Writer's Note:

A few years ago I wrote a script about a suburban self-help cult. It was not a very good script, but in it, I created a self-help process I called The E Trinity. When I conceived of the character Andy in Downsized, I decided to employ him as an E Trinity recruiter, trying to sell a self-help process that would help people get through the economic crisis. However, in the process of writing a scene for Andy, I came upon some struggles and a bad case of writer's block. I finally tried to pair him with Lowell, and proceeded to write several crappy drafts of a scene and finally gave up. I voiced my frustration to my mother (as I always do)-- Mom, I can't find the scene, these two men both are using self-help principles but Lowell's take is completely mutilated and bastardized, and she said-- Why not make them brothers? And I wrote this scene, in about two hours. Thanks for your brilliance Mom. As for the recruitment video, Chris and I decided to shoot it and edit it to look like the hundreds of other self-help videos on the internet which all seem to be someone talking in front of a white background.