The Point Radio: Jim Rash Does Writers 101

COMMUNITY fans know him as the offbeat Dean, but Jim Rash is also an Oscar winner writer and the perfect host for The Sundance Channel‘s new series, THE WRITERS ROOM. Jim talks about the plans he has for showcasing the talents behind series like DEXTER, GAME OF THRONES & more. Plus we invite you to meet the voices behind JUSTICE LEAGUE FLASHPOINT, including Cary Elwes doing Aquaman and Sam Daly stepping in as SUPERMAN. This summer, we are updating once a week – every Friday – but you don’t have to miss any pop culture news. THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

the point. Hello, it's Mike Robin. Welcome to the point. We're all parts of pop culture come together. He just might be the oddball Dean from

community. But Jim Rache is also an Oscar winning writer. Now he's got other writers together in a new show that tells you how it all works.

Plus, we've got the voices behind Justice League Flash Point. Who's playing your favorite heroes? You're going to want that Hobbit box set.

The point radio. Get the point radio. His face is sure familiar to fans of community, but Jim Rache is equally famous in the writing world with an Oscar

under his belt and another film getting great buzzes summer called the Way Way Back. And now Jim is involved in a new series on Sundance called The Writers

Room, where he invites crazy principals from a number of hit shows in to talk about how their whole thing comes together. As well as the writers room is

me sitting down for a panel discussion with the, you know, writing staff. So it's just popular shows. So like the season for me, I talked to

Breaking Bad. I talked to Game of Thrones and do a show with Dexter and Parks and Rec. It really is not a process of writing about the choices they

make, you know, and these shows are really interesting to do when they hit a wall or write their characters into a corner and get them out. So really is

the in and out of that process. A lot of the episodes also feature a cast member from each of the shows. Yeah, well, particularly the show. We

definitely want to have it because, you know, uh, specifically, you know, with the picture, character like, you know, Walt, like Brian

Clanton being there for Breaking Bad for Michael C Hall being the director of the American Rec. And I think, well, one, you know, a couple of those

certainly have been behind the list, you know, and Amy has written a couple of episodes more of Parks and Rec. So that's obviously key to talk to her

about that. But it is. I mean, I think that the writers and actors are working in tandem sometimes since as these characters evolve, it is part

of the writers, obviously, and sort of them feeding off each other and the writers sort of writing to the strengths of those actors and also the

activity they brought to the character that was on the page and it's just a complete sort of circle of evolution between the two. Over the course of the

six episodes of the series, I asked Jim, what kind of cool things came up? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, lots of things sort of, you know, everyone had

a great experience. And for like, for example, with the Breaking Bad, you know, they talked about, you know, the character of Aaron Paul, Jesse

and how that really wasn't, you know, Vince Gilligan had always sort of imagined that he was going to, you know, kill off that character in the first season

and you realize, well, something happened once and Aaron's great portrayal of Jesse, but also in the story of these two guys. So I was sort of shocked both as an

actor and there's discussions like that happening behind the scene where I could lose my life and also just how their first instinct for something changed

as the show sort of just to take them in a different direction. So I think all I can do is moments of surprising. Should the show get the chance to go to

a second season? Does Jim have a wish list of other shows he'd like to invite in? Oh, yeah. Well, first, yeah, the season will be great. I think it's a

lot of fun. The season will be great. I think, you know, it would be fun to we talked about the Walking Dead. You know, it would be fun to talk to madmen

on the comedy side. You know, it might be fun to talk to community. It might be fun to, you know, Martin's family and V. I love that show on HBO. And then I

also like to do some classic stuff. You know, I think it'd be fun to go back and talk to lost or Sopranos or six feet under or even more classic like

mash or tears or anytime more whatever, whatever we could tap into and sort of talk about the change, changes in television and the changes in the way the

writer functions. They all those stuff is very interesting. With so much talk about the recent Emmy nominations and how non

traditional sources for shows are becoming more and more important in entertainment. I talked to Jim about how he feels these possibilities for the new

venues just seems to be in thinking away, you know, the possibilities are endless. I mean, obviously already there is a lot of people buying, you

know, and finding audiences for their shows and from cable to network. I mean, I'm curious to see if networks start to embrace a little bit more of that sort

of shorter season idea, you know, or maybe even splitting up two shows to share a time slot to 13 or 13 to fill out a full season in the eight o'clock

slot, for example, you know, which could be interesting and provides, you know, writers with a chance to sort of over the whole 13 rather than sometimes

a daunting task from TACN 22. But that said, you know, you know, there's room for all those, you know, the old system and the system at the same time. So I

feel like there's hundreds of wealth of stories and interesting places to find a home. I think all that's good. So along the way that any of

this kid, Jim, interested in doing some writing for TV? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we started into my writing partner Nat Fax and I, we started in TV

development when we started writing together. We shot a pilot at ABC back in 2005 and didn't go past the pilot stage, but that was sort of our first foray into

writing together for something past what we had been doing before, which was on stage. So then we graduated or this went to the next level as far

as going into right the way way back. So I think we'd always like to return to that and maybe you know, create a show perhaps for ourselves that, you know, we

could be, you know, start from the ground floor and write to our voices. I mean, we were started as actors and don't want to ever give that up. But

you know, we'll just have to time will tell, you know, just so many hours a day. New episodes of The Writer's Room every Monday on the Sundance

channel. And of course, you can always see more right now at Sundance channel dot com. Here we go with the latest in pop culture. Cash changes on the

way for NBC's Parks and Rec when it returns. It looks like Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones will both be leaving the popular NBC comedy. According to sources,

they'll be leaving right around the 13th episode of the upcoming season, which by the way is season six of Parks and Rec. As it gets closer and closer to the

time of the Dexter finale. Now there's more talk of a spinoff and one possible clue in that direction is the fact that Dexter showrunner Scott Buck has been

given a two year deal with Showtime. No guarantee on what he'd be working on. However, Showtime president David Nevins would ask about this said he's

been given a two year deal. Draw your own conclusions. The soup is going live to celebrate its 500th episode. It's been on a decade on the believe it or

not. The soup is going live to celebrate its 500th episode of the season. The soup is going live to celebrate its 500th episode of the season. Believe

it or not, Joe McHale still the host and there'll be live shows on Wednesday, the 21st of August. They'll be one at 10 p.m. For the East Coast and one

at 10 p.m. Pacific time as well. And they'll be on the online and the soup TV .com to hobbit fans are getting a really early Christmas present with the DVD

release of the Hobbit film with now nine extra hours of material according to a recent release contained. If you want to go for the full set, the Blu-ray 3D

and the standard Blu-ray. Well, that'll be just about $55 or so. It'll be available as a download on October the 22nd and in stores as a box set on the 5th of

November. Sci-fi has ordered a pilot based on the 2010 film Legion. It's called Dominion and the original director, co-writer of the movie, Scott Stewart,

will be involved in directing the pilot, which will be 90 minutes when it finally turns up on sci-fi. The network also greenlit a number of other pilots, including one

called Proof from Marty Knox and an M. Night Shyamalan, about a son of a millionaire tech genius who offers a large reward for anyone who can find proof of life

after death. Well, there's no real movement on a Flash movie from Warner Brothers, but we might see something on television. The CW confirmed it's going to have an

origin story for a character named Barry Allen as the Flash. Depending on the reaction, there's a possibility that the character would then be spun off in his own

series. On another note, the proposed Amazon, the teenage version of Wonder Woman that was set for a project to be done sometime over the next year or so

has now been put on hold by the CW. Officials there say the script is not where they wanted to be. It looks like that Archie television show we talked about a

few weeks back will involve the characters as 12-year-olds. The concept will have the gang attending a modern-day Riverdale junior high school. Episodes are

said to be about 11 minutes in length, which means that the ! The title is Archie. After moving into a successful start

writing Red Sonja for Dynamite, Gail Simone will now do a new ongoing Tomb Raider series for Dark Horse. The series is set to launch early in the new year.

There hasn't been an artist yet assigned to it. Right now Laura Croft is pretty hot with a new video game out there having sold over 3 million copies.

DC Comics' latest direct to DVD feature is a little different. It's just as League Flashpoint taken from the popular Jeff John story arc a couple of years ago

and for the first time a story that doesn't center directly on Superman or Batman. For example there's Aquaman voiced by actor Carrie Hules who told me about

how cool it all was to him. The best part was being offered the role of the movie. That was the most amazing phone call I got because you know I

grew up with Justice League as a kid. I was a big DC fan. I really was more DC than the other guys. You know, big fan of Batman big, big fan of Superman. Didn't know

Aquaman too much growing up. But this is not your childhood action. It's not your childhood action. It's not your childhood action. This is a very

different Aquaman. I love the concept of it. I didn't know about Flashpoint and so they sent me a bunch of comics to read so I could come up to speed. I just thought

what a brilliant concept to look at Justice League through this prism. These guys all in an alternate universe going through some personal issues and his Aquaman you know

has had a spat with his ex. He's got blown up about a proportion. And it's fun. It was a lot of fun to do. And Kerry did his research. I had them send me all the comic

books that were relevant. And I watched a lot of the Warner Brothers animated movies to bring myself back. I've seen a lot anyway because I'm a fan. If they're ever

on TV I watch them. But so I kind of did my research that way. The reverse flash Professor Zoom is an important part of the story and he's voiced by actor C. Thomas

Hall who told me he really had no idea about the character going into this. Of course not. Of course I didn't know anything about it. I mean this is my first animated

film. You know I was a fan of comics as a kid. I used to watch Super Friends when I was growing up. But you know there was no Professor Zoom back then. You know I mean at

least in my world there wasn't. So you know I just sort of lucked out the filmmakers happened to catch an episode of Criminal Minds where I played the reaper and he thought

hey he'd be a good bad guy. C. Thomas it was the first time that he voiced an animated feature. So I asked him about the differences in this and his usual acting job.

Even though I haven't done a lot of animation you know I've done a lot of acting and you know I was there's some fundamental differences you know I mean I'm a

real instinctual actor. I do a lot of work with my eyes and a lot of behavior and intention. And I can't really bring that stuff to the table when you're doing

animated things. But you know that being said a lot of trust has to go into the animators and vice versa. You really set the precedence because you do the voice

work first. They don't animate it first. So you do the voice work first. They draw around you and then you know eight nine months later you come back and you fill

in the holes and you get to hear a lot of the things that you did you know months ago. You get a second go around to get a second go around. And then you get a

second go around to make some improvements. And that's really where it all came together for me during the process. The first the first time through you know

you're just trying to do the best you can. The second time I came back you really get to do the sculpting and you know it's like it's like building a house you

know pouring the foundation versus the fine cabinetry at the end you know and that's what it's all about. Of course Superman is part of the story and this time he's

voiced by Sam Daly whose father Tim Daly is no stranger to being the man of steel in animated features. I asked Sam if dad gave him any advice. Not too much you

know he sort of just told me to be myself and I you know he I remember when he first started doing the voice in 1996 and so I've heard him do it so many

times. You know I remember in college he sent me one of the video games where he voiced Superman and I didn't try to beat it as much as I got Superman hurt

over and over again. Sam told me that there were some differences in this particular version of Superman. It was really interesting just because it is

such a different take on him but what it was so cool is that Superman sort of has a different arc because he does start off weaker and a little less super

you could say but by the time by the end of the movie you really get to see him come back into his own and be the man of steel. Putting all this together we

new characters and a long deep story well that was a lot of fun for director Andrea Romano. You know what I like about this story so much is I was completely

confused by it. This is not the I really was confused and then as it began to reveal itself as to what was going on I was like cool and then you get to the end

and then I thought okay my job is to take the audience along that same ride that I just took because everybody should be scratching their heads beginning

to go night out. Now the title tips off a little bit but there is something odd in this world. There is a paradox going on but there is that interesting

concept always of what would happen if you ever get in a car accident and say if I had left my house three minutes later than I did I wouldn't have had

that accident and that is the basis of this is what would happen if things were just a little bit different at that one moment in time and so I think

that is fascinating that made this story really interesting for me. Justice League Flashpoint available on demand in regular DVD and of course

Blu-ray combo pack right now. The Point Radio. Here's what's cool. It's a great week to play Ketchup in the comic stores.

Maybe pick up one of those series you have been meaning to look at or go back to one that you may have drifted away from and you want to check out what

has been going on while you have been away. For DC this week there is a collection of the Arkham unhinged stories both in a trade paperback for the first

volume and a hardcover for the second. These are the ones that are based on the game. Some interesting stories about Batman and his adversaries. The trade

runs just under $15 and it's about $23 to pick up the Batman Arkham unhinged hardcover. Trinity of Sin gets a second printing for the first issue

and Trinity continues this week in a Phantom Stranger issue as well. Half past danger is a series a lot of folks like over at Image and you can get a

chance not to pick up the second printing of the first issue to see what you have missed. The Tal also continues from Image. It's a great time to play

with the second one. It's been used from Image. It's up to issue 16 but there's been a couple of different story arcs so there's a couple of jump on

places that are very easy for this book and we really think you should give it a try. Jay Michael Szczynski's Sidekick premieres this week from Image

with Art by Tom Mandrake. A couple of different covers that are to choose from. Age of Ultron number 10 A1 gets a second printing from Marvel.

Guardians of the Galaxy number 3 and 4 also get second printing. Alki number 11 has a second printing as well and if you're missing Game of Thrones

you are aware that Dynamite does a regular Game of Thrones comic. It's up to issue number 16 but again there could be a couple of different jumping on

points there and if you're a fan of George RR Martin's other work the second issue of his skin trade is out this week as well. All this and more waiting

for you inside a local comic shop always find the new ones with the comic book locator service of 1-888 comic book with the free app that's the

iTunes app store or you can also check a website out called FindMyComicShop.com. That does it for the podcast. We'll be back in just a few

days talking among others to Jason Sadek is about the new film We're the Millers and of course covering all the pop culture that isn't covered

between now and then on Get the Point Radio. There you can listen to catch up on everything free at GetThePointRadio.com with a free app for your iPhone

your iPad and the iTunes app store under Pop Culture or The Point or on your droid your Blackberry with a free app called TuneIn. You can subscribe

to this podcast however in the iTunes podcast directory and always find it every few days on websites like ComicMix.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com and

stay in touch with us on social media under the Point Radio on Facebook and Twitter. See you in just a little bit. GetThePointRadio.com