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Max Folkman

@maxfolkman.bsky.social
1.3K followers 617 following 90 posts

Writer, Director w/ @nickfolkman.bsky.social • Now: Senior Writer @ Riot Games • Prev: Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank, Miles Morales, MASSIVE CHALICE • voice on @scriptlock.bsky.social • Rep: Dallaslyn Lamb

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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Script Lock lives!
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Emily Yoshida @emilyyoshida.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
If we're lucky, someday we'll be able to look back and see that so much of what is wrong in the film (or any) industry right now is the narcissism of a gerontocracy who are old and incurious, but also delusional enough to still think they are the *least* old and incurious living generation.
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Laura Michet @lmichet.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Learned that I am being laid off from Heart Machine, and will be leaving the studio later this month. Do you need a contractor? I've got a track record of leading scope-friendly script revisions late in dev. I have also done a lot of consulting on new IPs and pitches/demos. Feel free to DM me!
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
FREAKON TOMORROW, FREAKS! Come see our talk that we’ll NEVER speak of AGAIN! Don’t even ask!!!
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
A puppet holds a megaphone and announces “attention, freaks. It’s me.”
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
From Wired a few weeks ago. A lot of the people who I was told for years were the adults in the room are being asked how they want to be remembered, and that answer is very clearly "cowards." www.wired.com/story/uncann...
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
RIP sweet prince. May you sploot forever more in the giant cardboard box in the sky 🫡
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RS Benedict @rsbenedict.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Writers should internalize Lao Tzu's lesson about how the emptiness at the center of a wheel is what makes it useful, and how a pot is valuable because of where the clay *isn't*. Corporate geek culture has warped us into thinking that negative spaces are flaws that need to be fixed.
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megan farokhmanesh @megannicolett.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
working on something a little different than usual! looking to speak with women of all ages and backgrounds about their life experiences. short questionnaire here, shares very welcome docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Questionnaire
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Kaleb Horton @kalebhorton.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Need to cheer myself up so here's the best Twitter post ever. It spawned one billion bad ripoffs but it's a beautiful magic trick. You don't just read it in his voice: he said it now. This quote is real.
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Jason Song Quinn (Comms Open) @hulkhoquinn.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Needed this reminder today.
Fox Mulder from X-Files saying “Hey, you got to stay alive if you want to stick it to the government”“If you die, you let them off the hook.”
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Lila Byock @lbyock.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Oh no what if they turn this insanely popular young progressive into a national figure, anything but that
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh
Spidey clutching his head saying OMG
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Dave Itzkoff @ditzkoff.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
I’m late to this interview with Tony Gilroy but I think his answer, about why most art is progressive, hits the nail on the head. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...
Gilroy: You could say: Why has Hollywood for the last 100 years been progressive or been liberal? I think it’s much larger. I’ll go further and say: Why does almost all literature, why does almost all art that involves humans trend progressive?Let’s stick with Hollywood. Making a living as an actor or as a writer or a director — without the higher degree of empathy that you have, the more aware you are of behavior and all kinds of behavior, the better you’re going to be at your job. We feed our families by being in an empathy business. It’s just baked in. You’re trying to pretend to be other people. The whole job is to pretend to be other, and what is it like to look from this? People may be less successful over time at portraying Nazis as humans, and that may be good writing or bad writing, and there may be people that have an ax to grind. But in general, empathy is how I feed my family. And the more finely tuned that is, the better I am at my job.That is what actors do: I’m going on Broadway, I’m playing a villain for six months. I got to live in that. I’m playing the slave, I’m playing the fisherman, I’m playing the nurse, I’m the murderer — you have to get in there. You have to live lives through other people. I think that the simple act of that transformation and that process automatically gives you what I would describe as a more generous and progressive point of view. It just has to.And I don’t see how you can buy, if you’re going to reissue the Hardy Boys or try to twist a knot and say that Melville or the Coen brothers made a piece of right-wing art because you see something in there — I think it really misses the larger point of the struggle that that movement is going to be up against. Does that make any sense to you?
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
How dare Nintendo put in a great lil slow jam for when you set up the Switch 2, and yet still deny us eShop music
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Script Lock @scriptlock.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Hello hello! We're back with @blendogames.bsky.social & @lmichet.bsky.social this week to talk earnestness in storytelling, working w/ external writers, when to overexplain things, deranged subreddits, and in this clip, making a comedic immersive sim! scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/bre...
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Glennyrodge @glennyrodge.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
I saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button again last night. Never gets old.
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CRIMINAL SIMPSONS @criminalsimpsons.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I can't believe we have a Pope from Illinois. People from Chicago usually hate the Cardinals.
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
The Three States of Employment: - Laid Off - Waiting to be Laid Off - Executive
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Moo Yu (Mythmatch on Switch and Steam Now!) @oneofmoo.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
It's rare that I see an entry-level writing job in games so I wanted to share that Media Molecule is hiring a writer. www.brightnetwork.co.uk/graduate-job... On site in Guildford.
brightnetwork.co.uk
Media Molecule - Writer 2025
Apply today for the Writer 2025 with Media Molecule. And find the best graduate job opportunities on Bright Network.
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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
It’s true! We’re looking to add a new writer to the team. (Onsite here in Finland only.)
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Script Lock @scriptlock.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
ICYMI we put out a new GDC Grab Bag episode this week! You can listen to amazing guests like @vincentperea.bsky.social talk about simplification, and how a great entree can be just as memorable as a nine-course meal. scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/the...
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
I've actually used/quoted a line from this on multiple occasions: "We could take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won't have heard of and see if they survive the experience. They probably will."
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
🚨New episode!🚨 Got to talk with a bunch of folks and ask hard-hitting questions like “who’s your favorite person you’ve ever worked with?”
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
In honor of Val Kilmer, I recommend everyone watch the commentary for Kiss Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where he spends the entire time name dropping celebrities for a contest on his website
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Joseph Galbo @josephgalbo.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
When I hear people describe themselves as content creators.
An older Orson Welles sitting down for an interview, but with a meme quote that says: Content, content, content! A taco possesses content. A ship's manifest. An owner's manual for the operation of a microwave. Was Botticelli a content creator? Did Joyce wreck himself in chasing English to its limits "for the vine"? My God, man; have a little self respect.
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
📝🔒📌
A sweet pin of the Script Lock podcast logo
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Josh Scherr @joshscherr.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
I do love my chosen profession, but lately
David Lynch as John Ford, sitting at a desk with a cigar, saying "they tell me you want to be a video game maker," by contrast from The Fabelmans where he says "picture maker"A young boy says "yes sir, I do"David Lynch as John Ford says "Why?"David Lynch as John Ford says "This business, it'll rip you apart."
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Some great stuff in this 2010 interview with Alex Garland after working on his (so far) only video game (Enslaved: Odyssey to the West) "It's not important for everyone to understand storytelling, but it's important for them to respect it." web.archive.org/web/20101007...
Interviewer: There’s also often one writer, Marc Laidlaw, who drives the story. Is that sufficient, do you think, or should all developers learn to become good storytellers to a degree?
Garland: That’s a really, really big question. The first thing I’d say, and I want to make this really clear, is that I was not the writer on Enslaved in the way that Marc is the writer on Half-Life. I was very emphatically a co-writer. When I arrived at that project, the levels and the characters pre-existed. Not only that, but much of the required scenes between the characters already existed as well. So, in the way I conceptualise a writer, in that he begins with a blank sheet of paper, I was not the writer.

With regard to narrative, I think what I’d say is that it’s not important for everyone to understand storytelling, but it’s important for them to respect it. If you’re going to have a narrative within a game, you have to see it as being as valid as the gameplay. That’s what it boils down to. So here [gestures towards the door] is a film production company, and lots of different people are working on Judge Dredd behind us right now. Some of them will have narrative uppermost in their minds, and some of them won’t; some of them will be thinking: ‘How do I design this gun?’ And the design will have some narrative components.

It’s got to have a display that tells you what kind of ammo you’re using, stuff like that. But they’re not really thinking about the overall narrative picture and they don’t have to, but they’re also not going to do stuff that contradicts it, and if they do then someone else will correct it.Garland: I guess if I were to make a criticism it would relate to character and consistency. Making sure characters are true to themselves, and true to some kind of larger truth, which relates to the recipients of the narrative. That is to say, the player. Us. For example, I think the first serious discussion we had about the narrative was on the very first day that I, Tameem and the level designers all sat down together. We got to a section where Monkey was walking down a walkway, and he sees an escaping slave trying to pull himself up to the walkway. And instead of helping the guy up, Monkey kicked him in the face and sent him to his death. They thought that projected the idea that Monkey was a badass. Whereas, to me, it projected the idea that Monkey was a bit of a cunt.

I think that highlighted a difference in our approach to character. This is a generalisation, and I know there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but game design has a tendency to be fast and loose with character, whereas in film and books, character is handled with kid gloves. Ultimately, if you want to be serious about narrative, you have to be serious about character too.Garland: That said, I wouldn’t want to let games off the hook. Games can and will be high art. I don’t think Rez is Hamlet, but I think Hamlet will one day exist in games. Other people might not like Hamlet and prefer Rez instead. That’s fine. What I do think, though, is that the games industry has some very serious problems to address. It seems to me that what’s happened is that in its organic development, it has leapfrogged some key stages and has jumped straight to bloated Hollywood megabucks, mega-resources-type products. That’s really dangerous.

I say that from the point of view of someone who has an agenda, because I work in the film industry and struggle constantly with the consequences of these things within film - how you get finance, how you actually make a film while dealing with an industry that, in some ways, is only seriously interested in big franchise movies. Dredd we’re going to try to make for $30 million. Studios don’t want to make films for $30 million, they want to make them for $200 million for all sorts of reasons.Interviewer: Do gamers - fans - ultimately need to evolve as much as games do themselves?
Garland: Fans are dangerous - and I say that as a fan. What happens as a fan is that you start to define what you want that thing to be. And, broadly speaking, the people who are doing what they’re doing should do it in a vacuum. They should not really be listening to anybody. They should be closing out as many voices as possible. Closing out the voices that say this film or game should have a love interest; closing out the fans that say they like this gun from the first game, and that if this gun’s not in it, they’ll hate the second one. They should do what they feel is the right thing to do, and people like me at the other end - the receivers - can then make their own minds up.
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Rewatched The Wrong Trousers last night for the first time in years and would like to retroactively give it the cinematography Oscar for 1993
Gromit trails Feathers McGraw down an alley with film noir composition and lightingFeathers McGraw enters the backyard of Wallace. It’s night, with a slight glow coming through the gate against the coolness of the moonlightFeathers McGraw stands in front of the mechanical trousers with a screwdriver, in a very film noir-y shotThe closing shot of the Wrong Trousers, where the trousers match off into town on their own. The shot is blanketed in orange light from the sunset, with clouds overhead
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
👀
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Script Lock’s moved over to Bluesky and we’ve got a new episode out! (I promise it wont be another six months before the next one 😎)
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Joe Henderson @joehenderson.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Put this quote up on the damn wall of every writers room.
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
With every passing year I’ve become more convinced that this scene from Burn After Reading is the best thing the Coens have written
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
How many game studio CEOs make it 30 years with the company they founded? It’s been three years since my time at Insomniac but I still miss his daily AMAs. A genuinely good dude (and a great host on the Game Maker’s Notebook)
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Stephanie Zacharek @szacharek.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
In 2009, @raquellaneri.bsky.social got the scoop on David Lynch's top-five sandwiches. Unsurprisingly, it's delightful. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
David Lynch's top five sandwiches
RIP to a legend: a visionary filmmaker who also gave me the weirdest and most delightful interview of my career.
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Asher Vollmer @ashervo.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
If you live in LA, please read this. Feel free to share. Me and a few friends watched the Coalition For Clean Air webinar last night about toxic ash. There was a lot of important information in there, but it was 2.5 hours long. We summarized it into this doc. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
LA Fires 2025: Toxic Ash Takeaways
LA Fires 2025: Toxic Ash Takeaways Disclaimer: this is our best attempt to summarize takeaways from a very long and complicated webinar from the Coalition for Clean Air. Any inaccuracies are our own....
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MICHAEL HIGHAM @brazyazn.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
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Rafa Sales Ross @rafiews.com · 16/01/2025
💔
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
RIP David Lynch. Everyone has their favorite Lynch-isms, but I keep going back to his raw reaction to watching the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life.
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
“We’re seeing a way of life disappear, to be replaced with something else—who knows what. There will be rebuilding and regrowth, but what’s gone can never be replaced.” www.rogerebert.com/mzs/whats-go...
rogerebert.com
What’s gone can never be replaced: thoughts on Los Angeles, disasters, and the present moment | MZS | Roger Ebert
A few thoughts on the LA wildfires, and what it is doing to American entertainment, culture, and our collective psyches.
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Justin K. Thompson @shinypinkbottle.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
A comprehensive list of places you can donate immediate basic needs like clothing, diapers, and food to people that have lost so much in Los Angeles #fire #donate #LosAngeles #LA #eaton #palisades www.kqed.org/news/1202115...
kqed.org
How to Help People Affected by the L.A. Fires | KQED
Want to donate to help victims of the devastating fires raging in Southern California? We have links to fundraisers, mutual aid organizations and verified GoFundMes.
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G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 09/01/2025
This is the most thorough scientific breakdown I've seen so far of what is and isn't attributable to climate change, political negligence, and bad building practices re: the LA fires: www.motherjones.com/environment/...
motherjones.com
What we're missing about the cause of the LA wildfires
A scientist explains the role of climate change, infrastructure, power lines—and goats.
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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 09/01/2025
The LAFD Foundation has been raising money to replace outdated equipment and gear, with firefighters and EMS (many fire calls end up being medical aid calls) across the city dealing with inadequate and sometimes unsafe equipment. supportlafd.org/our-work/
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
We’re all packed up and ready to go, but it sounds like the Sunset Fire might be under control. Guess we’ll be taking shifts sleeping to make sure
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Carolyn Page @jacuzzitubbs.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
For those evacuating with pets in LA: Hilton’s Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton, Tru and Canopy brands are all 100% pet friendly. Even cats! And a lot of hotels are waiving pet fees atm. Good on u Hilton! Pun intended: that’s hot.
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Yell In a War @jelenawoehr.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
hello Los Angeles, i grew up in Colorado where we were on fire half the year before it was cool 1. Get fire information from Watch Duty and fire department channels directly, not social media or news media, miscommunication is common during fires 2. focus on mutual aid not on panicking
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Max Folkman @maxfolkman.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
LA will be having potentially *life-threatening* winds today, and yet there are still leaf blowers out this morning.
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