs til your sides ache, pointing at the TV nodding in approval at Hollywood insider jokes and leaving absolutely gob smacked that they did that whole episode (nay, 10 episodes) as oners. Now, oners are nothing new. They’ve been used by many (some good, some not so good) – but those that did it great, like Scorsese with Goodfellas – you can understand the intention behind this “trick shot” camera move.

So how do you apply a oner camera move to your writing? Well look no further (well actually, read this and then watch/rewatch The Studio) and learn some insider “writing” baseball on how to utilize camera movements in your scripts. Intention. Intention. Intention.

Show creators Alex Gregory, Petery Huyck and Frida Perez (sans Goldberg and Rogen), discussed with Script the development and the themes of their show, their personal investment in their work and how that’s reflected in the show and the character’s passion for their careers, the show’s unique shooting style capturing an immersive viewing experience while keeping tensions high. And really a whole lot more about the importance of authenticity, collaboration and well… more. Read on.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: First, let’s talk about the development of these characters and how their lofty career goals are really their personal life goals and how you string that throughout this first season.

Alex Gregory: Well, I think it's kind of reflection of all of us on the show of how intensely we feel every bit of our job - like every slight feels life threatening and every victory feels like it's the most important thing in the world when no one outside of LA County gives a flying f*ck. I think what we all brought to it was just the intensity of our own feelings about this business and what it means to be committed to this world. And then you take people that aren't actually on the artist side, who really, really, really want to be, in the case of Matt, really, really wants to be an artist and cares as much as an artist would. I think that's where all the stakes of the show come from.

Sadie: Bringing your own personal background into that world, was there a staple memory from when you were first starting out in your early 20s that was a bit of a life or death moment this was like a life or death moment that you were able to sprinkle into the show?

Peter Huyck: Probably, I speak for all of us when I say, every time we create something, we put so much heart into it, and we care so much about it. But what is funny about it is it might be a movie called A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, and it's just about a group of friends that are kind of nerds and uptight, and they try and throw an orgy. And you're like, why would you care that much about an independent comedy, about a group of friends that try to sleep with each other [laughs] like it's the 60s again? But you just do - you care so much.

And when that movie comes out, and you thought people were gonna love it and the Rotten Tomato score is dropping, you feel like you're dying inside and you're a failure, and you spend years of your life on something that people are just attacking savagely.

That's just one example of all the things. And then when it goes well, like, say, on The Studio, you put out something, you put your heart and soul into, and people seem to really like it and understand it and enjoy it. You feel like you're walking on air.

So, it really is that thing of each one of these little things you create has so much of your personal investment in it that you understand it's silly to be that invested in it, but you do care. For us, that's every character on the show - they care so much. I think that's why, hopefully the average viewer relates to it. Because whatever your job is, even if you don't work in Hollywood, you really care about all the small parts of your life. I think everyone can see a bit of themselves in Matt Remick or Sal Saperstein or Maya, they all have, I think, relatable qualities to just everyone, how they approach their jobs.

Frida Perez: Obviously, when you're just starting out... like an industry, like Hollywood... it's hard, it's hard to get anything made, it's hard to get your first break. I think Quinn's desperate ruthlessness… I'm not as ruthless, but the desperation I really identified with and feeling like, if it's not going to happen now, it might never happen, so you might as well just go full throttle.

Sadie: I totally get that. I'd love to talk about how the camera carries and amplifies tension and humor. Was that initially written in the script beforehand, or is that something you guys are working out as you're doing your camera tests the day of, to make sure it does flow and the energy is there.

Frida: Seth and Evan, as the directors of the show, who directed every single episode from day one, they had this idea, this shooting style. So, we knew that once we started writing. We had the basic rules, which is, assume every scene would have to happen in one shot, if possible, try to compress time so it’s as continuous as possible.

The oner was the shining example of the shooting style, but we took that basis and kind of sprinkled it in with the whole series to give it a really unified feeling. And we wrote everything with this in mind. For "The Golden Globes" I remember when we first we're scouting, we were like, 'Does this fit this part of the script and that part of the script?' It was very hand in hand to the cinematography and the writing.

Sadie: I would assume you’re also having those conversations with your production designer and DP to make sure you’re not all falling over each other.

Frida: Totally. I remember early on, we sat with Adam our DP, literally in the writers' room. We were like, 'Can you move from here to here?' He was part of it in the room with us at some points, which is cool.

Peter: So much of that it does affect the writing. Because normally you would write a reaction shot of this person reacting to that moment. But you realize you can't - you can maybe whip to someone, or if they're in frame, you can cheat to them, but as you're envisioning the scenes, normally, you're cutting back and forth as you're writing. The “Cut To” in our scripts, other than a new scene doesn't really exist. A lot of it is just envisioning how you would want to block scenes and actually have them play out in your head. Because, yeah, just live with the camera as you're writing the scenes, which is a different way of writing a little bit from what we've really, any of us have ever done before.

Alex: You can't cheat time or distance. So, if someone's going to walk out of the room, you have to carry them out of the room, and that might mean you have to write dialogue that times to how long it's going to take to walk out of the room or to cross the room. What it does do, though, and people have described that there's sometimes a discomfort factor in watching the show, is that the lack of cutting away means that you're trapped in these situations, as if you are really in them. So, the immersive quality is something that we were hoping would work. And I think, based on people's responses, it seems like it really is giving people that sense of being a fly on the wall and being in the room where it all happens.

Sadie: That reminds me of the very slick shot in the pilot episode where Matt is with Scorsese and he’s buying the Jonestown script, and there's that great coverage, because you can't cut, of just that simple move of Matt standing up, putting his leg on the table and then you swing around… brilliant.  It really does feel immersive.

Peter: And that, again, that is all, it's so much obviously Seth and Evan, the vision... and the camera operators. We've got this camera operator named Mark [Goellnicht], who is built like a Marvel superhero, and he will be like in a squat for 20 minutes doing these takes. And he knows the script as well as any of the actors, as well as any of us, and the directors.

It's impossible to put enough thanks towards the camera team for how they execute, because we can write these sequences and these scenes... but something about the way that they've captured them with the hand cameras and the cranes and people take them to the back of cars... when you watch it actually be filmed, you think,  [laughs] 'We wrote it, we hope they are able to pull it off.' And then you're on the set, you're going, 'Oh my gosh, they are. They're actually doing it and better than we ever could have hoped.' It's amazing.

Sadie: There's so much Hollywood inside baseball jokes in the show, and Hollywood history and more. When breaking the series and episodes knowing what to choose, what to run with that will satisfy both the industry and those outside of the Hollywood machine?

Alex: As long as you're tracking the emotion, you can throw as many bits of jargon and arcane references as possible. If you watch Succession, I don't know what they're talking about half the time in terms of the business stuff, but I'm getting that they're upset about this because of that, or they want this because of that. And as long as you're tracking, and I think you can throw a lot of insider baseball if you know where the people's hearts and minds are. So, I think that we're always very, very careful to track where characters are emotionally in scenes at all times. I think that's a major factor in being able to do insider baseball.

Frida: And I think it's also an authenticity thing too. This is kind of how we talk; we're always throwing references around. I think the film nerdy stuff, I hope, and think is a reflection of the world that we all inhabit and are really familiar with... it just gives it a real texture I think that is super intentional. But then also, as our jobs as storytellers are to make the particular universal. So, I think from that, these little dramas we have, we do the actual work of writing, which is what is the heart of everything?

Sadie: Going off of that, creating this show's own identity, it's not a straight parody. And there's a consistency to your world building plus running with the idea of making original stories and not IP driven fluff – fight the good fight – curious as to how you all kept that consistency on the page to shooting it, while also perhaps fighting those outside influences.

Frida: I feel like the battle of we want to make good movies but we're also with the economics of the industry is, again, something we just deal with all the time. And I think with the show, I don't think we're saying that all of IP is bad, necessarily, but it's more like, wow, look at the influence that these trends have on us. Also, even the idea of content... the pressure that puts on everybody in the industry. We're battling with the things that the characters are battling with, and we're just trying to do what we can do to survive, as are the people of Continental.

Peter: But it is funny now, because we have so many friends in the industry… whenever they're going to try and pitch on an idea they know is no good, they all say they have a Kool Aid movie pitch the next day, [laughs] like, ‘I'm pitching a Hamburglar movie tomorrow.’ Legit, I had a friend who was pitching on the Hamburglar movie recently, and he really wanted the job. And he was like, 'Buddy, you have no idea how true to life your show is. I've been working for a month on a Hamburglar pitch.' [laughs] It's where we are in the industry, so we have to capture that moment.

Sadie: What was the biggest learning curve you had as writers, as well as creators of the show, from season one that you're going to carry with you on to this next season?

Peter: An interesting thing, from a writing standpoint, that we do that's different from any other show I've ever worked on, is we only do an A story. We don't have a B or C story. So even going back to King of the Hill or Veep or Larry Sanders, you would always have these multiple storylines running. And for this, there's always just an A story. It's great because it keeps the episode really focused. This is the episode about X, but then also it means you have to find a way to weave in this amazing ensemble of characters.

And that is part of the challenge is, because you only have an A story, everyone has to impact that and kind of relate to it and play off of it, but I think the show is at its best when you do have as many of these amazing characters in the mix as possible. So that's what we found from season one was really some of the best material was when we found a way to utilize the entire cast. But that is a challenge when you all have is an A story and you shoot everything as a oner. [laughs]

Frida: Piggybacking off of that, wanting to use that entire cast. When we first wrote it, we had some of the cast. We got some of them late. You can only anticipate so much how each actor embodies each character. So, once we saw them all really embody the roles, it just clarified so much. And you can, really be like, ‘OK, that actor is really hitting this section really well, let's push them more there.’ The things that you might write that seems super ungrounded... the actors just ground them amazingly. And you're like, OK, cool, we can really push these characters further than we thought we could, where as before, you're kind of keeping it like, what doesn't seem crazy on the page, type of thing.

Alex: What was nice was also discovering what works and what doesn't. So, I think that we hit the ground in season two with a much greater awareness of what we cannot do. Even though we push it as much as we can so that it's not a repeat of what we've done, we're also aware of where we can and cannot go, so the guide rails are always there. And I think that actually helps with the creative.

Peter: Jumping off of what Frida said. It was very interesting season one to see the characters change with the actors, with what they brought to it. In the pilot, we really thought Griffin Mill, the boss character, was going to be kind of the hard ass, the antagonist who was going to just be making Matt's life miserable. But then when Bryan Cranston showed up, he changed the wardrobe, the approach, the whole comedy area, and kind of that whole character came to life in a way that was almost different from what we'd envisioned Initially.

So, the collaboration with the actors at each part, with Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O'Hara, the characters really changed. I think going into season two, now we have a better sense of Griffin Mill is not the hard ass jerk boss. He's the central madman character [laughs] that you write in a very different way. Now I think we have a better sense of how to utilize our full cast to their best capacities.

Golden Globe winning series The Studio is streaming on AppleTV+