Showrunner, screenwriter and The Airport Chaplain co-creator Elise McCredie

0:02Welcome to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Caris Bizzaca, and I'm recording this podcast from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, where I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands. Always was, always will be.

0:21Today's episode features Elise McCredie, an award-winning showrunner and screenwriter, whose most recent series, The Airport Chaplain, is available to watch on SBS now.

0:31When it premiered in early September, the eight-part series starring Hugo Weaving, Shabana Azeez, and Claudia Karvan smashed SBS On Demand Records in its first week and became the most successful SBS commissioned drama to launch on streaming.

0:47It's co-created and executive produced by Elise and Jude Troy, produced by Wooden Horse and is one of a number of projects Elise speaks to on the podcast. Elise's extensive credits include as showrunner on the first locally commissioned Australian Disney Plus series, The Clearing, and showrunner of Stateless with EPs and co-creators Tony Ayres and Cate Blanchett, which won a record 13 AACTA awards in 2020.

1:13She also wrote, created and produced Sunshine for SBS, co-wrote the feature film Ride Like a Girl with Andrew Knight, which was the top grossing Australian film of 2019, with other writing credits including Nowhere Boys, Jack Irish and Secret City.

1:28Elise also wrote and directed her debut feature film Strange Fits of Passion, which was selected to screen at Cannes Film Festival. Throughout the podcast, Elise talks about writing for film versus writing for television, her approach to putting together and running a writer's room, how to know when an idea is worth pursuing, how seeing the Kettering incident be created by a female Australian showrunner made it feel possible to become one herself, if being a good writer makes for a good showrunner, and much more.

1:58Before we get to the chat, remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you're feeling extra generous, please rate and leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram through @ breaking screen podcast or subscribe to our newsletter through breakingscreenpodcast.com.

2:15Without further ado, here's showrunner and screenwriter, Elise McCredie.

2:23We always ask the same question at the beginning of every podcast, and it is about inciting incidents, which you would be very familiar with as a screenwriter. But what was the inciting incident of your career? Hmm.

2:37Caris, I think I have more than one. That's okay. Is that allowed? Yeah, go for it. I feel like I've had a few careers, actually. But it's a really good question. I think the first one was when I was a teenager and i went to see a production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

2:53at the Athenaeum in Melbourne. I think maybe we went with the school. Anyway, it was this star-packed cast like Steve Bisley, Ruth Cracknell, I think it was Genevieve Picot, Heather Mitchell. and Amazing now to look back. Of course, I didn't know who any of these people were the time.

3:10And it just completely blew my mind. And I can remember like getting all my pocket money And going back, it was they were actually doing the trilogy. So there's a trilogy of plays by Ray Lawler, Kid Stakes, and I can't remember the other one Anyway, there's three of them. And I ah gathered all my pocket money and I got the tram back and I saw the other two.

3:31and I can remember sitting up in the gods, like right up in the circle, and just being so incredibly swept away and the magic of it and the Acting was just, you know, next level for this schoolgirl. And it really feels like a defining moment. I think also because of the Australian-ness of it, obviously incredibly white storytelling, but it was of the time. But up until that point, I think at school and, you know, my dad read me Dickens and we were very...

4:04it was British kind of but storytelling. you know, the books were often, the school were often by English writers. And so it was a sort of double whammy of, wow, acting, storytelling, but also Australian. And so that really set me off on the path of being an actor, which I ended up going to drama school and acted for, you know, close to a decade afterwards.

4:28So my second inciting incident was at the end of that sort of my acting career when I realised, I didn't know it was at the end of it to be honest, but I realised that really as a female actor, and we're talking the 1990s at this time, as a female actor the lack of agency was just extraordinary. You know, all the directors then were male, bar maybe one or two, um and that was very rare. This is in television. And also the roles were really limited for women. So I thought, well, I just need to put my money where my mouth is and I had no idea if I could write and so I wrote a script. And at the time, Film Vic, as they were called then, had this um program called New Writer's Scheme.

5:07And anyone could send a script to that and you didn't have to have had any experience. So I sent I didn't tell anyone I'd written it and I just sent it in. And amazingly, that was Strange Fits of Passion. Oh, wow. And that had a whole kind of journey.

5:21Ended up going to Cannes. I ended up directing the feature. So that was probably my second. Sending that script. I can remember walking across, it's all very Melbourne, my memories, but walking across Treasury Gardens to deliver it, hand delivered it. Because in those days, you know, it was an actual manuscript. You didn't email it.

5:39And, you know, leaving it with the receptionist. ah Yeah. And so that was my second inciting incident because that took me on a whole incredible journey into, you know, directing and behind the scenes.

5:52And then the third one was probably 10 years after that when I was living in Europe and I had two young kids and And I sort of felt very stuck.

6:05I was still a little bit of an actor, a little bit of a director. I'd been directing TV, but then we'd moved overseas and so that had stalled. And I just really had a kind of epiphany around i knew to be a good director I needed to do the, you know, the 10,000 hours.

6:22And acting is a really hard gig, especially for a woman as she's getting older. And writing was the one thing I thought, well, I can work it around my children. And I can do it wherever in the world I am.

6:34And I can get my 10,000 hours up because I didn't feel I was really good at anything. And so I made this really clear decision before we moved back to Australia to only write and to not act or direct, because I wanted to get my hours up and I wanted to become very good at one thing. And I knew that I couldn't keep, I mean, I know this is no blueprint because others can do all. Yeah. But for me, I needed to, to just focus it down and do one thing. And so that was my third inciting incident.

7:07ah Yeah. um Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So was there a period though, where you were kind of wanting to be a director or was writing always the thing that was like you were drawn to?

7:23Honestly, I think, you know, having kids was a big part of the decision making because I knew I wasn't a great director. I mean, my film went to Cannes, which was fabulous, but I knew, you know, i still struggle to watch it now even now. I mean, I knew I just had a lot to learn as a director. yeah I guess I felt naturally more confident as a writer.

7:42But also the thing is that as a director, how do you get your hours up? You know, people need to give you the the jobs or you need to have a lot of time to get your friends together and to make things, which I didn't at that time. one living overseas, two having, you know, two kids under three.

7:59And writing also, and this is for being very honest, writing is you you can fail more privately, I guess. You know, you can get your hours up and if you submit a script or something and it's terrible, then there's, you know, whereas as an actor or a director, it's a lot more public. That's so true. So I guess I felt it was something I could do of privately. And if I was terrible at it, that's fine. And I would move on, but I could, I could just beaver away at it, you know, and, and try and get better it. Yeah, totally. Because also you write scripts that you don't think are kind of the quality that you want them to be while you're like getting better, you don't have to show them to anyone. That's right, you learn from it. People are seeing in real time, like on a set. Yeah. No, it makes real sense. Yeah.

8:52and so it was a It was the coward's choice. (laughs) No, no, no. um Every writer is like, absolutely not. um And so you have primarily written on television, which is, you know, it's typically more collaborative than feature film. You often have writers' rooms and multiple writers working on a project. Yeah.

9:14I noticed though that for a feature, ah so you you said you wrote Strange Fits of Passion early in your career, but um Ride Like a Girl, which is more recent, you co-wrote that with Andrew Knight. And I was just wondering, do you prefer writing like as a team or in a more collaborative way?

9:33ah Look, I think film and TV are such different beasts. There's a real loneliness to writing for film, but that also gives you a real freedom.

9:44I guess, in a way, where you write your story and you have far less voices involved in ah in film, in my experience anyway. I mean, Ride Like a Girl was really particular because I was working with Andrew, who's been my mentor forever you know would have no career without Andrew Knight and Tony Ayres they have both been the most extraordinary mentors to me and Andrew has a very different approach so in a way his approach was more TV to writing that film he loves being in a room sitting literally sitting together and smashing it out as you sit there yeah

10:20Which is probably the complete opposite to me. i would i will go home and write a scene 50 times before I even send it off, you know, keep niggling at it and gnawing away at it and changing and changing a word or a line. or I think because I'm an actor or was an actor I would speak it out loud constantly and then fiddle with the syntax of it whereas Andrew's really like he's a genius and he he he will just sit there and go bang bang ma bay bang so that experience was probably more like a collaborative tv experience than really a feature whereas with strange fits of passion it was much more I'm telling my story you know and either you like it or you don't it was much more to in that sense and then tv

11:02Generally, I think it's collaborative and it isn't. Like it's the whole idea of a writer's room is incredibly collaborative, but then you still mostly go away and write the script in isolation.

11:13And then the notes process happens, which again is a very collaborative, in in the best version of it, yeah it's a collaborative experience where you're taking on network, producer, sometimes cast, whatever it is, their feedback and you're incorporating it into your next drafts. So that sort of at the beginning and the end of television is very collaborative but there's still and for me personally because of my process, I need to shut the door at some point and go,

11:40just leave me be for a bit because otherwise I can't find it. So in that middle section, I need to be quite singular about the work yeah and not have too many voices.

11:51Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And, you know, you have created or co-created upward of, I believe it's five television series. um How do you know if an idea is worth pursuing? Yeah.

12:06Hm I think there's two i have two answers to this question because the first one relates to your own self-generated ideas of which I and probably most writers have many and these are your your passion projects you know the ones that you don't really think about the why of because you just feel like you have to tell that story for whatever reason you know it's it's I call it the red thread. it's like It's a kind of heart, passion, maybe pig-headedness, I don't know. But it's it's this this like compulsion deep desire that is not necessarily intellectual about a story that you feel you want to tell.

12:49So there's that. They're the hardest to get up, those stories. And the second is when a production company or a producer brings you a project, which is a very different thing. And so for me to answer the question of how do you know if it's worth pursuing, the first ones, of course, because I don't even question that, you know. It's just I need to tell this story and maybe if I can't tell it as a ah TV series or a film, it will be I'll have to write it in my diary or I will write a play. I don't know, but it has to be told clearly.

13:23You know, I feel that really strongly. But the second one is then the things that I think about are firstly, do the world and characters excite me? Do I want to spend the next three to five, because realistically, that's what it will be, three to five years in this world and with these collaborators?

13:40So that's a big one. And then the more structural one is if if it's a ah novel or something, ah a play or whatever it is, the source material, is there enough story to sustain what is often a six to ten, more like eight these days, but a six to eight episode, that's a lot of story when you think a film is maybe two hours.

14:00So I'm very conscious of is there enough story to sustain without feeling forced a six to eight hour arc? Is there enough movement in character journey? Is there enough shifts? How much would I have to create?

14:15How much is actually there in the novel? And how much more would I have to? So there's all those questions that come into it, but they're very different questions from the first ones because there there is really no question with the first question. Yeah, yeah, totally. And so we've met a few times in that um I interviewed you for, I believe it was no Nowhere Boys and also Stateless when I was at Screen Australia. But then I had the great privilege of being in one of the writers rooms that you were running on someone else's project. um And so you do run these rooms on other people's projects. And I'm wondering, what do you enjoy about that?

14:54I actually do don't do it ah enough just because once you start show running, you end up in a sort of two-year cycle. Oh, yeah. So it's harder to do that. But the one you're referring to, that was just a no-brainer. I mean, that Hannah Lehmann is just a brilliant talent and, you know, her project was incredible. And there's a real joy and freedom, I think, when it's not your project in that you really just know your role and you know you're just there to challenge, to...

15:21you know, just try and find the absolute best version of the idea or the show is and you don't have all the baggage and the shadow of having to go and do it yourself afterwards, having to write the Bible, having to write the pilot. So there is a beautiful freedom. And also I feel like I, in my career, had the incredible and do have the incredible good fortune of, as I said, being mentored and I do feel like I want to pay that forward. And so as often as I can within my career, I do try to do that.

15:51Yeah. And I mean, yeah, this room was like such a joy to be in. And um I was new to note taking at the time. And I just remember being like, oh, my gosh, like hearing the way that you talked about story and things like that. And and as well as the obviously Hannah and the other. writers in the room and so I'm wondering like when you are in those rooms what uh whether it's your project or it's someone else's like what are some of the key things you're thinking about in a writer's room whether it's like the deliverables or the story engine or the script like what are what are some of the key things the the first thing I just want to say is that the makeup of the room is so critical so when I'm if I'm running a room in in that

16:32situation with Hannah, she set that room up. But when I'm doing it, that's really, you know, you can make or break a room on that, to getting the combination right. So that's always something that's very important to me, because if you get it wrong, it's very hard to come back from.

16:48And you really want to have the best version of a room that you can, because in Australia, particularly time is of the essence, you know, you you do only get you know, two days an ep to plot or, you know, four days to brainstorm a whole series. So, you know, the pressure to get that room right is is high.

17:08And then once ah once I'm in there, assuming it's all good, i mean, the thing, I'm not necessarily thinking about deliverables. I think I'm wanting the room and everyone in it to surprise not so much me, but the work or to to challenge the work, to challenge the ideas, to to bring an idea that I'd never have thought of in a million years.

17:31And when you get it right, there's an alchemy in the room, you know. it's Everyone's built, everyone's the egos are checked and everyone's just trying to build the best version of the show. And that's just such a joyful experience when when that happens and that works out. It still amazes me when I walk out of a room And I'm just sort of on a high, walking on high because the ideas and the place that the story has been taken to are so much greater than the sum of the parts.

18:01Like I wouldn't, and that's where that feature film TV difference is when you're writing a film often, other than my experience with Andrew, but usually you'd be just with your brain and then to have five brains or whatever it is, four brains,

18:16the exponential kind of growth in the show because of that is so exciting. And I think that's why writers' rooms are so fantastic. And do you have any advice for, you know, any new writer or note taker like in a writer's room?

18:30Yeah. Be very prepared, I think. Do your homework. Go over and above in research in whatever the story is and the world is. Bring your pictures, bring your ideas, but also, and this is really important, to read the room. So if your idea for whatever reason is not picked up, be graceful about it. Don't keep trying, and but also don't let it dampen you. yeah Like come back with a new idea and read, read a lot.

18:57Read, read, read.

19:01Just a quick note that this episode is brought to you by AFTRS, the Australian Film Television and Radio School. If you're looking to learn alongside experienced industry professionals, build networks and accelerate your career in Australia's screen industry, the Master of Arts Screen: Business at AFTRS is now taking applications for their next intake. Offering flexible study options, the course is designed to support ongoing career growth and long-term success. by building your commercial, strategic and leadership skills. In doing so, you can expand your opportunities, not just in producing, but in screen business, creative leadership and entrepreneurship.

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19:48And um so you have also been showrunner on a number of projects. I was wondering what was the first project that you were a showrunner on and was it something that you always wanted to do? It's interesting because I didn't really think we did it here and I didn't really think about it as a career until Vicki Madden did The Kettering Incident , which was 10 years ago, so only 10 years ago, 2016.

20:15And I remember when that came out and I thought that was a great show and and she was real inspiration to me because I thought here's a woman, a female showrunner, writing, EPing, creating a series.

20:30And that sort of made me go, oh, maybe I could do that because I'd been writing until then and creating. I'd had a couple of created by credits, but I hadn't really seen it in action. So it's really quite a recent thing here in Australia, the showrunner model.

20:45Prior to that, it was more TV was more producer, writer, director led, and so there wasn't that creative showrunner role. So that was Vicki's was hugely inspiring. And then three years later, showrun Stateless. And that's because Tony Ayres really backed me to be the showrunner of that show. And, you know, he put a lot of faith in me and I ah i will always be incredibly grateful to him for that because, you know, it was only three years later um and I hadn't done it before.

21:16Yeah. Yeah, I mean it it shows the power of that like I've heard that saying like see it, be it, you know, that people don't realise that they can do something until they see someone else do it and then they go, oh, i'm yeah, wait, no, I want to do that. I want to do that. I didn't know that I could. it didn't know it was an option. Yeah.

21:35Yeah. Exactly. And do you think that, um well, how did you find show running first of all? Well, Stateless was at – It was a baptism by fire. yeah Honestly, I had to move to Adelaide. i i had to do a job I had never done before.

21:50But the hardest part I think for me was that I felt this enormous responsibility. i'd I'd been working on that show for five years. I'd been researching it. I'd made so many friends within the the world that I was researching. I felt this enormous responsibility for the stories and what ah this show that I was, you know, telling. And that,

22:11weighed heavily. i mean, it was also made it the most incredible job I've ever had and the show that I'm most proud of that I've ever done. But um I had to learn, you know, on the job, really everything, what what it was to be a showrunner. I was learning on the job and, you know, apologies for all those who had to work with me because I did have my training wheels on. But, um you know, it was an extraordinary experience and I will always be grateful to Tony for that.

22:40And do you think that a good writer makes a good showrunner or, you know, what are the skills that you need as a showrunner? They are such different things, honestly.

22:52Really. You could be a brilliant, brilliant writer and not be a showrunner. And there are plenty of writers who wouldn't even want to be a showrunner. I think it it uses such different parts of your brain being a showrunner as opposed to being a writer.

23:06you know, the written word is on the page or on the screen. When you're a showrunner, it's so far beyond that. You know, you're you're doing everything. And I think it goes back to where we started this conversation that my kind of three-point career kind of all led me to be a showrunner, even though I didn't know that existed, you know, back then the 90s. Because part of what I love about it is working with the actors I love casting. I love writing for actors. I love talking to actors. I like being on set with actors. I get inspiration from actors.

23:38And I love working with the heads of department. I love being and at the table to create the visual world of the show, working with the directors. And i really love post-production, which is ah it always comes back to a little bit feeling like I'm back in the writer's room. Not the writer's room, sorry, my writing room in that sort of in-between stage where it's the fully creative making of it, you sort of come back to that in post when you're building again, you're putting the building blocks together and you're trying to make sense of it and you sort it. And it's not going to be the same as it was when you were back in your writer's little cave.

24:14It's going to be so much bigger and better because you've had all these incredible collaborators. So it's ah it's a beautiful experience to be in post-production and to be at that table because as a writer you saw it back then and now you're seeing it anew and you're part of the collaborative process of finalising the very final version that will go to air. And, you know, that is a wonderful thing. But I don't think being a good writer equates to being a good showrunner.

24:41Yeah, it's interesting. and And like you said, like, ah yeah, they they talk about how, like, often you can also find the story, not find the story in it, but like the edit is what kind of brings it all together. And like to have someone whose vision for the TV series, like they were the kind of they're the they're the keeper of that vision, I suppose, to then be in the edit would be such an important part of that. Yeah. Yeah.

25:07Yeah. It's so true. And I think that's why so many writers want to be showrunners, even when they maybe don't have the experience, but it's not out of willful ego or anything like that. It's it's because they want to protect the integrity of that vision, like you say.

25:20Yeah. They had that vision at the beginning and it feels kind of brutal to hand that over in the old model where a writer would write a script and say, there you that's quite a brutal kind of yeah renting, isn't it? yeah Because you're then walking away from the process. And I think feature film to some degree is still a bit like that as a writer. I haven't done a feature for a long time, but, you know, it is still much more a director model all where the writer writes a script and hands it over. But TV has become much more...

25:52writer driven, which I think is obviously, I think it's brilliant. Yeah. And, um, so your, uh, the latest show that you have been a show runner on, uh, is the airport chaplain. Um, and so just, you know, top level, um, one, everyone go and watch it on SBS if you're listening in Australia. Um, but what is The Airport Chaplain about?

26:14Yeah, I didn't know such a thing existed as as many people don't. um But there is one at Melbourne Airport, an amazing man Martyn Scrimshaw. He's an airport chaplain, Melbourne Airport.

26:24And the show is not based on him, but it's based on, it's inspired by his role and what an airport chaplain does. And this came out of a real incident with the producer, Jude Troy, who I've worked with on The Clearing and also on the airport chaplain from Wooden Horse. We're long-term collaborators. We complement each other very well. And she, had this extraordinary experience, which she tells way better than me, but I'll try and tell a quick version of it, where she left her handbag in an Uber as she arrived at Melbourne Airport to go home to Sydney.

26:53The Uber drove away. She had no phone, nothing. She had no ID, nothing. No way of getting on a plane, no way of calling anyone, no cash, no way of getting back to Melbourne. You know, we can all imagine that, right? Yeah, the panic. Just what do you do And she's trying to borrow phones and trying to call Uber, but they're all wanting to send codes to her phone. You know, like just impossible. Everything's impossible. because we're all so digitally addicted and that's just the way the world is. Anyway, eventually, I think after a few hours, this man appeared in a high-vis vest and that was Martyn. And he said, you know, I overheard there's a woman up here who might need some help. And she went on this incredible journey sort of in the back behind the scenes at Melbourne Airport. And um he, after hours, eventually, you know, tracked the Uber and had drawers full of cash and an office covered in thank you cards. And he's a brilliant storyteller. just told her all these stories. And eventually got her sort of upgraded to business class on the last flight back to Sydney and got the handbag back. Anyway, she was telling me all of this the next day on the phone and I just said, it's a show. And she said, I know, it's a show.

27:58We've got to do it. So we both just sort of had this moment of going, we've got to do this. And really that was, I think, three years ago and here we are. Yeah, wow. And, I mean, it is, they're half-hour episodes and, like, you pack a lot into these episodes. And i was wondering, like, for you as a writer but also, you know, showrunner, what are the challenges of writing half-hour? You know, I hadn't done a half-hour since Nowhere Boys. Oh, really? Which is YA. Yeah. Yeah. I'd been solidly in the in the drama space. Yeah, totally.

28:34For probably 10 years, yeah i think. Yeah. Yeah. But it just, we never really debated it It just felt from the very beginning it was a half hour show. i think Jude and I just, all our instincts went to half hour. We just, it just, I can't even really explain the why, but it just felt right.

28:53We knew that that the episodes needed to be quite fast and busy and high stakes and a lot going on. And I just think we felt it sustained that better in the half hour format.

29:06oh And I suppose also were SBS kind of on board from the start? Like you pitching it as a half hour, did that like help in terms of getting it to SBS? They were on on from the start. Oh, great. so I think Jude mentioned it and and they were they were in.

29:22And, yeah, we didn't end up pitching anywhere else. That was it. It was just we're with SBS and we're going kind of thing. I mean, not greenlit but going into development. Yeah, yeah, development. Almost straight away.

29:33So it was a very fast kind of we love the idea, let's go scenario. And so, yeah, just with the being back in that half hour world, were there challenges to writing the half hour in terms of like story?

29:48The line producer was would tell you that there were because my half hours were a little longer, let's say, than that. ah Yeah, I think I did have to do so a lot of culling okay of the scripts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think they they were all more like 35 pages and I had to get most them really, had which is good for season two now. I know yeah you they really had to be 25 pages. But it's hard to lose 10 pages actually.

30:15So, yes, there was a lot of story and a lot went. there They are. they're They're packed. And Martyn, you know, he tells stories and continues to tell me so many stories that I could go for seasons. yes There are just, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a well that, and that never goes dry. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And so what do you feel with some of then the like production challenges on this one? Like, I, I think I read that you didn't actually film in any airports, which makes sense because of like security and stuff, but like, is that true? Cause like production design location, like, Yeah. What were what were some of the the challenges with this particular one?

30:57We didn't shoot airports. Wow. we Yeah. We just didn't have the access. I mean, we did B-roll. Yep. so Like our exteriors. There's a lot of B-roll of exteriors. And I think we've got a few scenes at the carousel because there was no way we could find a carousel anywhere. So we pleaded for that one. But, yes, the majority of it is is shot elsewhere in non-airports and we had an incredible production designer, Carrie Kennedy, and Bonnie Moir, our set-up director, and Alex Cardy, DoP and, you know, all all the great minds kind of got together and created a world that had a logic to it over multiple different locations. Mm-hmm.

31:37And that was the only way we could do it. It's it's kind of a sleight of hand. It's smoke and mirrors. Mm-hmm. But they're amazing and they they made it work. I mean, so many people I i know watched it and said, what well, what airport did you shoot at?

31:50ah Yeah. It probably also makes it better for scheduling because you're not having to worry about like literally blocking off. You can't block off an airport. That was part of the problem. But like. No. Yeah.

32:01No. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. And um did I read that it's going on Netflix? So it is on Netflix worldwide. Yes. Okay. So it's on Netflix worldwide. And so if you're listening to this outside of Australia, you can watch it. And then in January, I think it goes Netflix Australia. Okay. SBS, it's only on SBS for the first six months. Yeah. Okay, cool. And so I'm just wondering, you know, we we did talk about like advice in writers rooms before, but like, do you have advice more broadly for any writers listening?

32:36i think the more lived experience you have doing other jobs the better which is probably controversial but I don't know many screenwriters who just become screenwriters yeah it's usually a ah kind of circuitous path to get them there and by the time they get there they have so much lived experience and are able to infuse their work with that whether that's from working 10,000 hospitality jobs or whether that's being an actor or like Liz Doran who is an editor or You know, Matt Cameron who was a, you know, wrote comedy and a playwright. Whatever it is, I think I'm not sure having screenwriter as as the end goal too early is is such a good thing. i think I think you need to go out and experience multiple jobs and, yeah, and worlds and in the industry or not in the industry but in the industry as I did is great because, you you know, whether that's being in sound or a runner or whatever it is in the industry,

33:37informs you and you learn about the world it doesn't really doesn't matter what or in production or as production secretary whatever it is you you learn so much about the world and you also learn about people and I just think maybe it's just accruing experience and different workplaces and things that will make you a better writer rather than just reading the screenwriting books and, you know, trying to follow a formula or whatever. I think you need to bleed a bit too to be a good screenwriter. Yeah. yeah yeah have to You know, you've got to experience some pain and yeah that's only going to help you because I do think, you know, you have to understand

34:14big human emotion and and you need to feel that often to understand it. Yeah. And so that brings us to our final a segment, which is the pay it forward segment. So this is where you'll be asked a question from a previous guest and you come up with a question for our next guest. so previous guest was Holly Lyons, who's a screenwriter and associate story producer at Home in a way and Away. And Holly's question was,

34:41I'm fascinated by procrastination and people who I find it really easy to meet deadlines on Home and Away. But when I come to do my own projects, it's really hard without a firm deadline or a contract it' I find it really hard to achieve and to sit still and to complete the task, right? And I have heard this great story of a writer who, if they didn't complete what they were meant to that day, say their aim was three scenes, if they didn't meet what they've committed themselves to, they had to donate to a cause they didn't believe in as a punishment for not completing the task. And I just thought that was a really clever way to get over that procrastination. And so I just asked the next guest, what do they do? What are their nifty tricks to just make sure they achieve what they've promised themselves when there's no deadline, no money, no contract, and it's just for their their own self that they want to complete this work?

35:53Oh, gosh. I think I've learnt to take the complete opposite approach and to make peace with procrastination and to love it because ideas, particularly those red thread ideas, they're that I think Holly's talking about, they need, for me, they they can't be forced.

36:18Like they're not going to work to a deadline. So, i mean, i used I think I used to beat myself up about this too and I don't anymore because I find that it's it's in the cracks of what I'm doing in the day, whether it's the dishes or caring for kids or parents or pets, the the domesticity that so many of us, particularly women, just have to do all day. that's threaded into my life. And I could say it's procrastination, but in a way i do it and i keep the stories going in my head, which means I have zero work-life balance basically. But I kind of like existing like that because I think in the cracks, there's space for things to kind of

37:06possibly fester but also grow and become more. And I do wake up in the middle of the night and think about these stories, that the red thread stories, because that is pretty much the only time when I'm not distracted, um you know, and you can't procrastinate actually when you're lying, for example. So i do find that is time where I...

37:33allow those stories, they're full. And, yeah, I'm not sitting at a computer writing it down, but my brain is released from all of the other stuff and I can explore these stories and worlds where that my heart wants to go to. But I feel like by making peace with the procrastination, it's made life better for me as a writer because I can just let things come when they come and not feel forced. Mm-hmm.

38:03Yeah, it's being a bit kinder to yourself as well as a writer. um Yeah, amazing. Thank you. ah Well, that was all my questions, so i was like I'll leave it there. But thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and talking to me all about your career.

38:18Thank you, Caris It's so lovely to reconnect with you. That was showrunner and screenwriter Elise McCredie. And remember, you can watch The Airport Chaplain on SBS in Australia and on Netflix for all our international listeners. A big thanks to Elise joining me on the podcast, as well as to our sponsor, AFTRS, the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

38:38This episode was produced and edited by myself with logo design by Shara Parsons and music by Seb SebOTage Gavrilovich . If you enjoyed listening, please hit that subscribe button and leave us a review. See you in a fortnight.