Marble

References

• Temple Grandin
• Saw
• PETA
• Kingpin
• Bugsy Malone
• Yakuza
  • Winning a slot car race in Yakuza 0
• Liam Neeson
• Balls of Fury
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia
• Saturday Night Live
• Agatha Christie
• The Other Half
• Ayo Edebiri
• The Bear
• Man Bites Dog
• Macaulay Culkin
• Jason Bateman
• Brendan Fraser
• The Walt Disney Company
• White Wilderness
• Grey Gardens
• Kinkeshi
• Up (film series)
• Personal Jesus
• Finding Forrester
• Sean Connery
• YTMND
• Jodie Foster
• Scott Baio

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
I have never once been concerned about that.

[Thomas]
No, because you’re a man. You’re just like, “It’ll all work out for me.”

[Shep]
Yeah, is that not… not everyone feels that way?

[Emily]
Yeah, so you’re a white man with a lot of privilege there, Shep.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, Story Fans, welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. Today’s ordinary object is Marble. And we purposefully haven’t specified which definition of the word we mean. I’m hoping that makes for some interesting pitches. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and if this podcast were a cake, it would be a Marble cake because swirled together with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey guys!

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
So, lots of different definitions for Marble. It’s one of those words that can go a lot of different ways. I haven’t really looked at the pitches yet. What do you guys… Did you come up with some cool creative stuff?

[Shep]
I did try to come up with a different pitch for every definition.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I came up with two pitches for two different definitions.

[Thomas]
All right. Well, Shep, you’ve made a big promise, and you’re pitching first, so-

[Shep]
No, no. Why did I say anything?

[Thomas]
I’m excited to hear what you have.

[Shep]
It’s always a mistake to speak up.

[Thomas]
Hoisted by your own petard.

[Shep]
Indeed. Okay. A once-great family is so down on their luck, they have to pry up and sell off the marble floor tiles from their decaying Gilded Age mansion.

[Thomas]
Okay, so you have stone marble.

[Shep]
Yeah. A man cleaning his attic finds his childhood bag of marbles. But now, having quote unquote “found his marbles”, he becomes painfully sane in a crazy world.

[Emily]
I like that double.

[Shep]
That’s a double, because it’s-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Marbles as in the toy. And to “lose your marbles”.

[Thomas]
That feels really real, though. Like-

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I feel like we are sane in a crazy world, so might not enough escapism for-

[Shep]
Yeah, probably skip that one. Yeah. Okay. A rancher discovers that stress seems to produce the most beautiful sought-after marbling in beef. He begins subjecting his cattle to elaborate psychological tortures to create the perfect steaks.

[Emily]
Did we swap brains? Temple Grandin would be ashamed of you.

[Shep]
And rightly so. Yeah, this is Saw but for cows.

[Thomas]
Right, that’s what I was thinking.

[Shep]
Yeah, I mean, if you want to go “meat is murder”, then here it is. Let’s pull back the curtain and turn everyone vegan.

[Thomas]
I mean we could probably get funding from PETA, so-

[Shep]
No! Okay, I’m out. I withdraw the pitch. Okay, last one. A former marbles champ comes out of retirement to try and win a marbles tournament. So it’s taken seriously, even though the sport is not that serious. So like-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Kingpin with bowling.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
This is that, except it’s a game of marbles. So, everyone’s a kid. So, it’s like-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Bugsy Malone. You guys know Bugsy Malone?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yes, I am a big fan.

[Thomas]
I like the idea of a former Marbles champ who’s now an adult, and he comes back-

[Shep]
Yes!

[Thomas]
He’s like one adult playing against all these kids.

[Shep]
That also my thought, because, so, in the Yakuza games, you guys know the Yakuza games?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
In one of the Yakuza games, you can, as- you’re an adult man. Yakuza gangster. But there are a bunch of side missions, and you can go and play these toy car races, and you’re the only adult there. So, it’s a bunch of kids playing, and you, and when win you have, like, a bit triumphant, like, “Yeah, I’m the best!” And, but, and all the kids are crying, and it’s like, this is ridiculous! So I’m picturing-

[Thomas]
That’s so funny.

[Shep]
It’s Bugsy Malone marbles, and Liam Neeson is there.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
As the former marbles champ.

[Thomas]
Well, he has a certain set of skills, so-

[Emily]
Yeah. He does.

[Shep]
Yes. And he can play ridiculous things straight, and that’s what you want. You want it to play it straight-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And not call out the absurdity.

[Thomas]
I had kind of a similar idea as one of mine that I was working on, and then I realized it was basically just the plot of Balls of Fury.

[Shep]
Balls of Fury, yeah.

[Thomas]
I was like, “Wait, this is just the same plot as this, so never mind.”

[Shep]
That’s all that I have. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
A lost 70s documentary on the Marble Grandmasters Tournament is found by a young film student. The winner was a marble prodigy who won more than sixteen consecutive Golden Marbles then mysteriously vanished from the limelight. The young film student sets out to make a new documentary to find the grandmaster and hopefully shine a new light on an old pastime.

[Shep]
And the old grandmaster is played by Liam Neeson-

[Emily]
And as you were reading yours and talking about it, I’m like “That’s mine.” And then I have one with a different definition for marble-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
A tourist goes missing at a marble quarry in Carrara, Italy. Foul play is suspected when her mangled body is found at the base of one of the smooth walls a few days later. With few leads, her travel companion becomes the number one suspect.

[Thomas]
You don’t want to get blood on marble, it stains. Actually, now that I think about that, I’ve said that, but I don’t know that for sure. I think that’s a thing I saw in a movie or on a TV show once. So it just sounded-

[Emily]
Well marble is porous-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So, it would make sense.

[Thomas]
So, statement, but *asterisk. Do your own research.

[Emily]
All right Thomas, what do you have?

[Thomas]
A group of kids in the 1980s find a glowing marble in the woods that allows them to jump through time.

[Shep]
How does it work?

[Thomas]
I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out.

[Emily]
Do you shoot it?

[Thomas]
Ooh, yeah, that seems like-

[Emily]
And it makes the circle open up in a portal or-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
That’s just the rings from the Sonic movies.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Emily]
Okay, I got nothing then. I don’t know how it works.

[Thomas]
I don’t know. Well, if we pick that one, we can… That’ll be priority one is figuring that out. My other idea is in prehistoric Italy, a defeated tribal elder curses the mountain after a brutal battle over hunting grounds. Millennia later, a marble quarry cuts into the cursed land, harvesting stone that brings extraordinary success to anyone who possesses it, followed by envy, rivalry, and eventually a violent death.

[Emily]
I was trying so hard to make something with a quarry that was cursed, like with ghosts or something, and I couldn’t come up with anything. So, bravo Thomas.

[Thomas]
Well, thank you. Those are what I have. Which one do we like the best? An aging marbles grandmaster who travels through time?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, maybe he lost the tournament and he wants to go back and win it this time, but he goes back as an adult.

[Thomas]
Yeah, is there like a “playing for all the marbles” thing, and then they’re like, “Aha, you lost your marbles.”

[Shep]
Boo, that’s definitely got to be in it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Does it take him to an alternate universe, not just another point in time where he plays marbles and then if he loses his marbles, he loses his marbles?

[Shep]
So, it’s, he made a deal with the devil.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
What does he get in exchange?

[Shep]
A golden violin. What do you-?

[Thomas]
He gets one of those big shooter marbles, but solid gold.

[Shep]
I mean, it would be heavy, but it wouldn’t be firm. It’s not a good shooter.

[Emily]
Well, no it’s just a trophy.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s a thing of value. He gets a time travel marble that lets him go back and…

[Emily]
Go back.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Then go back and then don’t make the deal with the devil.

[Emily]
Right and then-

[Shep]
Now you still, now you have time travel powers, and the devil doesn’t know who you are.

[Emily]
Win-win.

[Thomas]
I do like the idea of Liam Neeson playing marbles with kids. That’s very funny.

[Emily]
That is quite funny.

[Thomas]
I don’t know if we can sustain a whole story on that.

[Shep]
Yeah, maybe a Saturday Night Live sketch.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, we’ve got: Saw for cows, and then, like, a cursed quarry.

[Emily]
Murder in a quarry. That sounds like an Agatha Christie title. (French accent:) “Murder in the Quarry.”

[Thomas]
The woman, was she pushed from the top of the cliff face, and someone’s like, “She must have fallen like a rock.” And everyone looks at him he’s like, “I didn’t even think. I’m so sorry.” Like, that’s like the one character who keeps, his brain just does that, the way my brain just does that.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Thomas]
And the whole movie, they’re like, “Dude.” And he’s like, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I just promise I’m not doing this on purpose.”

[Emily]
“He’s got a rock-solid alibi.” Do you know recently, I saw a meme that said women hate, three things women hate, number one was: choosing. So, not to feed into stereotypes, I hate choosing. You two decide.

[Shep]
See, I’m trying not to because listening to the older episodes, I feel like I bully the two of you into choosing whatever I want all the time. So I’m trying not to do that.

[Emily]
I’m self-conscious-

[Shep]
Although it could be, neither of you likes to choose. So, whenever I choose, you just go along with it. So, I’m not bullying you. You just don’t want that responsibility.

[Emily]
Well, I, yeah, I don’t want the responsibility because what if you guys say “No” or it ends up being a really crappy episode?

[Thomas]
Well, then it’ll be your fault. And-

[Emily]
Exactly! And then we’ll get nasty reviews that are like “Hey, that Emily should not be on your show anymore. You know what I liked? Mike and Ethan. They need to come back.”

[Thomas]
You know what we’ll tell those people? “Fuck off. Stop listening to the show. We don’t want you. Emily’s integral.”

[Shep]
I have never once been concerned about that.

[Thomas]
No, because you’re a man. You’re just like, “It’ll all work out for me.”

[Shep]
Yeah, is that not… not everyone feels that way?

[Emily]
Yeah, so you’re a white man with a lot of privilege there, Shep.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Well, I like my idea about this, the documentary on the marble championship.

[Shep]
I also like that. Combine that with Liam Neeson-

[Emily]
Right! I was thinking, like, yours is basically the same. When they find him, he’s going to come out of retirement and then go and do a grandmasters.

[Shep]
Yep. All right. So that’s what we’re doing.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
See how easy Thomas is bullied?

[Thomas]
Oh, my arm. So, this is a documentary from when he was a kid.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
It starts out with a film student finding the documentary from when he was a kid and for his or her documentary assignment, she decides to basically, she or he, decides to basically make a sequel to it, like-

[Thomas]
Could be she. Women can make movies too.

[Shep]
But can they?

[Emily]
I mean, I wasn’t very good at it, so-

[Thomas]
You had another woman rooting against you. You got fucked over. It was unfair.

[Shep]
All right, who are you thinking of for the woman?

[Emily]
I know! Ayo Edebiri, from The Bear.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Yeah, she’s great. I could totally see her in that role.

[Emily]
Yeah, I think she would be great for that role.

[Thomas]
Okay. So, is it the kind of thing like her dad was a filmmaker and made this documentary? Maybe when he was in college, he made this documentary. Now she’s in college. She’s a little old to be in college, though, huh?

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s second life, second chance at life.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
It’s a movie, she can be whatever age you want. Doesn’t have to be realistic.

[Emily]
She could be like 22, 21-year-old. I think she could pass.

[Shep]
So, is it a documentary about this former Marbles champ, or is it a documentary about the game of Marbles, which is not a thing kids play anymore?

[Emily]
So, I love meta stories. So it’s a story about this documentary about her finding the documentary and then wanting to make a documentary. So we get both documentaries and her story of finding and making-

[Thomas]
So it’s a movie about a movie about a movie.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
It’s a movie about a… making a documentary, about a documentary.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Do we have enough layers? Because-

[Emily]
I mean we can add more, I’m sure. Absolutely.

[Shep]
Because at the end, when he wins the championship, they want to make a movie of his story.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is that movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Do we have like a Man Bites Dog moment where like toward the end, we pull back from an editing bay and it’s like, “Okay, well, I think this is going really well,” like talking to the camera.

[Emily]
I’m fine with it. That, that all tracks for my tastes. So that’s sort of the frame-

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Is her finding it, so we get to watch snippets of it, and then her being like “Whatever happened to this guy,” and we know that she has a documentary assignment coming up.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could even start with her like not sure what to do. She’s like, “I don’t know what to do anything on.”

[Emily]
Right exactly.

[Thomas]
And so she, to get inspiration, looks at some previous ones.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Maybe these are notable ones that the university has kept. And she happens across this one and is like, “This is so esoteric and weird.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And like “This kid was being lauded as this like amazing, I don’t know, miracle player, right? The boy with the golden fingers (or whatever).” And like, “Whatever happened to him?”

[Emily]
Yeah, and she like does a google search and can’t find very much on him. It’s all what was in the documentary, all of his victories-

[Thomas]
Right. all articles from the 70s and stuff. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, and then everything just stops and so there’s like one or two articles that are like “Whatever happened to-” but there’s no answer.

[Thomas]
So is her direction for her documentary like, “Hey, all this early attention’s got to really mess with your head.” Or is it just like, “He’s disappeared off the face of the planet? Where are they now?”-type of.

[Emily]
Well in my head it was “Where are they now” but tell me more about your first choice.

[Thomas]
It could even go in that direction eventually. Like, she- maybe she uncovers- so her beginning is a “Where are they now” and then through her research uncovers like “Oh it turns out his parents were you know doing the Macaulay Culkin thing where they were like taking all this money and being irresponsible with it.” I say Macaulay Culkin, that’s, pick a child star.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And so like that probably wasn’t great. And then I know I’ve heard, Jason Bateman has talked a lot about how he was like the breadwinner for his family. And he felt that pressure as a kid.

[Emily]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
And so there’s maybe some of that of like the kid feels all this pressure that like, he’s winning money at these tournaments and maybe his family’s really poor, which is why he’s playing with fricking marbles in the first place. Yeah, so there could be some of that stuff. So maybe the focus or the tone of her documentary starts to shift, and then could even change again once she finally tracks him down and meets him. I assume he’s alive and we meet him because we want Liam Neeson to-

[Emily]
Well, I know, yeah, we do want Liam Neeson to play him and that is definitely the standard way and the way I was thinking it would go. But now that we’re talking about this other idea of like talking about the child exploitation and all this and-

[Thomas]
You’re thinking Brendan Fraser instead of Liam Neeson. I see it.

[Emily]
Yeah yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
No, I think, I was thinking more maybe she just gives up on finding him or you know, yeah gives up on finding him and lets him have his peace and anonymity.

[Shep]
Does that sound like a documentary maker to you?

[Thomas]
That could be a decision she makes at some point in the film.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Or maybe that’s the lowest low for her is-

[Emily]
Oh she makes that decision and then her professor’s like “That’s not gonna work.”

[Thomas]
Right. Like, “Well, you better figure something out because this thing’s due in two weeks. And…” you know, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. That’s a good lowest low, right?

[Thomas]
So, she’s having like an emotional struggle for herself of like, “I don’t feel good about this, but also I’m kind of too far in.”

[Shep]
Okay, so what if that doesn’t occur to her at the beginning? She’s making this documentary. She thinks she’s gonna do this guy a favor.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He used to be famous. Now he’s living on his poor family’s farm in obscurity. She’s gonna bring him into the limelight again, not knowing that was a tragedy for him. It’s this trauma of his life, was all of that as a child, and then, so midway she realizes, “Oh-” You know, she pushes him to like get back in the game, go to a tournament again, and it’s not going well. He hurt his hand, and he can’t shoot like he used to and she’s like, “Oh you got it in you.” She wants him to win because that would be good for her documentary.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Yeah.

[Shep]
And so, it’s all this pressure on him, again, like it was when he was a kid and the breadwinner for his family. And then she’s like, “Oh, this this might have been a mistake. He was happy in obscurity.”

[Thomas]
So, we’re seeing, there’s sort of the outer movie that we’re watching, and that’s where she’s like, “Man, you got to do it. Okay, ready?” And then she pulls up the camera for her documentary. So she’s not part of her documentary-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
But she is steering the direction of the story of her documentary. That’s what you’re saying?

[Emily]
I like the idea that she is kind of pressuring him and steering the story where she wants to.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And that, we’re kind of exposing that for documentaries, right? Because that is how they work essentially for a lot, yeah.

[Thomas]
Oftentimes, yeah. Looking at you, Disney.

[Emily]
And then so she has this this footage but she’s come to this this sort of like thought after watching him break down again or you know having that deep conversation of like “This is my childhood trauma-“

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“I don’t want it anymore.” And so that’s when she kind of just decides to go with that storyline of, you know, how things like this end up exploiting children, it’s not good for them and their psyche, kind of, and then she kind of tries to push it that way. And then that’s when her professor’s like “But you have all this footage you can use of finding him and you know trying to reintroduce him to the world of marbles.”

[Thomas]
Well, and the professor could even be trying to like inspire her. Like, “Hey, this feels a lot like Grey Gardens, where you’ve got that like riches to rags type of story. And then, you know, you could have this like amazing documentary. It could be an award-winning thing. Like, your name could be really-“

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“This could launch a career for you.” Because the professor presumably has seen some of the footage and is like, “This is good stuff.”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
I’ve got a question about the framing device because I’m a little confused.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
The assignment is to make a documentary about documentaries or something like that.

[Emily]
No, no, it’s just she’s making a documentary.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
That’s her assignment.

[Shep]
But her inspiration was an existing documentary.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
But we’re also seeing her make the documentary.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I was thinking one of her classmates is making their documentary on the making of her documentary.

[Emily]
I mean that would add that extra level of layer.

[Shep]
This is also how we see all the stuff going on behind the scenes.

[Thomas]
Hmm, so the outer movie, the one were watching, is in documentary style.

[Emily]
I think there might be too many layers and I love layers.

[Shep]
It’s the same number of layers. It just explains why we’re seeing-

[Emily]
Well, why can’t it just be like we’re seeing a story like we would see a story played out if it wasn’t like about two documentaries?

[Shep]
Or three or four.

[Emily]
Or three. Okay-

[Shep]
At the very end, it’s revealed that the whole thing was a was a fourth documentary-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
About her classmate who made the documentary about her.

[Thomas]
Well, it about the whole class, the entire class, and then they found this story within that. It’s about the film program at her school.

[Emily]
It’s the professor’s documentary.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the professor’s got a side thing going.

[Shep]
What is the tone of the movie? Is it serious? Is it a comedy? I need to-

[Thomas]
I mean, it feels serious to me.

[Emily]
I would say serious leaning toward the dramatic.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
I think that’s what we’re evolving in this conversation to.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I think unfortunately we have to save Liam Neeson for another time.

[Shep]
So now it’s adult Macaulay Culkin is the former Marbles champ.

[Thomas]
He’s too young.

[Emily]
For 70s, yeah. I mean, I guess we could push the decade.

[Thomas]
A lot of people playing marbles in the 80s?

[Emily]
I dunno.

[Shep]
Yes, are you serious? Were the two of you not alive in the 80s?

[Thomas]
I mean, I had marbles. I don’t know if I ever played marbles, though.

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
I was alive in the 80s but I was playing with sticks and camouflage in the swamp.

[Thomas]
I was playing with muscle men.

[Emily]
Yeah you were.

[Shep]
It explains everything. I was playing with marbles and sticks in the swamp.

[Emily]
So yeah, we could, if we wanted like Macaulay Culkin to do it, we could definitely set it in the 80s.

[Shep]
Because he’s got that, it’s a character played by an actor that has a similar-

[Emily]
Yeah, I think yeah that’s a good, good point. So let’s start with, so the first act is her finding and kind- and watching the documentary, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah. So, like, is like the first scene, like, getting the assignment like in class and that sort of a thing?

[Emily]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
And maybe even she goes up to the professor and is like, “I’m struggling. I really haven’t-” Oh, I know. So they’re maybe being excused from class, and the teacher’s like, “Hey, I need to know what your documentary is about.” She’s like, “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.” Like, so we’re seeing that right away that-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
This is a thing she’s been pushing. And maybe the teacher even suggests, like, “Well, tell you what, in the film school library, we have a bunch of previous ones. Maybe take a look at some of those, see if anything inspires you.”

[Emily]
Yeah. “See what others have done and-“

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“Kind of see what you could do different or what you like.” Yeah.

[Thomas]
You know, she’s watching different ones, nothing’s clicking, and then she finds this one and is just, for whatever reason, fascinated.

[Shep]
Oh, so you see a stack of other documentaries, and so you see like Seven Up! and Fourteen Up (actually: 7 Plus Seven), other documentaries where you see where-are-they-now type things.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And then she sees this one. So, you don’t call attention to it. It’s just there for the eagle-eyed viewer.

[Thomas]
That’s good, yeah.

[Emily]
So, then this is, it’s easy to write this because then the second act becomes her decision to make the documentary.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think that’s the end of the first act is making that decision.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
And so then that puts her on the path. And so what is that mid-second act turning point?

[Emily]
Would that be the conversation with the marble champion, and him like letting her know that “This isn’t, this isn’t what I want. It was never what I wanted. I had all this pressure. I was the breadwinner. I was exploited. I don’t even have any of that money. I don’t even have the gold marbles I won.” And that’s when she starts to think about swapping the way it goes, and looking into it and kind of building that new story. So that when she builds it and gets to the point where she’s satisfied with it, she shows the professor kind of to get a gauge on what he thinks about the new direction, because she’s told him the original direction and shown him some of that footage, right? And then that makes the lowest low, of where he’s like “Well you already had, you already had it. Why are you messing with this?”

[Shep]
What is the new direction?

[Emily]
Well she goes from trying to find him and get him back into the world of marbles and get him back into the limelight, and so like originally it’s to you know bring him back out to celebrate him and his victories and his talent and, you know, reintroduce him to the world. And then she makes the change to talk about more of that exploitation and the stresses and the pressures that come with it.

[Shep]
How serious are these marble tournaments? Does he have, like, a coach?

[Emily]
So originally in my head, I was thinking it would be like the same pressure chess players feel.

[Shep]
So maybe it was the coach that stole all his money.

[Emily]
Yeah, it could be that. Ooh, the coach stole all his money, and he was okay with being the breadwinner for his family, because he wanted to help them out.

[Shep]
Yeah, he’s a kid. That’s-

[Emily]
Yeah, and so he has some guilt about that, about letting the coach get away with that.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
And watching his family have to suffer even though he tried so hard.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, and maybe the coach took the money and ran.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so, he’s kept, after the coach left, he kept trying to enter these tournaments and win more money. Like, “Well, I’ve got to make up for this.” And so that’s where that sort of pressure still comes in. So, we kind of get the best of both worlds there. Or the worst of both worlds? Whatever it is. All right, well, let’s take a break here. And when we come back, we’ll see how things turn out for our documentary filmmaker in our Marbles movie.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back.

[Emily]
We’re back and we need to figure out where we’re going with the second act after the mid-second act turning point.

[Shep]
So, so far, she’s found him, she’s interviewed him. We have the story of his childhood and all of that.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
What’s left?

[Emily]
Has she attempted to get him-

[Thomas]
To like bring him out of retirement, kind of thing.

[Emily]
To bring him out of retirement, yeah. You know, come do a celebrity match.

[Shep]
Ah. All the pressure again.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. Do we want it to go with she’s kind of like hinting and pushing him towards that and he’s like “I know what you’re doing. And I’m not going to deal with it.” And then goes into that conversation with her, or does she actually convince him to do it and then that brings back all that pressure and stress and then they have that conversation that leads into the second act?

[Thomas]
Hmm, yeah, I guess like the question is, how much of a pushover do we want him to be? Like, what is-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Whose story is it? is Does she change or does he change?

[Emily]
I think it’s her story.

[Thomas]
Feels like it, right?

[Emily]
She’s going to change, yeah. Definitely hers.

[Thomas]
So, then, he can just be intransigent the whole time about, like, “I’m not going to do this. I see what you’re doing.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, “I don’t want to do that. I left that for a reason.” And so, she keeps, like, pressuring him, and- It’s, that’s starting to negatively affect her ability to complete her documentary because like he’s like, “Hey, I don’t like hanging out with you. I agreed to do this. I didn’t really want to, but I was trying to help you out since you’re in school-“

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“And you’re being kind of a jerk to me. So, bye.”

[Shep]
Yeah, “I will come and talk and we can have a conversation, but I’m not a puppet that you can just move around and make me do whatever.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, what happens? Because that does, that’s kind of a damp squib.

[Thomas]
Well, but I like that as a lowest low of like, he’s refusing to work with her. The documentary is not done. She’s feeling terrible about how she’s treated him, perhaps, or yeah, I don’t know.

[Shep]
She’s got find his coach that ran off with all of his money and bring him back and try to get a resolution between them.

[Thomas]
I feel like that’s digging deeper.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Well, she’s trying to come up with all the things that could be the end of the documentary.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
You want to end it with a bang.

[Emily]
Yeah, because right now it just fizzles, yeah.

[Shep]
And he won’t come back and do the celebrity tournament. So, she gets the coach and brings him to the guy’s farm and kind of springs it on him.

[Emily]
I like that idea.

[Shep]
Because that would be good, you know, reality footage.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, this forced encounter.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
What would that look like? What would end up-

[Shep]
So, here’s where the murder takes place.

[Emily]
Oh, the grandmaster shoots him buries him in the backyard. Or, no, burns his body, burns his body in the trash pile, gets them smelted and then it has them put into a marble, and then goes on to win a new tournament.

[Shep]
Well, that took a turn, but it is Emily’s episode, so-

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “Damn, this documentary is going to be fire.”

[Emily]
She could make an argument that she’s just, “It’s art it’s free speech and I’m not an accessory.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So, I feel like the reason the coach agrees to come and see the grandmaster is he’s looking for… like he kind of wants to, he thinks they can repair the relationship. Like, he feels guilty. He knows he did something he oughtn’t have, right? That he treated them terribly by stealing the money and running. And so, he’s looking for some sort of-

[Emily]
Redemption-ish?

[Thomas]
Yeah, something like that. Something that can- because he’s an older guy, right? He’s probably getting toward the end of his life and he’s like, “Hey, I want to make good on this so I can die without this hanging over my head.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And this one’s played by Liam Neeson?

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
So, he had gambling debts. He didn’t want to steal the money.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
He didn’t think of himself as a bad guy.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But they were going to kill him. No, they were going to break his thumbs. He was also a previous Marbles champ.

[Thomas]
Yes, yes. Yeah.

[Shep]
It all makes sense.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So, if that were the case, you know, the guy comes seeking redemption and forgiveness, what do we have the marble champion, what is his reaction?

[Shep]
“Give me my money.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Give me my money. You stole (however much money). $200,000.”

[Emily]
What if, now I’m being overly dramatic here-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s fine.

[Emily]
What if he comes offering to give him the money, you know, he’s invested it well, he has the money, feels guilty about it-

[Shep]
Oh, he didn’t use it? He didn’t pay off his gambling debts?

[Emily]
No, no, he didn’t have any gambling bets, he was just an asshole. But now he’s, you know, found a new Jesus or whatever and-

[Shep]
A new Jesus, a new personal Jesus.

[Emily]
A new personal Jesus, or whatever, so he’s coming prepared to repay him financially.

[Thomas]
I mean, you could do both. Like, he had gambling debts and he paid them off. And he was a gambler. So, he gambled again. And then he won.

[Emily]
And won big?

[Thomas]
Sometimes when you gamble, you win. Not often. Not usually.

[Emily]
Yeah, so, he’s coming to offer him the money back, and the grand champion, like I said, this is overdramatic, is like “You can’t give me my childhood back. You can’t give me my family’s losses back. You can’t, you know-“

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“The money means nothing at this point.”

[Thomas]
“I mean, I’ll take the check, obviously, but-“

[Emily]
Well obviously, but then you get that big dramatic speech that she’s recording-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Of him just tearing into the guy about everything he lost, not just the money.

[Thomas]
Is this happening, like, out in front of the farmhouse?

[Emily]
Yeah, because he’s not letting that guy inside. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. He saw them walking up and he’s like, “No, no, go away. Turn around. Both of you.”

[Emily]
Imagine it’s a big dusty driveway-

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s what I had in my head as well.

[Emily]
There’s silos, there’s a silo on one side, the house on the other, and then like a big ass barn.

[Shep]
There’s a dog chained up, and the dog is barking.

[Emily]
Barking.

[Shep]
That’s how he knew there were people there.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
You know, a farm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, I’ve been on a farm.

[Emily]
Have you?

[Thomas]
It’s the first I’m hearing of it. And then is he talking right into her camera? Like, “Get out. Get out of here.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“I can’t believe you did this to me.”

[Emily]
I like that. I think that’s a good- yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, “This is a betrayal.” Is that before or after he’s told, he’s sort of stopped working with her? Like, this is what causes him to stop working with her. So, they’ve already had the conversation where he’s like, “I know what you’re trying to do, and I’m not going to do it.” And she sees, “Oh, he can’t be cajoled into it. I need some other big ending.” Does this. It doesn’t go the way she wants it to. And she’s like, “Shit, now what? I’m not done with him. I need him to finish my thing.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Does this not go the way she wants? You have this big explosive argument.

[Thomas]
I think she was hoping for like-

[Emily]
A happy ending?

[Thomas]
Yeah, like, “Oh, see it all worked out.” Because I think that’s kind of been her thing all along, is like, “I’m going to make this guy famous again. Okay, he doesn’t want that. Well, I can at least, like, you know, repair this relationship and get him his money back.” And it’s like, “God damn, none of this is going the way I want it to.” And it’s like, yeah, you’ve got this explosive argument, which does make good viewing, but it doesn’t have a nice resolution to it.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I think she wants that, like, pat, put-a-bow-on-it type of resolution.

[Emily]
So, this point, I think, it would be when she would go and talk to the professor, right? To be like, “I’m stuck, this is what I have.”

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is the lowest low.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is the lowest low? How do we get out of this hole that we’ve dug?

[Thomas]
Yeah. That’s how it works. that’s the hard part about the third act, right? Like, how do you get there? What is the end?

[Shep]
Oh, he stalks them and kills them one by one using marbles and his shooting marbles abilities.

[Thomas]
He shoots them into their throat and they’re like, “(Choking sounds)”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
It’s a good way to die.

[Thomas]
How did Finding Forrester end? He didn’t want to come out into the limelight.

[Emily]
How did that end? I just remember the socks.

[Shep]
Which one was Finding Forrester?

[Thomas]
It’s the one where Sean Connery is the, like, reclusive author-

[Shep]
Oh, yes. “You’re the man now, dog,” that movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s right!

[Shep]
So yeah, Forrester doesn’t want to come out, but he does at the end to save the kid.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So, our marble guy’s going to come out somehow.

[Shep]
Oh, could she have brought some other young kid who’s good at marbles and was like, “Hey, maybe you could train him. You could coach him like you were coached. You could do a better job. You had a bad coach, but you can do a better job.” But again, that’s just another form of pressure.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Emily]
I like that. I like him seeing another kid and, like, that being the reset for him. But I want it to be a way that it’s more natural for him and not forced by her.

[Thomas]
Well, it could even be a scene where she shows up with the kid, like, “Okay, that didn’t, the coach didn’t work. Let’s try it this way.” Because she wants that heartwarming thing. And so, she shows up with the kid, and the kid is, like, in the living room or whatever. And he’s like, “I need to talk to you.” And like, pulls her into the other room, and is like, “What the hell are you doing?” Like, “No, I’m not going to do this.” And they’re like kind of having this argument back and forth. And he’s sort of like watching the kid through the doorway. And he’s like watching the kid practice shooting or something like that. And so, they come out and he’s like, “I’m sorry, I can’t coach you.” And she’s like, “Okay, I’m sorry. I wasted your time. I guess this isn’t going to work out.” And then before they leave, he tells the kid something. And like, that’s the first little chink in the armor moment where he’s like, he can’t help himself.

[Shep]
Maybe the kid just wants to play a game with him.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Because the kid’s playing marbles because he likes it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And the former champion, he also, that’s how he got into marbles.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He played it because it was fun to play. And so, not for a tournament, not for a prize-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But let’s, the two of us, play.

[Thomas]
No training or anything, it’s just for fun.

[Shep]
No training, no coaching. We’ll just play together on your living room floor.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that.

[Emily]
Okay, so, I have an idea that plays into this, because I want to know how we’re going to get there without her, like, bringing the child, because what, what is this child? Where did he come from? You know.

[Shep]
He’s a rental.

[Emily]
Yeah, right? So, they’re, like, in a restaurant or some place, coffee shop, something like that. They’re having the conversation. She’s trying one more time to have a conversation with him on how to, you know, like, what she can do to bring him out, because this is her last-ditch attempt to get the ending she wants. And he’s looking over at the table next to them of a kid who’s playing marbles just for funsies. And then it, like, shoots over at him. Like, one of the marbles hit him. Yes, coincidentally. I don’t care. And he walks over and kind of, like, shows him, like, “Oh, what you want to do is this.” And then he ends up sitting down, and then playing a game of marbles with him. It’s all coincidence, I know!

[Shep]
And then she slips the parents $50. Like, “Good, you did a good job.” It was all a setup. It’s not coincidence!

[Thomas]
I like leaving it ambiguous. Like, you’re not sure. He’s not sure if she set it up. We’re not sure if she set it up. But we wouldn’t put it past her.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because we’ve seen what she’s been doing this whole time to try to get her ending out of her documentary. She’ll swear up and down that she had no idea. How could she have-?

[Emily]
Yeah, he could question it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. He enjoys the game, and he likes playing with it, and he could question, like, “Did you do that?” And she could just, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

[Thomas]
So, the only reason he agrees to meet with her at this diner, or wherever it is, is she has promised not to bring her film gear. This isn’t part of the documentary. It’s just a conversation. He’s like, “Fine.” What he doesn’t know is that the other student who’s making the documentary about her is on the other side of the diner. Or has gotten there early and he’s like doing like, you know, hidden camera type of thing. And so, she’s like, “No, I had no- how would this benefit me? The kid being here. I can’t film this. You know, who are these people? Like, if I could film this, I would. That would be great. But obviously, I haven’t done that.” But we’re seeing like from the across the diner perspective of the other camera.

[Shep]
So, we do have the other student making his documentary about her documentary?

[Thomas]
I mean, it works really well for this scene, so-

[Shep]
Okay, okay.

[Emily]
Or she could just have a classmate helping out.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Either way.

[Shep]
I like it being ambiguous whether she set it up or not, and, but if it’s the other kid making their documentary about her documentary, they could have set it up.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Right. So, we don’t know. We don’t know. Is this kid just there-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Playing marbles with his family?

[Shep]
We haven’t seen any other kids playing marbles.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So it’s an amazing coincidence.

[Emily]
Did she do it? Did the other guy do it?

[Thomas]
Well, I think we need to see, like, she has to go and shoot some modern marbles tournament stuff-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
To show how, like, “Hey, this is still a thing that happens. The old classic games are still around. This is still a thing.”

[Emily]
Absolutely. That’s one piece of her documentary.

[Thomas]
She’s probably interviewing contemporaries of the grandmaster, who are like, “Oh man, he was the best. He was so great.” And they’re now judges at tournaments and they’re parents of kids who participate in the tournaments and whatnot.

[Shep]
Yeah. So you see, like, one of his rivals from when he was a kid, and now he’s a judge, and he coaches his kid who’s playing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So you have like the photo of the kid with the championship, the two of them standing next to each other. It’s like this legacy thing going on.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then you see the former grand champion. He’s got no family. He’s got no kids. Just lives alone on a farm.

[Emily]
Full of bitter rage.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Bitter rage and disappointment.

[Emily]
And solitude.

[Shep]
He went back to the farm to take care of his family.

[Emily]
And they all died.

[Shep]
They, time went by. Yeah. They didn’t, like, tragedy. It wasn’t like a big accident.

[Emily]
No, no. They died one by one over the years.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then, like, his sibling moved.

[Emily]
Yeah, siblings moved away. Also, what else is he going to do? His life has been farming and marbles and marbles crushed his soul, so-

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And farming crushed his hand. So-

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah, that would be a really good line. “Marbles crushed my soul and farming crushed my hand. I have nothing left.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s an argument he makes that she’s like, “Oh, you could play.” And he’s like, “But I can’t play.”

[Shep]
No, he’s got old worn hands from-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Hard farming living.

[Emily]
So does it end, then, we see her documentary showing him being a coach?

[Shep]
I don’t know if he’s… he’s not social enough to be a coach-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
But he might come out and talk to the former rival that we saw at the beginning of the documentary, because they were friends when they were kids. So, he’s reconnecting with the world. He’s not reconnecting through marbles, but he is, he’s leaving the farm and talking with people.

[Emily]
In order to see this friend again, would he just meet him at the next marble tournament? Just be like “I can go, I can watch. Go see Steve.” Oh, Steve is the-

[Shep]
Steve!

[Emily]
Steve’s the manager’s name, sorry.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right. That’s right.

[Emily]
“Dave. I can go see Dave.”

[Shep]
Yeah, he might have wanted to reconnect, but like, doesn’t have any way to contact Dave.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
They didn’t have cell phones back then, so it’s not like he still has the same number. So.

[Thomas]
That can even come up earlier where she’s like, “Oh, do you ever talk to your, you know, the people who used to compete against and go around these tournaments with?” Because maybe he talks about like, “Oh, yeah, it was like the same kids. We saw each other at each thing.” She’s like, “Oh, do you ever talk to them still?” And he’s like, “No, how would I even find them? Like, I don’t know who these people are.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“They’re strangers to me now.” And she’s like, “Oh, well, I found most of them.” And he’s like, “Oh.”

[Shep]
Maybe that’s how she convinces him to participate at all, is she has this information-

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
That he wants.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
He wants to reconnect with them, but has no, he only remembers like their first name. So-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
What could you even Google? I mean, I guess marble champion Dave.

[Thomas]
Well, but none of the other ones were marble champions. He was always the champion. There’s no, you can’t search marbles runner-up Dave.

[Shep]
Then you search for the competitions that he was in, and then there’s a list of participants.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. Ah, but he’s a farmer. He doesn’t know how computers work.

[Shep]
That’s also a good point.

[Thomas]
Because that’s how that works. Are there any other details that we feel we need to include in here?

[Shep]
What’s the ending? What was the end?

[Thomas]
Actually, that’s a good point. What is like the final ending of her documentary and of our film? Because they both need endings.

[Emily]
Right. I would like the ending to be all cozy happy and have him not playing, not coaching, but going to one of these marble championship competitions, and seeing Dave, and reconnecting with him. But like, we don’t see the whole conversation or anything, but just kind of like see him there, watching, a lil’ smile on his face, and then going up to Dave and shaking his hand.

[Shep]
And then they kiss.

[Emily]
Yes. Then he walks up and shakes his hand, so “man kiss”.

[Shep]
Is that, handshakes are “man kissing”?

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I wonder if the announcers or whoever at the tournament would call attention to him, like, “Oh, we have former grand champion, whoever here.” And he just is sort of like, “Uh, hey,” you know, and people clap and whatnot.

[Emily]
Maybe Dave wants, maybe we do see more of the interaction and Dave says “We could totally announce you’re here, you could give out some autographs,” you know, whatever, and he’s like “No, I just, I’m just here to watch.”

[Thomas]
Well, my thinking was, they make that announcement, and everyone’s sort of like, “Okay, person we’ve never heard of from thirty years ago.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so, it’s not this big deal that he thinks it’s going to be.

[Emily]
Oh!

[Thomas]
He thinks he’s going to be hounded.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And it turns out, no one cares. Nobody knows who you are. You’ve been gone for thirty years off the scene.

[Shep]
That’s your ending?

[Thomas]
No, no, no. That’s part of the ending, because we build up before that he’s like, “No, I don’t, I don’t want the attention.” It’s like, yeah, you don’t have to worry about the attention, like-

[Emily]
“I don’t want to go back to that life.” Yeah. And then he realizes that that life has surpassed him.

[Thomas]
And then that’s when maybe Dave shows up and is like, “Oh my gosh, you’re here. It’s me, Dave.”

[Emily]
“Let me let me introduce you to my son.”

[Shep]
Who’s named after his rival.

[Thomas]
“His name is Grand Champion.”

[Shep]
GC, GC.

[Thomas]
GC, yeah. And then how does her documentary end? Is that part of it? Or has she…

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, that’s the end of the documentary, right?

[Thomas]
Well, then what’s the end of the movie? Because I think they should be separate thing.

[Emily]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, so then the end of the movie is we see… So, we see that scene, and then like we hear all this cheering or something, or applause, and then it cuts to, like, her in the screening room.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And she’s screened the documentary, and now she’s doing a Q&A or I don’t know, whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah, I like, like, a Q&A, or even the professor- I want it to kind of end with, you know, she grew as a person. She grew to care for him and not the story.

[Thomas]
Well, yeah, that’s the thing. If we’re talking about she changes as a person, what is her change that she has?

[Shep]
She sees the documentary subjects as people and not objects to be manipulated.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, because she kind of at the beginning does. They’re just an assignment.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She’s just getting what she needs out of them, whatever it takes.

[Thomas]
Yeah, she has a realization that like, not only can, like, film change lives, but, like, we as people can change lives-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And, our actions have meaning.

[Shep]
Oh. So, you had this, you mentioned the applause, and that’s the people watching the documentary? Is that…?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, earlier, when they announced that this former grand champion is there and like nobody responds because nobody cares, she can cut the footage to make it seem as if they’re cheering for him when actually it’s the cheering from the end of the tournament.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
And she’s manipulating the documentary to tell a story that she wants to tell, even if that’s not how it actually happened. So, in the documentary, he is this beloved champion that everyone remembers, when in reality, as we saw earlier, nobody cared.

[Thomas]
All right. I want to throw one wrench out. So, we talked about her being a non-trad student. So maybe this isn’t like for a degree she’s trying to get. This could just be like a class she’s auditing or something like that, because it’s a thing she’s interested in. What if she doesn’t finish the assignment and turn it in? Because she’s changed as a person. She viewed originally her subject as just an object, and she realized “He doesn’t want this attention. And if I complete this documentary, it’s going to bring unwanted attention to him.” And so, her growth as a person is, “Who cares about this? I’m not even getting a grade for this class. I don’t care.”

[Shep]
This is our big ending?

[Thomas]
But it’s not like-

[Shep]
She doesn’t want- she wants to turn in the assignment, but not give him attention. So every time his name is mentioned, it’s beeped.

[Emily]
Okay, okay, okay, okay, so she’s showing the professor the end of the documentary, and it’s not, there’s no big applause, there’s no grand reunification with the marble community. And he says, “Here’s a trick.” And says, “Take this clapping from this event-“

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
“And put it on here. No one will be the wiser, right? And your story’s complete.”

[Thomas]
Right, because her ending is kind of flat to her documentary, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, because we have, sometimes we have to make some choices. And so, we see her kind of thinking about it, and then we see her kind of do that in editing, right? Make that version, and then we skip to the screening, and the end is her original version of him just walking up, the announcement, no applause, and then him reuniting with Dave. And then the professor says something about it. “You had your story, you had your ending. Why did you- why’d you choose this?” And she gives you know an explanation about “Well it’s a subject, not an object. I’m here to show what’s real, not what I want to be real.”

[Thomas]
But, like, written well, instead of us just babbling out a concept.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. Not in that way.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
That’s the writer’s problem to make it eloquent and grand and meaningful.

[Thomas]
And so, the camera slowly pushes up on her in the screening while she’s giving this speech, and then it cuts back to the teacher. He is like, “Mm. C minus.” Cut to black, roll credits.

[Emily]
And it could even be like he does this offstage with her you know.

[Thomas]
That actually makes sense, yeah. Shep, you’ve been making faces while Emily’s been talking about this ending.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, the ending is just moralizing about reality and documentation?

[Emily]
Yes!

[Thomas]
All right, you’ve bitched about lots of endings. What is your ending, Shep?

[Shep]
I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s a problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
We know the movie ends. That’s all we need to figure out.

[Emily]
My ending is about moralizing, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, but that’s not gonna change anything. We know that documentaries manipulate reality.

[Emily]
Do we? In the age of TikTok and AI, do we?

[Shep]
Yes, now we, now more people know. You’d think, right?

[Thomas]
You’d hope.

[Emily]
Yeah…

[Shep]
Oh, gosh. Oh, no. Now it’s a tragedy. That’s what this movie is.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, give me a suggestion, because, I don’t know. I like that ending, but I like that morality tale. But you’re right, this isn’t new necessarily.

[Shep]
So, do we have the person making the documentary about her making the documentary? Because if so, if that’s the framing device, then her failing to make the documentary is the story.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
Right? She, she chose not to-

[Emily]
Finish.

[Shep]
Misrepresent-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The facts. And in fact, left the program because she’s so disillusioned with the process. And then the person making it can put on an ending or present an ending as if it were what really happened. But having seen, having the audience, having just seen how easily the reality can be manipulated, we’re left wondering, is that what really happened?

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Or is this, because this is a documentary?

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Emily]
I like that. That’s a good one. Why didn’t you pitch that ten minutes ago?

[Thomas]
Well we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Marbles. Should it be etched in stone, or have we lost our marbles? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. We know there are a lot of podcasts out there, and we appreciate that you listen to Almost Plausible. You probably know at least one person in your life who would also enjoy the podcast, and we hope you’ll take a moment this week to tell them about the show. And if that person refuses to listen, you can always invite them over to your place, duct tape them to the couch, and force them to join Emily, Shep, and I, for the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I looked it up. Bugsy Malone‘s in color.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I, so I might have just watched it on a black and white TV and assumed it was a black and white movie.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. Yeah, because Jodie Foster’s in it.

[Shep]
Jodie Foster’s in it. Scott Baio’s in it. I probably saw it in the 80s when I just had a black and white TV-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And assumed it was a much older movie because I didn’t know who those people were yet. So. Yeah. In color. Blew my mind! Sorry.