Interview (Part 1): Travis Braun

My interview with the 2024 Black List writer for his script One Night Only.

In the 20 years of the annual Black List, no writer has had the #1 script in consecutive years … until 2024. That writer is Travis Braun whose script One Night Only topped the 2024 Black List, his script Bad Boy did the same thing in 2023.

That’s not all. Travis’ script Dying for You was named to the 2022 Black List as well.

Given all that, I knew I had to interview Travis. We had a great conversation and I’m happy to share it with readers.

Today in Part 1 of a three-part series, Travis talks about he found his way from journalism studies to writing children’s TV programming.

Scott Myers: Travis, you’ve got an interesting backstory. A journey from a little town called Ovalo, Texas, all the way to Hollywood and working in TV and film.

Travis Braun: Yeah, born in Texas. Middle of nowhere. My whole family’s in auto racing, so I spent a lot of time on the road, with a lot of down time. I was always writing poems and short stories to pass the time.

Then I got ahold of Harry Potter when it first came out. I was nine. I tore through it, fell in love with that world. I came into my parents’ room, and I was like, “I want to do this.” And they’re like, “Yeah. I think you can finish the book.” I was like, “No. No. I want to do this. I want to write like this.”

My parents were like, “Great. You want to be a novelist? You’re going to starve.”

So I went to journalism school at Franklin College in Indiana. I interned at USA Today, then ABC World News. I was doing the journalism path — but it just wasn’t scratching the itch. It didn’t have the magic that fiction had for me.

When I was in New York, I met some TV writers who encouraged me to write a spec of my favorite show, which was The Office at the time. I did, and it was the worst script I think anyone’s ever written. But I fell in love with the craft, and wanted to learn everything about it.

Scott: You didn’t go to film school. You write this first spec for The Office. How did you start learning the screenwriting craft?

Travis: Online, trying to find any scripts that I could, reading everything. I was very focused on TV at the time because that, to me, felt like there was more of direct route.

This was 2010. The Black List was still pretty new. So I started writing specs of the shows I was watching. It was a little bit more just trial and error. Finding any TV script that I could.

I ended up as a writer’s PA on “Criminal Minds” for CBS. That I tell people was like my MFA in screenwriting. It was my first chance to be around 10 to 12 professional writers doing this every single day and getting to see the work that they were creating and comparing it to the work that I was creating and seeing how much I had to learn.

That was where I started to realize exactly what it takes to write at a professional level.

Scott: You’ve had quite a bit of success in children’s programming. “Vampirina,” “Muppet Babies,” “Monsters at Work,” “Fast Layne,” “T.O.T.S.,” “Pupstruction.” Just show after show after show. How did you manage to segue into doing that type of programming?

Travis: Yeah, pretty big pivot from Criminal Minds. I got into the Nickelodeon Writing Program, which was my first real step into kids and family content. I found my voice worked really well in that space. I wrote a short and a TV movie for Nickelodeon. Then I moved over to Disney to write on Vampirina, and eventually created T.O.T.S. for them.

That was back in 2016. I’ve been with Disney ever since. It’s been an incredible place to create. I feel so lucky that I get to do the Disney shows and then also work on features.

Scott: You get to explore different types of stories than you would for a children’s audience.

Travis: Yeah. I just get super excited about the concept. It can be something for ages 4 to 6 or 46. It’s the only way I know how to work. I get fired up about the idea, and that’s the thing that wakes me up in the morning.

Scott: Three scripts on the Black List, three years in a row. 2022, “Dying For You” logline: “A low‑level worker on a spaceship run by a dark god must steal the most powerful weapon in the universe to save his workplace crush.” That’s set up with Lord & Miller to produce.

Travis: Correct. It was probably the script that everyone would tell you not to write. It’s expensive. There’s no IP behind it. It’s a big genre bending sci‑fi, romance, comedy. But I couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to write something for me. No one asked for it, no one gave me a deadline. It was a total passion project. Just going, look, the chips will fall where they fall. If, it never becomes a movie, the joy of that experience was the victory.

Scott: It’s also a spec, you’re writing it on your own, far different than being employed and in the writers’ rooms with all these TV series. What’s the mindset there? What are you thinking when you’re saying. “I’m going to write something on spec?”

Travis: It’s a great question. For me, it’s something I realized maybe five or six years ago that I needed to have that thing that was just for me. That no studio, no network, no producer, no actor, no one was telling me to write this. It’s just something that I’m doing out of the pure love of it. And I think that’s why a lot of those scripts on the Black List have such a strong POV. They are coming from the heart. They’re coming from a writer just sitting down to tell a story they’re passionate about.

Scott: Well, I think you like dogs. I mean, “Pupstruction” is a dog‑centered show. This idea for “Bad Boy,” a rescue dog suspects his loving new owner is a serial killer. By the way, they just announce some a casting on that recently or just…?

Travis: Yes. We’ve got Ke and Lili Reinhart attached.

Scott: OK. Well, congratulations on that.

Travis: Thank you.

Scott: What’s the inspiration for that? Rescue dog, serial killer?

Travis: I love dogs, and I try to sneak one into everything I write. With Bad Boy, we’ve seen a lot of horror movies from the human POV, but I loved the idea of making the dog the protagonist. Someone innocent. Someone who doesn’t fully understand what’s happening — or maybe understands more than we think.

The challenge was telling a whole movie through the dog’s POV — without voiceover, without having the dog talk. You’re trapped in his perspective. That was scary as hell to write, which is why I knew I had to write it. I used to spend a lot of time on ideas that felt like other movies. Now, I look for the ones that don’t.

Scott: That was number one on the Black List in 2023, Bad Boy. I broke into the business. I sold a movie called “K‑9.” It starred James Belushi with a new police partner, a police dog.

Travis: I love that. You’re a dog guy yourself.

Scott: Yeah. I also helped a friend develop a TV series on PBS called “Wishbone.”

Travis: Oh my god. Are you serious?

Scott: Yeah, I wrote a few episodes for it.

Travis: What? That’s crazy. I loved that show growing up. We had two Chocolate Labs, and we would seek out anything that had a dog in it.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Travis and I dive into his 2024 Black List script One Night Only and what that writing process was like.

Travis is repped by UTA and Echo Lake Entertainment.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.