Writer and producer
Nickelodeon hired me at 22; I helped develop iCarly and Victorious from their pilots and was head writer on iCarly by 25, then on both. PGA Award nominee.
Chapter 1 · The hire
Arthur Gradstein
Creative director for interactive stories, games and AI video, and the tools that make them. Created Episode: Reality Stars (3.3M+ players) and The Kiss List (150M+ reads). Former TV head writer, iCarly and Victorious.
You’ve got one open role. Your choice changes the whole site.
What are you hiring for?
Every shot of me in this frame is an AI render; my photo is in About. How I cast myself →
Skip to the interviewPoint of view
Aspirational fantasy, familiar rules.
For the people who play my games, that means fame, romance, a look all their own and choices that matter, played by rules they know from media they already consume or lived experience. A dramatic dinner, a limo ride or spilling tea mid-pedicure: scenes players recognize on sight, and templates my team can direct on repeat. That’s why I build pipelines too.
Borrow a world whose rules players already know.
Love & Fam failed without one. Reality Stars borrowed lifestyle reality TV and the simple act of dressing up.
Let players pick a personality before it’s a stat.
The Kiss List: pursuing desire, admiration or fear, chosen as a play style.
Wrap every feature, even the paywall, in the fantasy.
Reality Stars: the paywall became a bouncer and the grind-mode hub your publicist’s vision board.
Story sets up the game. The game lifts the story.
Reality Stars: my story made each of game designer Tom LaPille’s power checks a scene worth reaching.
How I got here
Writer, head writer, founder, story lead, creative director.
Founder
My company, Stolen Duck, sold three live-action pilots and a TV movie, and I co-founded Goodie Goodie, a family chore app that taught me how software ships.
Story lead, promoted to senior manager
Pocket Gems hired me to co-lead Episode’s Pitch Perfect adaptation with Universal. Then I wrote The Kiss List, and in 2021 I conceived Reality Stars.
Creative director
I led Reality Stars to its December 2025 worldwide launch; six seasons in, I still co-lead its VMS Live! mode and review every spec and new feature. I also overhauled Episode’s UGC pipeline, then handed it off to start the stealth game below.
People: I’ve managed four direct reports, each leading contract writers and directors (one led eight directors and three writers on Reality Stars at peak), and coached one to lead Secrets by Episode for Netflix with a team of up to ten. I’ve hired contractors and sourced and vetted Reality Stars’ external directing team.
“Arthur is a rare creative talent who combines analytical insight with genuine inspiration. This allows him to craft products that entertain and surprise, and that thrive in the marketplace.”
“Arthur is truly the kind of manager and leader who gives people real ownership while making sure they have the support to succeed… I found one of Arthur’s top strengths to be coaching without taking over.”
Selected work
What I bet, what I killed, what shipped.
Tags: Minemy specs, docs and prototypes; Teamart and marketing; Shippedthe live game.
Pocket Gems · 2021–now
Episode: Reality Stars
Part collection RPG, part scripted reality show, part dating sim.
My role: creator, creative director and vision holder for a 40-person team across engineering, design, art, audio, narrative, product and production- 3.3M+players in ten months
- 110K+daily players at peak
- 43%D1 retention at launch (D7 22%, D30 9%)
- 10%of new players paid on day one
Beat launch targets for retention and monetization. Apple Game of the Day, Games We Love and repeat Today features.
The road here: three attempts before Reality Stars
- 2019 · The category. My Originals slate named the romance RPG the category to crack: romance’s proven retention with mobile RPGs’ higher spend.
- Attempt 1 · The Kiss List. A core loop inside Episode proved players would pay for play.
- Attempt 2 · The Royal Games. Greenlit on my pitch, but too much gameplay for an interactive fiction app, so I killed it.
- Attempt 3 · Love & Fam. My first standalone game as executive producer, also greenlit. With no real-world analog, it confused players, so I killed it too.
- Reality Stars. Reality TV is the analog everyone knows. At an April 2021 hackathon, I skipped the pitch and built it as an Episode story; Tom LaPille and I won over skeptical leadership.
- The turnaround. For years in test markets, my game showed promise, not progress, until the rebuild below turned it around by December 2024; worldwide launch followed in December 2025.
What I did
- Vision. Set the player fantasy (become a lifestyle reality star) and owned retention targets, with final say on all story and character, and fantasy sign-off on every spec and mock. When the daily to-do list came in as a standard UI menu, I asked how a reality star would keep hers; a few rounds later, it was an iPad in a high-end leather binder.
- Production and pipeline. Ran production as executive producer while the team was small, then led the content pipeline, still writing and directing. Reality-TV set-piece templates, content tools and AI-assisted directing (skills that rough out animation, cameras and staging) cut the average directed scene from five days to 2.5.
The call Blow up the format
Obvious moveBolt more power checks onto existing episodes
My callRebuild every episode around a main event
Design’s new power checks meant more scenes, so I made each episode play like reality TV: four to six small-group scenes of rising drama, each ending on a cliffhanger, all building to a main event. Design and story rebuilt the game together over a year. I kept the team going with a new vision doc (the format, the reasons and a player journey “from stylist to star”) and a Real Housewives screening, then made the case at the 2025 company kickoff that the game still had legs.
~2x D30 retention~4.7x 30-day revenue per install
The whole overhaul, new value packs and gacha included; no holdout. New test-market installs, May–Aug 2023 vs. Sep–Dec 2024; the gains held through June 2025.
The call The first purchase
Obvious moveSweeten the pack
My callKeep the pack, write a bouncer
The pack: ten gacha pulls for an outfit guaranteed to clear the first session’s final blocker. I scripted a scene in front of it that teased romance and stakes, and personified the gate with a bouncer character.
3–4% → 10% of new players bought it
The call Stop the director churn
Obvious moveBorrow directors from Episode
My callBring in a directing studio
Good directors were rare: visual storytellers who could direct in code at contractor rates, and for every great hire there was one we had to let go. We averaged two productive directors, each capped at a year and billed through a staffing agency that added at least 20%, more with every renewal. Borrowing Episode’s directors slowed Episode’s pipeline and hit the same cap. When pushing back went nowhere, I met two studios on my own initiative, picked one and took it to our partnerships head. The studio took over sourcing, training and tracking how long each scene took.
~2 → 8 productive directors at peak40%+ lower cost per director
Play it:App StoreGoogle Play
“Arthur is world-class when it comes to dreaming up fictions that appeal to a particular audience…”
“His craft is excellent—he defined a new format in games with Episode Reality Stars—and he holds his peers to a high bar.”
Reality Stars · Game design
PR Showdown and VMS Live!
Two core modes, built from player-fantasy pillars.
My role: wrote both specs and oversaw development through launch and live ops- +8%daily sessions
- +10–16%median playtime
- 5rounds a day per player, on average
All three for VMS Live!, from event readouts; the first two against a holdout.
PR Showdown
The core async PvP/E mode and the fantasy of a press appearance: style a look to a theme, walk onto a talk-show set and face a rival while the audience’s stars decide. The first mock judged each player alone: no fun, no drama. I rebuilt it as a turn-based, three-star duel.
VMS Live! Live
A real-time, 10-player fashion battle staged like a reality show: shop, style and walk the runway, then judge each other from the panel.
The call A mode worth playing
Obvious moveReskin another grindy power check
My callPut players on the judges’ panel
Players loved our story and at best tolerated our gameplay, which drove churn. My fix: the game’s first real-time competitive social feature.
How a round’s wardrobe gets built: the VMS prompt-curation skill, a Claude Code tool I wrote so a script does everything checkable and sub-agents reading contact sheets do the taste.
Episode · 2019
The Kiss List
The story that taught Episode stories how to play.
My role: creator, writer and executive producer- 150M+reads
- +8%revenue over the onboarding story it replaced, about $1M a year
- +5%app-wide ARPDAU
The call God mode
Obvious moveAnother shy heroine’s makeover
My callStart her powerful
She arrives self-realized; readers decide what to do with her power.
The core loop: nine steps, repeated every two episodes or so
- Pick a target. Choose someone off the Kiss List.
- Get an edge. A premium outfit to get asked out. Premium
- Get the date. A micro-game and +1 attribute moments. Score card
- The obstacle. The antagonist threatens the date. Score card
- The win. A free, easy moment beats the obstacle.
- The big date. A micro-game to earn the kiss. Premium Score card
- The payoff. The scene you played for. Score card
- The season arc. Your main romance and secret.
- The collection. A premium second date makes them a Worshipper. Premium
What happened
As Episode’s onboarding story, The Kiss List lifted app-wide retention. I codified the format and techniques and taught them to the studio and UGC creators, and others ran with it. Sarah Nalle Springwater led Love on Fire, an original reality romance competition with older leads, with me in the writers’ room; it beat The Kiss List a year later. Two years on, my report Kathryn Mitchell and UGC author Viola Musaraj built on Love on Fire with Don’t Hate the Player, which beat it in turn and has been Episode’s onboarding story ever since.
Episode · Global UGC pipeline
Turning creators into hit-makers
Episode is built by its community as much as its staff.
My role: ran Episode’s UGC pipeline from 2023 for several story cycles- 5 of 5bootcamp creators then wrote their personal best
- 3reached the top story performance tier, with record revenue per story start
What I changed
- Chose the data and creative signals that decide which creators get office hours, workshops and deep collaborations.
- Designed those sessions to move mid-tier creators to the top within two story cycles.
- Revised the pitch and greenlight process to raise submission quality.
- Built creator tools and new story mechanics.
The call Fix the front door
Obvious moveWrite premium-choice lessons for top creators
My callRebuild Episode Academy from lesson 1
The ask was monetization lessons for creators already doing well. Going through the Academy as a new creator, I found a dense maze few would finish, and no lesson matters if nobody reads it. So I rebuilt it from lesson 1 around a progression system with tracking, to widen the funnel and grow more hit-makers without adding staff.
21% → 44% of launches in the top two tiers~9 → 17 authors a year with a top-two-tier launch
Worldwide UGC launches, 2021–Aug 2024 vs. Oct 2025–Sep 2026, tiered by revenue per story start in their first 21 days. I handed the pipeline off in Aug 2024; the lag is the funnel: the new Academy took three months to build, and creators about nine more to ship their first story through it. No control group.
Some hits I developed with UGC creators
- Iconic
- Billionaires to Love
- Seduce the Hockey Player
- The Marriage Pact
“He has an exceptional understanding of tropes and what audiences are responding to, without ever reducing storytelling to a formula.”
Now
672 AI clips in 18 weeks.
In 2009 I co-created a YouTube dating sim, one of Adweek’s top 10 interactive YouTube videos; seventeen years later, I’m building branching video with AI.
I conceived a mobile game at Pocket Gems, still in stealth: full-motion video, branching narrative, deep character customization and RPG mechanics. I lead its content and AI production; Pocket Gems’ co-founder and CTO leads engineering and game design. Team of seven: three renderers (one part-time), two engineers and two game designers. Footage and gameplay from it are available on request; the scenes below are demos I made with the same pipeline.
- 92 minof footage, a feature film’s length, across 11 scenes, every branch and outfit
- ~7 minof finished footage a week
- ~$85per finished minute in generation costs
- 2–3takes generated per kept shot
- <1 in 5delivered clips re-rendered after my in-game review
Weekly output and cost are August–September 2026 averages: every take included, labor excluded.
The call Same team, double the output
Obvious moveHire more renderers
My callPut every renderer on one path
Every clip was bespoke: each renderer had their own models and method. Now they all follow the same steps (shot plan, locked references, approved keyframe, then video) under one naming scheme, built into Claude Code skills I wrote or co-developed so renderers run the process instead of remembering it. When a better model ships, the steps change for the whole team.
22 → 50 delivered clips a week, June–July to August–September 2026
Four of those skills, sanitized: the blocking pipeline for scenes with three or more people; OTS coverage as a camera move out of the master, with the prompts and what was tested and rejected; the sizzle-reel clip curator; and character barks, cloning each character’s voice from their own clips for a one-word reaction.
The look: reality TV.
- An observant camera. Moments caught, not staged.
- Reality-show light. Bright, clean and saturated.
- The confessional. Cutaways to the format’s signature interview shot.
How the coverage gets built, on a demo scene.
The eight steps, from script to scene
Script
A scene written for camera. In the game, every branch and outfit is its own set of clips.
Int. Neighborhood bakery · MorningMayaNice loaves.TheoMy eyes are up here.Shot plan
Every line and choice mapped to a shot, with a gap check: which references exist, which still need making.
A Claude Code skill drafts it
Cast
An identity reference for each character, then an outfit, then both combined.
GPT Image · Nano Banana
Set
One empty panorama of the room, cut into portrait-friendly panels to anchor the master.
GPT Image
Master
One character placed in the set, then the second added, to build the wide two-shot.
GPT Image · Nano Banana
Coverage
Each over-the-shoulder is a camera move out of the master, so the room and the eye-lines carry over. Then a pass restores each face, because video models drift them.
Seedance camera move · Nano Banana face pass
Review
A renderer checks wardrobe, continuity and eye-lines before anything moves. The most-missed defect: in an over-the-shoulder, the subject has to look at the other person, not the lens.
On a review page built by a Claude Code skill
Scene
Each line becomes its own clip, generated from its keyframe with native dialogue, then cut together with sound and captions.
Seedance
Those eight steps are the keyframe pipeline: one keyframe per shot, one clip per keyframe, right for a two-person scene. Since October, scenes with three or more people run through a second flow, the blocking pipeline: a code-drawn floor plan with every camera stamped, one creator-approved photoreal master per setup, and one multi-cut clip derived from that master, so the geography holds across every cut. A twelve-person yacht deck was its proof.
House rules
The model drafts. People decide.
Renderers approve every keyframe before any video is generated (a rejected frame costs cents; a rejected clip, dollars), then every draft clip before it enters the build; I review each scene in the game and call re-renders.
Branching is combinatorics.
A 32-minute first session needed 92 minutes of footage, so the design question is what varies, what’s shared and how it’s named, organized and wired so the engine can find it.
Consistency is the product.
Nobody forgives a love interest whose face changes between cuts. Faces come from locked reference images; when a voice drifts too far, we re-voice it in ElevenLabs.
Fully synthetic, on purpose.
Our live-actor hybrid of green-screen shoots and early HeyGen was expensive, short on footage and not good enough, so as the models improved, we went fully synthetic. Sometimes I record a line reading to direct a performance.
Rights and provenance.
Every character is a synthetic identity we created and locked as a reference; nothing from the live-actor phase survives in the pipeline. Real likenesses and voices only with consent or a license, and the one real face in the AI renders is mine, trained on my own photos. Every render is kept on record with its model, references and prompt, so any clip can be traced, re-rendered or pulled.
Chapter 1, behind the scenes
How I cast myself.
A Soul ID, four renders and the edits that fixed them
My first tries drifted thinner and younger: flattering, and wrong. So I trained a Higgsfield Soul ID on 19 photos of me, the headshot in About among them, and rendered each role with it. Targeted edits in Nano Banana Pro fixed what the model got wrong (lumpy hair, clawed fingers, stray hands on the writers’ table, a whiteboard with no real beats) and turned a writer toward me.
The blank was upscaled with Topaz and cut out, the screens in each shot now show real work (Reality Stars on the stage wall, my scene plan and review page on the monitors), and all four shots got a face-match pass and a shared grade. The role shots put my face in the same spot at the same size, and the blank zooms in to meet it: that’s what lets one character change roles in a single wipe.
I built the site and its retouching tools with Claude Code and art-directed every shot.
Writing samples
Four scenes, four kinds of choice.
Hold the gangway!
Reality Stars, Season 1, Episode 2: Dani’s yacht birthday, after a fight over whether Keaton’s girlfriend, Penelope, can come.
- The confessional shows the player what the cast can’t see: Miu’s scheme.
- Confronting Penelope is one of seven ways to work the room.
- Three answers, one outcome: branching is expensive, expression is cheap.
AnikaI’m surprised Keaton and Penelope decided not to crash the party.
MalcolmI’m not. Keaton always avoids confrontation. All talk and no action.
KeatonHold the gangway!
KeatonTwo more for the party! And we are NOT asking permission to come aboard!
PenelopeAnd one of those two is me, Penelope Poppins, currently trending on your favorite social media platforms at #StandWithPenelope!
PenelopeHiiii, bestie!
Cut to Miu’s confessional. Lower third: “Tit for Tatter.”
Miu (confessional)Yeah we teamed up on that hit piece.
Miu (confessional)The way to a man’s vote is through his girlfriend.
DaniKeaton, WTF, I told you I didn’t want her here!
KeatonShe’s my girlfriend!
DaniI wouldn’t care if she was your mom! She’s bad news, dude!
PenelopeHow dare you call me someone’s mom?!
You work the party. Calm Dani, upstage Miu, conspire with Malcolm, back Keaton, hear out Anika, shoot a confessional or…
Confront Penelope
YouSure are a lot of rumors swirling around you, Penelope.
YouAnd planting a Realitea article doesn’t suddenly make them stop.
Malcolm(or Anika, if she’s your date) There are literal vids of your lunch dates on your own channel.
PenelopeJust because I have a lot of strictly-platonic hot male friends who like to treat me to lunch does NOT mean I’m a cheater.
YouIf you’re so innocent, show me your phone.
PenelopeShow me a warrant, b*tch.
PenelopeI just can’t anymore. Tears. Tears are streaming down my face!
AnikaUh, I don’t see any—
PenelopeI need a moment alone at the front of the boat.
PenelopeAlso, don’t forget to like and subscribe to @PenelopePoppinsSlays4U on your favorite platform.
Keaton[your name], you’re the freshest eyes here…
KeatonWhat do you think I should do, [your name]?
It wouldn’t hurt to look into things.Trust your gut.Dude, you need to dump that lying ho.
Look into it
YouYou’ll have peace of mind. And everyone will get off your back.
KeatonI just wish everybody would trust me, but…
Trust your gut
YouYou don’t need us telling you what to do to make you happy.
KeatonMy gut is telling me…
KeatonThat my friends won’t stop trying to destroy my relationship, unless…
Dump her
YouWhere there’s smoke, there’s fire.
YouAnd there’s so much smoke here I can barely breathe.
KeatonI’m not gonna break up with Penelope because of a rumor, but…
KeatonWill you leave us alone if I hire a Private Investigator to look into all this silly gossip?
KeatonAnd when that PI finds no evidence of wrongdoing, I want you to promise to welcome Penelope into your lives with open arms!
DaniThat’s a promise! Now, can we finally party our faces off?!
AnikaFriends, in honor of Dani’s birthday, I’m THRILLED to debut the very first single from my new album…
KatinaI’ll give you $5000 if you get Anika off this boat now!
Make an entrance
From the first episode of The Kiss List, then Episode’s onboarding story. You’re the new girl.
- The first free choice reads as a personality test; the +1 reveals the stat.
- The Takeover Plan turns the season into a checklist.
YouKentwood would be my seventh high school… So I knew exactly how to take it over.
The Takeover Plan · Part 1#1 Make an entrance
The hallway is packed. Every head turns.
DariaWhoa. Who’s that new girl?
(Her reaction depends on the premium outfit you picked a scene earlier: stylish earns admiration, sexy earns desire, fierce earns fear.)
You(I’ve got their attention, now to reel them in.)
Drop a pen and pick it up… slowly.Flash a big smile and wave.Shove someone out of your way.
Drop the pen
JoeyThat’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!
+1 Desire · Joey
Smile and wave
YouHi, everyone! Good morning.
JoeyWhat a beautiful smile.
TanyaShe’s so confident and friendly!
+1 Admiration · Joey, Tanya
Shove
You shove a girl, Sara, against her locker.
SaraI don’t know what I did but I’m sorry and I’ll never do it again!
+1 Fear · Sara
The Takeover Plan · Part 1✓ #1 Make an entrance#2 Find a reliable sidekick
Do what you gotta do
The season finale of The Kiss List. After a drunk-driving crash killed his girlfriend in ninth grade, Kris pledged to live a pure life (including no dating) until he finishes school. His kiss is the last one you need, and if you lose, you have to leave Kentwood.
- Win the list, lose Kris; win Kris, lose the list; or, if you told Kris in Episode 14 that he was the last name on your list, both.
The Black and White Ball, the last night of the season. You find Kris.
YouCare to dance?
Slow dancing.
KrisI have to tell you something. My feelings for you have grown over the last semester.
YouYeah. Mine too.
KrisLet me finish. And…
YouWhat?
KrisAnd if winning the Kiss List means that much to you, I’ll break my pledge and kiss you.
YouWhat?! But… Why?
KrisI really care about you. Which means I put you and your happiness before mine.
KrisBut…
YouThere’s a but?
KrisBut I can’t be with someone who would want me to break my pledge.
YouI understand.
KrisSo, do what you gotta do.
Kiss KrisDon’t kiss Kris
Kiss Kris
An epic kiss. A smooch lands on Kris’s face on the Kiss List: you’ve won. The gym votes you Queen of the Black and White Ball, and you push the throne off the stage.
YouRiley’s reign of terror on this school is over. Everyone deserves a seat at the table.
The crowd chants your name. Then you see Kris at the door. He sadly waves, then walks out.
Don’t kiss Kris
YouYou’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, Kris.
YouBut you can’t break your pledge. You’re too close to seeing it through.
KrisBut what about the Kiss List?
YouTo hell with the Kiss List.
The clock strikes midnight. Riley is crowned Queen, and you lose the list and your place at Kentwood.
YouDon’t worry about me. There are other schools. Keep your eye out for Riley. She’s dangerous.
One week later, outside your new school, Kris is waiting.
KrisWell since you’re starting all new classes I thought you could use some tutoring. Free of charge of course.
KrisHey by the way. Only 116 days until I’m done with my pledge.
YouThank god.
Don’t kiss Kris, after an honest Episode 14
Same choice, same speech. But as you turn to go, Kris pulls you in for a face-melting kiss.
YouWait, what about your pledge??
KrisSomething I forgot to mention. I busted my ass for the last month to finish my final term paper early. I completed my pledge!
KrisLet me be the first to congratulate you on winning the Kiss List!
I must be slipping
A late-night text thread from Reality Stars’ soft launch. Malcolm, the cast’s ex-con supermodel, deflects everything, until he doesn’t.
- No faces: in a text thread, the deflections are the characterization.
- Three versions: crush, friend or rival. This is the friend’s; the rival gets “Some things are better left unsaid.”
Malcolm’s last text: you remind him of someone.
Feeling any better?
I wasn’t sick.
No, but you sure were grumpy last time we talked.
I don’t know if grumpy is the right word…
Maybe brooding.
Brooding?
Now you’re getting it.
Smh.
Are you gonna tell me who I remind you of or what?
What.
Come on! I thought we were friends.
And we’ll stay that way if we don’t start mucking it up talking about our pasts.
Friendship = getting to know each other.Fine. We won’t talk. We’ll just have to make out.This will get boring fast.
Friendship = getting to know each other
Didn’t know you were a mathematician.
That’s kindergarten stuff.
Yeah well, I didn’t go to kindergarten.
Wait, really?
Let’s just say my father was a real prick.
You just told me something about your past.
Dammit. I must be slipping.
TELL ME WHO I REMIND YOU OF!
Oh crap, all caps?
Fine.
You want to know so bad…
You remind me of my younger sister.
Aww.Seriously?How so?
She was clever, feisty, spirited.
Like you.
But she was also reckless.
She “was”?
She died.
While I was in prison.
I couldn’t protect her.
Malcolm, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.
I can’t believe I told you that.
No one else in the cast knows that.
I’m so glad you did.It’s healing to talk about it.I wish I never asked.
I’m so glad you did
I’m sending you hugs.
I haven’t talked about it in so long.
You brought it out of me.
Even though I’m not there, I feel so close to you right now.
Same. I feel off-balance, but it feels nice.
I wish I never asked
I drop this big bomb on you and that’s all you have to say?
What a mistake.
I gotta get some sleep.
“The story rooms he runs are efficient, high-yield, and the kind of infectious fun that players can absolutely feel by extension when they play the comedic, gripping, and heartwarming stories that come out of the rooms.”
Story bible
A slice of the Reality Stars vision.
I created the story bible. Every castmate in it is written as a crush, a friend or a rival, plus what it takes to win them back. This excerpt has the premise, the player’s rise from stylist to star, Katina and Keaton in full, and how each of them sees the rest of the cast.
Read the excerpt PDF · 4 pagesMore work
First, TV: 150+ episodes.
Nickelodeon · 2005–2011
Head writer, iCarly and Victorious
Over seven seasons of four live-action series, I had a hand in every episode. As head writer, I ran the writers’ room (breaking and pitching stories other writers scripted), a 12-person writing and script department and a weekly meeting with every department head. My credits on IMDb
Pitch Perfect, the 2019 Originals slate and Stolen Duck
Licensed IP · Universal
Pitch Perfect: In Deep Treble
I co-led Episode’s adaptation of Pitch Perfect with Universal: managing the studio’s notes, protecting what fans love about the films and producing an original album of a cappella covers. Projections showed money still on the table, so we extended it, and I was sole lead on Part 2: eight more episodes, for 22 in all.
Episode · Slate strategy
The 2019 Originals slate
I tagged every story in the catalog by age, genre, risk, world and theme. The data said the catalog was overweight in high-school stories, which skewed toward players with less to spend, and that post-school settings were the whitespace. That finding shaped the follow-up to The Kiss List: Love on Fire kept its mechanics and aged up its leads.
Stolen Duck Productions · 2010–2016
Development: selling ideas
For every project that sold, five to ten pitches didn’t. Scripts and decks on request.
- On That NoteLive-action pilot · Sold to Nickelodeon
- Gary’s Got GameLive-action pilot · Sold to Nickelodeon
- Puck n’ TuckerLive-action pilot · Sold to Disney XD
- Woodchuck ChuckTV movie · Sold to Disney/MarVista
- Shayna’s PlaceLive-action musical pilot · Self-financed · Distribution rights sold to eOne
Reels, pitch songs, loglines and viral comedy
On That Note: a cappella parodies I produced to sell the pitch
- On That Note
- A neurotic a cappella quartet and a fearless comedy duo fight over one rehearsal room, then join forces as a comedy a cappella group.
- Gary’s Got Game
- A brilliant but risk-averse 13-year-old finds his nerve when his video-game avatar comes to life.
- Puck n’ Tucker
- Rival teen warlocks, one Sun and one Moon, become stepbrothers when their parents fall in love.
- Woodchuck Chuck
- A 13-year-old raised by woodchucks in the Canadian wilderness is found and forced to rejoin human society.
- Shayna’s Place
- Pitched as New Girl meets Pee-wee’s Playhouse: a songwriter, her puppet roommate and the magic-realist building they share.
About
Hi, I’m Arthur.
I started in writers’ rooms, where I learned the best idea in the room doesn’t matter if we can’t build it. Everything since has been a version of that lesson: formats other writers can use, systems creators can climb and pipelines a team can ship on. I studied economics and marketing at Wharton, so I care about market fit and retention curves as much as character arcs.
I live in San Francisco with my wife and two sons. Off the clock I bake bread, the same job with better smells: a formula, a hypothesis, a long wait and an honest verdict.
Known issues
- Will rewrite the logline at least once more.
- Tinkers obsessively with the latest content tech.
- Owns a strange dog named Bagel.
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Looking for a creative director, narrative director or AI content lead?
Bring me an audience that’s hard to win; I’ll find the fantasy and the format that keep them playing.