Reboots vs. Remakes

In this week's episode of John August and Craig Mazin's Scriptnotes podcast, John and Craig answer a listener question regarding the difference between a "remake" and a "reboot."

The questioner (Ben) suggests this as the distinction between the two:

To me, you remake a singular film, and you reboot a franchise. "Stargate" can be rebooted because the TV series has continuity, and you can reboot or reset the continuity like a computer. There's no continuity to "Cliffhanger," though; it was a one-shot story. So it's a remake of "Cliffhanger," not a reboot.

To me (as well as to John and Craig) this makes total sense. And yet, as Ben points out, the entertainment industry rarely makes this distinction in practice. Virtually any time you read in Variety or Deadline about a new version of an existing property, the term being used is "reboot" (or "re-imagining," which wasn't mentioned on the podcast but is also commonplace) by either the publication or the studio or both.

So, why?

For one thing, there's the fact that Hollywood is, always has been, and always will be addicted to buzzwords. The moment a word or phrase becomes associated with something cool or popular or innovative, everyone instantly wants to use it to refer to everything, regardless of whether it actually fits. (I guarantee you that right this second, an executive somewhere is using the phrase "killer third act" to describe a macchiato.) Reboots have been having their moment ever since the mid-aughts, when Batman Begins and Casino Royale kicked off the trend (followed by Star Trek a few years later). Remakes just haven't enjoyed the same cachet; some have been successful (the Steve Martin Pink Panther) and some have been well-reviewed (the Denzel Washington Manchurian Candidate) but I can't think of any that have really lit the place up. Studios want to use the term associated with big hits, so they're apt to say "reboot" no matter what.

But while I think optics is a big part of this issue (as it is with most issues in Hollywood), I think there's more to it. I think the word "reboot" genuinely speaks to what studios hope and believe is possible with the films they're making.

The original Cliffhanger was a huge hit, taking in over $250 million worldwide (in 1993 dollars), and Stallone was still at or near his peak of stardom, but there was never a Cliffhanger 2. (In fact, of the top ten grossing films of 1993, the only one that was sequel-ized was Jurassic Park.) Here, twenty-one years later, such a situation is pretty much unthinkable; a studio president could easily be fired for declining to greenlight a sequel to one of the biggest movies of the year. And you can bet that the new version of Cliffhanger will be written with an eye toward making it a franchise, and that its stars will be contracted for at least three films. That's just the way things work now. (Pretty much the only studio movies that aren't designed with sequels in mind are Oscar-bait films, and there are even exceptions to that rule.) So, when Cliffhanger is referred to as a reboot -- even though it only ever existed as a standalone film that wasn't part of a larger mythology -- it's not an accident, and it's not just chronic buzzword-ism.

The one time the word "remake" is still useful is when a foreign-language film garners so much buzz from festivals and the Internet that an American studio decides that they need to produce their own version of it (Let Me In, for example). And in these cases, the studio wants to indicate that the movie will hew pretty closely to its source, except that it'll be in English with actors we all recognize. They're not trying to reinvent the wheel; they're just trying to sweep up all the money that was left on the table due to subtitle-phobia (and the fact that foreign films are rarely screened outside of major cities).

Gurus and Mentors

To the average Angeleno (and even moreso to people outside L.A.) screenwriters are a semi-amusing cliche: neurotic navel-gazers drinking too much caffeine and alcohol and fretting about all kinds of first-world problems.  Actual in-depth explorations into the life of the average writer are rarely published in the mainstream; instead, they're typically confined to the subsection of print and online media that is specifically By Screenwriters, For Screenwriters: magazines like Creative Screenwriting and Scr(i)pt, or the self-published blogs of individual writers (like, say, the one you're reading).

I was pretty intrigued, therefore, when the L.A. Times Review of Books published an article that is premised on the exact kind of navel-gazing that usually keeps us writers from being seen outside the walls of our own community.  The piece, written by Jonathan Zimmerman, is titled, "A Three Act Journey in the Land of the Screenwriting Gurus," and it explores a topic that is a perpetual hot button among screenwriters -- namely, the vast (and ever-increasing) numbers of screenwriting how-to guides.

Zimmerman's story is familiar to me and, I imagine, to most writers like me.  He wanted to be a screenwriter, but he grew up far away from The Industry (in Rhode Island), and thus it made sense to turn to screenwriting books as a primary source of knowledge on the subject.  One book turned into 25, and eventually he found that he was relying on how-to books so extensively that his work no longer even looked like his own: "Years later, I see as much Vogler [the author of one popular screenwriting guide] in the script as myself. It is stilted and feels foreign, like an awkward paint-by-numbers attempt at classical storytelling. Rather than writing, I’d been regurgitating undigested bits of Vogler onto the page, and the results were as unappetizing as they sound."  

He is far from alone in this experience.  Most screenwriting books are their own little bibles.  (One of them is even called The Screenwriter's Bible.)  They preach an orthodoxy that is designed to guide you through every word of your script, and writers both new and experienced can easily be tempted to follow them just as religiously as people tend to do with other holy books.  I've been in writing groups where people criticized my work simply by pointing out that it didn't follow the prescriptions of certain screenwriting books.  It is frankly a pretty spineless way of giving feedback, because you're ostensibly taking your own opinion out of the equation and outsourcing your criticism to a supposedly omniscient third party.  And yes, I'm sure I've done it myself on occasion.  Looking another writer in the eye and telling her that you, personally, have problems with her script is not an easy thing to do, especially for those of us who have very consciously chosen an introvert-friendly profession.  Likewise, when it comes to the actual writing, inventing your own stories and characters whole-cloth never ceases to be a frightening proposition.  Much easier in both cases to have a rock-hard set of principles to rely on, so that all you have to do is fill in the blanks.  

Eventually, Zimmerman decides that he'll need to abandon his screenwriting book crutches if he's truly going to move forward in his career.  It's a noble conclusion, but the guy's only written three scripts.  I'll bet you lunch at The Ivy that he dives back into the guides at least a couple more times.  And I don't blame him.  I've sworn off screenwriting books several times, which obviously means that I've also gone back on that vow several times.  In that time, I've come to the conclusion that these books are appealing to many of us not just because they're a synthetic cure-all for our creative woes, but because they're filling a genuine void -- taking the place of something that is sorely lacking in the world of screenwriting.  And that thing is mentorship.

In many professions, mentorship is a given. If you get into medical school, you're going to spend a lot of time around actual doctors, watching them do their jobs and getting plenty of feedback on your own techniques.  But if you want to be a screenwriter?  There's nothing remotely similar in place, unless you're lucky enough to have an aunt or uncle or family friend who's a successful writer and willing to show you the ropes.  (The Writers Guild has some mentorship programs, but they're only available to Guild members, which is kind of like starting your medical residency once you've already been hired as a surgeon.)  We are essentially on our own from the moment we decide to pursue a career in the field -- even our closest friends and family members don't usually understand what it is we're doing.  Is it any wonder that we could be drawn in by a book that promises to sit down with us and talk about how this whole thing works, what we're doing wrong, and what we need to do to succeed?

Obviously, screenwriting books are a dismal substitute for actual mentorship.  Most of the people who write these books are not mentors, but "gurus," to use Zimmerman's terminology.  They are not moved to write these books as a result of their stature in the industry (in fact, very few of them are successful working writers), but rather because they just happen to have figured out the principles of good screenwriting and they want to share their knowledge with the community.  Mentorship is a far less lofty principle, and yet far more useful.  You don't have to be brilliant, or even above average, to be a mentor.  You just have to be willing to show the next generation how you do what you do.  It sounds like a simple concept, but good luck finding it if you're an aspiring writer, because it's just not part of the infrastructure of the profession.  And as long as that's the case, self-professed screenwriting gurus will always be able to earn a living on the backs of the Jonathan Zimmermans of the world.

Managing myself

I have neither an agent nor a manager, so I don't have any firsthand experience working with either one, but I believe I have a pretty decent grasp of the difference between the two roles. An agent finds you work that's as frequent and lucrative as possible, while a manager is more focused on steering you toward the projects that are right for you and your career. These days I find myself spending a lot of time and energy doing the latter. Putting together a decent script takes me months -- sometimes a few, sometimes several -- and I want to have something significant to show for that kind of temporal investment. I want a solid addition to my portfolio, something that really helps to sell me as a writer. So I have to choose the right thing to write. I have to be my own manager.

Here are some of the criteria I use in determining whether an idea is worth my time to develop:

1. Is the idea high-concept; i.e., easily pitchable?

No, this is not me happily internalizing the marketing-driven world of today's studio system. I just want to make sure that people will read what I write, and I'm not exactly a known quantity in Hollywood (despite having 136 followers on Twitter, at least half of whom are not spam-bots!). But if I can sum up the appeal of the script in a zippy logline, then a stranger in a position of power just might deign to pick it up. To quote one of my favorite movies, these are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.

2. Can I actually pull it off?

If coming up with a script that fit criterion #1 above were all it took, then L.A. would be stuffed to the gills with millionaire scribes. Great high-concept ideas are a dime a dozen; people who can execute those ideas are rich. A humanoid dinosaur and a supermodel travel back in time to stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I would write that if I thought I could pull it off, because why not? Someone's going to read that script if it comes across their desk. But I don't think I have the chops.

Managers pride themselves on knowing their clients' creative strengths and weaknesses. As my own manager, I have to know mine. There are certain types of characters, certain types of scenes, certain types of plots that I know I can do well. I'm good at snappy dialogue and unexpected injections of humor. I can write a passable action scene, but I'm better at building and sustaining tension. These are all major considerations in the kind of script I choose to write.

3. Does the idea of writing this excite me?

This is a no-brainer, and should be for anyone writing a spec. If you have the power to choose what you write, choose something that really sparks your interest and makes you look forward to sitting down at the computer. Even the scripts that most ignite your passions will cause you pain and frustration at some point (if not many points), so it's essential to find a project that makes all that suffering worthwhile.

The right details

Here's a sample scene.

INT. BAR - NIGHT

Dim lighting from four overhead incandescent bulbs. Another six are burned out. The walls are brick and concrete; three crooked nails are hammered into the far side, about five feet up. Nine metal and vinyl stools are positioned against the bar, and thirteen tall, faded oak tables with three barstools each are staggered around the rest of the interior. The bar itself is polished mahogany, chipped away in places. The wall behind the bar is a mirror with protruding glass shelves, holding the following bottles of liquor (left to right): Dewar's, Johnnie Walker Red, Johnnie Walker Blue, Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Knob Creek, Captain Morgan, Bacardi Gold, Bacardi Silver, Appleton Estate...

Okay, that's enough. Clearly, that's not how you write a script you want anyone to read. Unless it's animation! Then, from what I hear, you have to write it that way; otherwise, the animators won't know they need to draw all those things. Or, if the entire movie takes place in that bar, you could probably get away with that level of detail. But if you're writing a normal cinematic scene and you want to put the reader inside this location, this is not the way to do it. You need details, yes, but they need to be the right details.

So what are the right details? In my opinion, they're the details that convey (a) something distinguishing and (b) something emotional. Looking at the bloated description at the top of the page, the list of alcohols on display doesn't fit either of those criteria. You'd find most of those at any bar in America, from the Bel Air Hotel to an airport in Fort Lauderdale. And there's little emotional impact to be mined from rattling off a list of common boozes. On the other hand, the description of the lighting is much closer to the mark, if not exactly Oscar-worthy. The fact that more than half the bulbs are burned out signals that the place might not be all that well taken care of; might not be clean; might not be safe. Suppose our protagonist is a pre-teen girl and she has to walk into this bar alone, late at night. With that one brief sentence of description, we're starting to trigger emotional reactions in the reader. This place is no TGI Friday's. Something bad might happen.

Changing things up

The start of a new year is a natural time to make some changes, so I'm going to do that. I've been writing this blog since early 2008, and it's been a great opportunity to put down in print a lot of principles that have crystallized for me in the course of my development as a writer. (That was my mission statement, after all.)

But as time goes by, I find I'm devoting less energy to learning and more to applying what I've learned. Principles occur to me less often, and exceptions to the principles I've already learned occur to me more often. As a result, when I sit down to write a post about some basic tenet of screenwriting, I usually end up putting it on the back burner or discarding it all together, because I've already started mentally poking holes in it. And thus I've ended up with a whole lot of unfinished mini-essays on all sorts of topics. I only published eight posts in all of 2010, but I probably started three times that many; I just couldn't quite bring them off.

So I think I'm done with the didactic stuff for the time being. (The post below was kind of my last hurrah in terms of passing on tips and lessons.) But I'm not done with this blog. To the contrary: I'd like to expand it to include a wider variety of topics on movies, TV, books, L.A., and entertainment in general. I'd like to write about some of these things without forcing myself to tie them directly to lessons about screenwriting.

Anyway, we'll see how that goes.

Things I've Learned About Screenwriting, In Handy Bullet-Point Form

The end of the year (and beginning of the next) is a great time to make lists, isn't it? Everyone else seems to think so, and since I'd be hard pressed to come up with a list of the ten alt-punk albums with the best allusions to midcentury Bauhaus architecture, I think I'll just spout off a list of random things I've learned about screenwriting in the last ten or so years that I've been doing it.

• Drinking and screenwriting don't mix. Sure, it seems like every famous novelist of the last 700 years was known to suck down a few before sitting down at the computer/typewriter/quill, but screenwriting is different. You need full access to your logical mind, which is exactly the thing that alcohol takes away. Save the cocktail for after you're done; it'll help you decompress.
  
  
• If you decide to write a script because you think it will be a good learning experience -- and not because the story and characters excite you -- then don't expect it to be anything other than a learning experience.
  
  
• That being said, every script (and every rewrite) should be a learning experience anyway, and you should be looking for ways to grow and expand your talent with each one. Take chances; do things a little differently than you did last time.
  
  
• Writing advice is like religion: it's ubiquitous and comes in many varieties. It's also like religion in that people tend to use it to validate their own preconceptions, rather than challenge them. Thus, if you're the impulsive, impatient type, you're likely to fixate on the charming curmudgeon who tells you to plunge straight into the first draft with zero prep work, and ignore the zen master who tells you to spend two months on character sketches before you even outline. Which is too bad, because it's the second guy you should be listening to.
  
  
• Don't let anyone tell you that dialogue doesn't matter. There is virtually no script that cannot be made better by improving the dialogue, even if all the other elements are perfect.
  
  
• However, banter is not good dialogue.
  
  
• Also, improving the dialogue often means cutting some of it out.
  
  
• By far the most important reason to write an outline is to ensure that you have enough great scenes for a complete script. It's not fun, but you know what's less fun? Getting to page 50 and realizing you're already in the third act. If you're tempted to skip straight to FADE IN: without outlining, it almost definitely means you're going to come up short.
  
  
• About 10% of people who say they have writer's block are actively struggling with a story problem. The other 90% are just afraid to sit down to write because they think they'll have writer's block when they do.
  
  
• When reviewing someone else's script, be brutally honest but always leave them some hope. Find things to like about their writing style, or one of the characters, or something else. Say the nice things first, then go into the faults, and end with a statement of confidence in their ability to improve the script. All the better if you can find a great scene and tell them that more of the script should be like that. If their response is to defend almost every point that you criticized, well, that's too bad for them. The surest sign of a novice writer is the inability to handle criticism (and even more importantly, to use it).
  
  
• An "everyman" (or everywoman) protagonist who does exactly what the audience would do in the same situation is interesting only if she finds herself in truly extraordinary circumstances -- and even then, a more unusual character is usually more compelling.
  
  
• People who aren't writers themselves can often give incredibly useful feedback, because (a) they're human beings with feelings, just like your characters, and (b) they see movies.
  
  
• When you tell yourself that a script will be easy to write, what you're actually saying is that it will be easy to write badly.
  
  
• The great thing about aspiring to be a professional screenwriter is that you already get to do the exact same thing that the pros do. Nothing's stopping you from writing a movie that would cost $250 million to produce. Aspiring directors sure don't have that luxury.
  
  
• Lots of movies and scripts fail because the tone is inconsistent. And lots of movies and scripts succeed in spite of all kinds of other problems because the tone is perfect.
  
  
• A good action scene is not one in which a lot of cool things happen; it's one in which the audience legitimately worries that the good guys will lose.
  
  
• Never be afraid to think bigger. You want people to read your script and imagine a movie on a fifty-foot screen, not a webisode on an iPhone.
  
  
• If you find that you're forced to suck all the fun out of your premise simply for the sake of adhering to logic and "rules," then you're doing it wrong. A great premise that is well-serviced by the story and characters is the brass ring of screenwriting. If you can pull that off, nobody's going to notice whether you've broken a few "rules."
  
  
• And yes, the word "rules" should always be in quotes when it comes to screenwriting.
  
  

That's about all I can think of for now. ("For now" being the last few weeks that I've worked on and off on this list.) Happy new year and happy writing!

Anatomy of a (brief) partnership

The second half of 2010 has been kind of all over the place, writing-wise. In May I got married and went on my honeymoon having just completed the best script I ever wrote -- the first one that I could honestly say showcased my strengths as a writer. It earned a high score from ScriptShark, which meant it would be scouted to a variety of management and production companies. In the grand scheme of things this was a relatively small amount of validation, but it felt pretty great nonetheless; I mean, if one professional script reader thinks I have talent, I can at least hypothesize that there might be others out there who agree with him.

Anyway, when I returned from my hybrid Costa Rica-Las Vegas honeymoon (no, it wasn't planned that way), it was time to get cracking on a new project. Earlier in the year I'd talked with a writer friend about collaborating, and in June the time was finally right for both of us. We feel that we each have strengths we can bring to the table, as well as the added advantage of extra brainpower to tackle whatever problems come up.

Here's how that ends up going.

In early June, I work up a quick pitch for an espionage thriller/romantic comedy and meet my new writing partner for drinks to run it by him. He likes it! We're off to the races, bouncing around plot and character ideas, recommending movies to each other to watch for inspiration, and generally being excited about the prospect of writing a great script together.

Over the next couple weeks we exchange a lot of emails, discussing ways to improve the premise, strengthen the conflicts, and so forth. Then we meet up again to hash out our plan for moving forward. During that meeting we realize that what we have probably won't work. There are elements we like a lot, but also some very big, very fundamental problems that we can't see a way past. So we put our idea aside and start spitballing a new one along similar lines. By the end of the meeting we have a solid character and premise that seems like it'll sustain a movie.

Another week or so goes by. More emails, more spitballing, more story problems cropping up. When two people have to agree on everything that goes into a story, I begin to realize, the process is a lot less quick. We talk on the phone at one point and it feels like we've hit the wall once again. This time, the idea seems pretty solid but we're not at all sure it's going to be funny. (Our purpose from the beginning has been to write a great script that's both thrilling and hilarious.) Long silences on the line as we each try to think up a way to rescue the idea from the jaws of extinction. Finally, it occurs to me to change the story's setting to something more conducive to comedy. That we we can play the life-or-death stuff absolutely straight and rely on the incongruous surroundings to make people laugh. My partner likes this. He likes it a lot. Once more, we're off to the races!

Within a week, my partner is getting cold feet again. He's not sure it's going to work. But this time I really feel confident in the concept, so I decide to bang out the first 12 pages of the script to show him what I have in mind. And when I say "bang out," I really mean it. I haven't written a single page of script in months at this point and I can barely stand it. All the pent-up creative energy I've been storing up comes bursting forth, and it's every bit as thrilling and hilarious as I've imagined. I send it to my partner, he's fully on board with the approach, and -- you guessed it -- we're off to the races.

For a while. Then we start hitting more walls. We're exchanging lots of emails, can't seem to find a way to move forward, and then finally I toss out a brand-new idea for a completely different movie. Just something that popped into my head. Another espionage thriller/comedy, this time a sort of Spy vs. Spy with a romantic twist.

He loves it. I love it. We quickly decide to abandon our previous idea and move on to this one. It's fun, it's funny, it's easily pitchable, it's everything I've been wanting to write.

We're off! To! The! Races!

I'm about to leave town for a few days for another wedding, so we meet up before I leave and hash out a writing plan. We're not fooling around this time -- we feel like there's a real spark with this one, so we want to get right on it. I whip up the beginnings of an opening sequence from the road, and it doesn't flow as easily as I'd hoped but that doesn't faze me because I'm still in love with the concept. There are ideas that you really have to finesse to turn into a good script, and there are ideas that you just have to avoid screwing up, and this one is definitely the latter. Once I get home, my partner and I really get to work. I'm writing pages, he's writing pages, new ideas are coming fast and furious. Yes, progress has been slow up to now, but the great thing about working with a partner is that once you're really moving, you can move twice as fast.

Once again we hit some logistical snags with the plot and characters. The scenario is brilliant, but we're not sure how we arrive at it in a believable way. It's kind of like when Hitchcock demanded that the finale of North by Northwest take place on the faces of Mount Rushmore, and left it up to Ernest Lehman to figure out a natural way to end the story there. He did, but his account of how painful that process was is legendary. (The only difference with us is that there's no Hitchcock involved and also that we're not getting paid.) Undeterred, we continue working out story beats and writing pages. This will work, we think. It has to. It's great.

But within a few weeks I start to have serious doubts. The big problem, as I see it, is our insistence on making it a genuine action/comedy. For a movie in that genre to work, the premise has to be absolutely solid as an action flick, and then you can start dropping in the laughs. If the premise isn't solid, then you've only got a comedy, and that's not what we're going for. (True Lies is an action-comedy; Austin Powers is just a comedy, even though it has just as many guns and spies. We want to write a movie more like True Lies.) There just doesn't seem to be a way to keep all the story elements we want and make it believable. We wrack our brains over this issue for days and come up with nothing.

Finally, I meekly propose going back to the story idea that we had abandoned in favor of this one -- the idea for which I wrote those great first 12 pages. Maybe we were too hasty in moving on from that one, I suggest. Luckily, my partner is pretty malleable in these types of situations, so he says, sure, let's pick it up again. The advantage of having shifted gears for the past month is that we're able to look at the old idea with a fresher perspective. Now, with a few changes, it seems absolutely doable.

We meet up to hash out the story. (The Borders in Century City has been serving as our war room. It's a good spot for conversation, there's free parking, and nobody tries to kick you out for not ordering enough.) After an hour or so of discussion, we feel like we're ready to get going. This was always a good idea, and now it feels better than ever. With both of us cranking out pages on a regular basis, we should have a first draft in a month and a polished and ready-to-go script before Thanksgiving.

This time we're more tenacious than ever. When something doesn't work, we keep hammering at it until it's fixed. For a solid month and a half we're writing and rewriting, outlining and re-outlining, fully committed to producing an actual script. Sometimes it really feels like it's going to work.

But sometimes it really, really doesn't. And frankly, I'm getting impatient. By now I've devoted four months to this endeavor; it took me less time than that to produce the best script I've written. I'm anxious to keep moving toward my goal, which is to have a great portfolio of scripts that can get me paying work. It's starting to seem like this collaboration isn't the best way to get there. I share my frustrations with Alexis and her opinion is that I should do as much as I can to make the partnership work, because at the very least it will turn out to be a good learning experience for me. I agree with her logic; she knows that I tend to be impatient with just about everything, and it would be a shame to sacrifice all these months of effort.

Still, I can't help but hedge a little. It's been a long time since I've worked on anything that was my own, and I can't stop new ideas from coming to me. One day, when I feel like my writing self really needs cheering up, I take the day off work and challenge myself to come up with ten good story pitches in a variety of genres. That night, I read them to Alexis and our friend Rossanna over drinks and ask for their opinion. One idea in particular -- pitch number eight -- stands out to both of them as a winner, especially based on my personal writing strengths. Naturally, I start itching to write it.

Meanwhile, the collaboration is faring no better. The next time my partner and I meet up, we realize that we simply don't have enough story, and don't have any ideas for making it longer. Long silence ensues. It feels like we've hit every possible wall at this point, and I think we're both questioning our ability to cross the finish line.

I can't hold back any longer. I desperately want another script under my belt in 2010, I have a great idea for one, and if I start now I can make it happen. So, after a long sigh, I tell my partner that maybe the best solution is to step back from the material for a while and work on other projects. We can return to it later, with fresher minds.

He's okay with that plan.

I tell him about the idea I've hatched, the one that I already successfully pitched to my wife and our friend.

"That's the best idea you've ever had," he says. "You should go write that."

And like that, it's over. I go back to my world; he goes back to his. I drive straight to the nearest Umami Burger, whip out my notepad and start jotting down ideas. This time, when I hit a wall, I have no one but myself to consult... but I feel okay about that. It's worked for me up to now. If I'm diligent, I might just get a first draft done before 2010 is out.

The partnership didn't end up working the way I'd hoped, but that doesn't mean I won't try it again. Collaborating was interesting, even enlightening. It forced me to think in different ways than I'm used to, which is never a bad thing. Maybe best of all, it kept me focused on my own strengths as a writer, because I always wanted to be sure I was bringing something useful to the table. Hopefully, I'll be bringing a lot more the next time I team up with someone.