Apr 13, 2026 · 47 min · 10 segments
Take another trip to the archives with Proximity founder and writer/producer Sev Ohanian’s conversation with screenwriting duo Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier! Juel and Tony are the writers behind…
Juel TaylorGuest
Tony RettenmaierGuest
Sev OhanianGuest
Paola MardoHost
Because when we get in a creative block, we usually just keep bullshitting.
And I feel like if we just keep talking about it enough, it accumulates enough mass that becomes a sledgehammer you can break through or something.
And then holistically, I know if I'm feeling kind of strained or whatever, I know if I exercise or I make time to do a stupid hobby or something and do something like read consistently or go see a movie, I know if I do all those things, I think better.
I mean, I think definitely like... brute force repetition in terms of like finding a way to be cool with bad ideas.
You know what I'm saying? Like, I think with, like, getting through a creative block, a lot of times it's like, you know, you kind of filter in your mind, like, this isn't good, so you don't write it.
You know what I mean? I think it's everybody kind of self-edits like that a little bit.
And I feel like the more you can purge, like, the things that feel stupid and you can kind of get them out into the atmosphere, like, you know what I mean? The closer you start to get to, like, that was stupid, but something about it is actually kind of interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I really relate to the idea of brute forcing it because I don't love this expression, but, like, what we always do is, like, we go, like, gun to your head.
Just, like, you have to give an answer to overcome this problem, and it's usually a bad one.
And oftentimes there's a lot of prefacing, like, hey, worst idea ever, but what if? But I think the scary part about creative blocks that, like, We don't often hear about is the like indecision that comes with it of like if we're trying to accomplish a story beat, for example, and like it's like there's no way that we can pull this off because if we pull it off in this way, the movie becomes unrealistic or it's wrong for tone or like whatever other issues it causes.
There's always like a fear of like, well, should we just be doing this thing instead? But if we could pull this off, it would be so amazing.
like that, like, ah, and like, you know, with my writing partner, there's always like one of us tends to be the negative one of like, well, it's not possible.
Because when we get in a creative block, we usually just keep bullshitting.
And I feel like if we just keep talking about it enough, it accumulates enough mass that becomes a sledgehammer you can break through or something.
And then holistically, I know if I'm feeling kind of strained or whatever, I know if I exercise or I make time to do a stupid hobby or something and do something like read consistently or go see a movie, I know if I do all those things, I think better.
I mean, I think definitely like... brute force repetition in terms of like finding a way to be cool with bad ideas.
You know what I'm saying? Like, I think with, like, getting through a creative block, a lot of times it's like, you know, you kind of filter in your mind, like, this isn't good, so you don't write it.
You know what I mean? I think it's everybody kind of self-edits like that a little bit.
And I feel like the more you can purge, like, the things that feel stupid and you can kind of get them out into the atmosphere, like, you know what I mean? The closer you start to get to, like, that was stupid, but something about it is actually kind of interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I really relate to the idea of brute forcing it because I don't love this expression, but, like, what we always do is, like, we go, like, gun to your head.
Just, like, you have to give an answer to overcome this problem, and it's usually a bad one.
And oftentimes there's a lot of prefacing, like, hey, worst idea ever, but what if? But I think the scary part about creative blocks that, like, We don't often hear about is the like indecision that comes with it of like if we're trying to accomplish a story beat, for example, and like it's like there's no way that we can pull this off because if we pull it off in this way, the movie becomes unrealistic or it's wrong for tone or like whatever other issues it causes.
There's always like a fear of like, well, should we just be doing this thing instead? But if we could pull this off, it would be so amazing.
like that, like, ah, and like, you know, with my writing partner, there's always like one of us tends to be the negative one of like, well, it's not possible.
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