Let’s be honest: getting studio/or any notes can feel like being kicked in the teeth by someone wearing your childhood dreams like a steel toed Kodiak boot.

By Thomas Fenton

You hand in your script—your baby—and wait. You daydream about a polite email saying “Brilliant work, no changes needed!” What you get instead is a document that feels like a line-by-line autopsy. Every scene questioned. Every character poked. That clever twist you were proud of? “Too confusing.” The heartfelt monologue? “Feels on-the-nose.” The third act? “We’re not sure the talking goat is working... what about a crab?"

At first, it’s brutal. You pace. You vent. You call your screenwriter friends and quote notes in a tone reserved for bad Yelp reviews. You consider moving to the woods and writing poems on tree bark or worse going to Arby's.

But here’s the twist—like any good script, there is one—it gets better.

You sleep on it. You re-read the notes. Then a strange thing happens: clarity creeps in., sometimes it's like a thunderclap! "Oh, man! They're right!" You realize that beneath the exec-speak, some of the notes are actually… right. Not all, but enough to sting your ego and shake your structure—in a good way.

So you revise. You sharpen. You make hard choices. You cut that scene you loved but knew, deep down, was dragging. You add a beat that pulls a character arc into focus. Suddenly, the goat’s not talking anymore—he’s just a weird symbol in the background. Much better.

And when the dust settles, the script is stronger. Cleaner. Leaner. Sometimes it even resembles that elusive thing everyone’s after: producible. Taking notes is a skill—just like writing. The more scripts you deliver, the more you learn to listen without flinching (much). You learn to translate vague notes into actionable ones. You learn to ask the right follow-up questions. Most importantly, you learn that collaboration—when it’s good—elevates your work in ways you can’t always see on your own.

So yes, notes hurt at first. But they also teach you resilience, perspective, and how to kill your darlings with less blood on the floor.

The truth? Studio notes are like sandpaper. Rough, annoying, but essential. Because you’re not carving a statue—you’re building a rocket. And that baby’s gotta fly.

Want a more comedic version? Or one from a horror writer’s perspective? Let me know!