Interview [Part 4]: Jason Mark Hellerman

One script that received a lot of attention in the 2013 Black List is “Shovel Buddies” by Jason Mark Hellerman (it garnered 22 votes). I was quite struck by the story — “Over 24 hours, four teenage friends try to complete the “Shovel List” (a will/bucket list) left for them by their best friend before he died of Leukemia” — and reached out to talk with Jason about it. We ended up talking for 90 minutes, an excellent conversation covering a lot of territory. I think aspiring screenwriters will find Jason’s insights particularly relevant as we got into quite a bit of depth about his process of being outside the business to inside it.

Today in Part 4, Jason delves into the complex process involved in writing his script “Shovel Buddies”:

Scott: Let’s dig into the story here because now that you’ve given me this background, it’s really interesting to consider the draft I read, I can see even more connections there. Here’s a logline: “A group of teens set out to honor their deceased friend by putting his corpse in his favorite Philadelphia Eagles jersey, but get caught in a night full of mayhem as their plan unravels.”

Let’s get your impressions of the key characters in the story. First, there’s the deceased, Sammy Harlow, a 16‑year‑old boy. When we meet him, he’s a corpse in a casket. One of the interesting things you do with this story is you create all this whirlwind of action and activity around Sammy and, in some respects, on behalf of Sammy. Yet, we only know a minimal amount about his personality, in part because he’s dead. He can’t speak for himself or act. Was that always your intention? He’s kind of a cipher in a way.

Jason: Yeah. I was fascinated by The Big Chill and the idea that Kevin Costner is the dead body.

Scott: Alex, yeah.

Jason: Yeah. The Big Chill was always something that, growing up, was the R‑rated movie I could watch with my parents. It always blew me away because everyone knows Kevin Costner, at least I did, at that point, the movie came out, but we don’t know anything about Alex except what everyone’s talking about and a short flashback sequence in the beginning of the movie.

That always stuck with me. That girl who died in my neighborhood, Sammy, I didn’t know anything about her, but growing up with Sammy’s Place, I knew everything I needed to know. I knew she had parents who were willing to put up some sort of weird thing for her.

I knew that that, to them, was living life to the fullest so everything that would go on in Sammy’s Place for me would be that sort of compilation of living life to the fullest. I just kind of riffed on that. “You know what? Sammy should be a character that we never get to talk to.”

It was always that way from the first draft. We never had a flashback hearing Sammy. We never heard his voice. I just thought there’s a kind of mystique to not being able to talk to him I think puts you in the seat of the viewer. I’ve always thought that way.

I got a lot of feedback early on, of how frustrated that people were that they couldn’t hear from Sammy, and I loved it. I was like, “Great, because that’s how frustrated I am when I can’t tell my friends that I love them and I wouldn’t be anyone without them.” I think if that’s causing anyone to feel something, it’s the perfect thing for me.

Scott: By the way, I’m guessing that this Sammy’s Place, that’s The Hole you have in the script.

Jason: Yes. In the script I called it The Hole, but Sammy’s Place is a literal hole in the ground with a brick wall around it and a cement foundation where we used to just go and hang out, where no one could see in and see what you’re doing. I took that and realized I couldn’t have the hole and have Sammy’s Place, so I went from there.

Scott: Let’s talk about the protagonist. He’s Jimmy Gibbons. He’s 16. I have a theory about what’s going on with him in relation to Sammy. You pretty much specify it at one point, but I’m curious to hear your take on some of the key dynamics going on for this character in his relationship to Sammy, Sammy’s death, and the whole shovel list thing.

Jason: My best friend is named Jimmy. My twin brother is named Dan. I just thought about the dynamic we had growing up. In this sense, in the story I told, I always felt like I was Sammy, no voice but watching everything. I always thought about what would happen in our friendship. If one of us disappeared, would we all still be friends?

For me, Jimmy was the popular friend. He was Sammy’s best friend. Dan knew it. Dan would always know he was Jimmy’s best friend and couldn’t do anything about it.

I wanted to test what those limits are. In this case, it was Jimmy’s sexual attraction and having sex with Kate, Sammy’s sister, but also what Sammy perceived as neglect, which is, “Hey, Dude, I’m your best friend.” That bros before hoes mentality. No matter who you like, I’m supposed to come first, which is a selfish mentality.

Sammy had thought about it. Regardless of his cancer, he should have known, “Look, if my best friend is happy, I should be happy too.” When you’re 17, no one thinks altruistically. It’s all about me, and it’s all about now. I wanted that humanizing factor of Sammy.

He was a selfish kid, but he was a selfish with an unfair disease. Jimmy was dealing with the guilt that he couldn’t make…If Sammy’s make-a-wish was that Jimmy was around for the last days, Jimmy wasn’t. You can’t turn back time, and you can’t do that. That was important for me.

Scott: You’ve got Sammy, the corpse, who is an active part of plot as it turns out. You’ve got Jimmy, his best friend who has multiple layers of things going on in terms of his commitment to what they go and do. You’ve got Dan, who is number two in the pecking order in terms of his relationship to Sammy. Dan’s got a lot of edge. Even though he’s younger than Jimmy, he at least ostensibly appears to be more worldly, he smokes, and he’s into the harder kind of pornography and whatnot.

Then Kate, who is the younger sister of Sammy. Into this mix, there’s Lump. Where did that character come from in your story crafting process? What’s the function of that character?

Jason: Lump was my favorite character I’ve ever written in anything. I’m writing something new now and I’m like, “I wish there was a Lump in this.” I had said earlier, I grew up with a twin brother, my brother Dan, and we had to share everything growing up. We share our birthdays. We share our gifts a lot of times. I’m very lucky. I’m short and he’s tall, so we didn’t have to share too many clothes.

Growing up and going to the same schools, it’s tough when you have those mixed friend groups. Whose friend is this guy? Is he your friend or your brother’s friend? There’s no possession. You can be both our friends.

For me, the character of Lump is every feeling I’ve ever had and every feeling my brother’s ever had, about being left out, about me getting invited to someone’s birthday party in seventh grade and him being like, “I’m friends with that guy. Why am I not invited?” Me not getting to go on the road trips in high school. “I’m friends with them and not going.”

It’s that compilation of feelings but just stuck, because, as a twin, we both had younger brother syndrome a lot of times, where it’s like being left out or feeling like you’re not recognized. We since had our heart‑to‑heart and gotten over it, but those were always fears of mine.

I was like, “My brother was going to have friends that he was closer to than I was close to him.” That spoken bromance but it’s even more effective in brothers. “God, if I died, I would want my brother there above anyone else.” I definitely hoped he would want that.

I wrote Lump from that sense of desperation. If my brother was in a car accident and had one phone call to make, I’d desperately want it to be to me. He’s married now, so it probably should be to his wife. There’s part of me that would hope, “If he had a breath left, he would dial my number.”

Scott: One final character we should consider, that’s Ted Harlow, who is Sammy and Kate’s father, and as it turns out, is the local chief of police. I thought that was a really great instinct on your part because with this character, you’re combining two kinds of energy ‑‑ grief and the law.

He not only provides conflict in terms of the plot because he ends up pursuing the group as they go on this quixotic journey, what he should be doing as a law enforcement officer. But what does he need to do as a father> When did you hit on that idea of making the father the chief of police?

Jason: I always had someone in the police chasing them. It wasn’t always Ted. There was always someone on their tail. Very early on, maybe the second or third draft, there was always a Ted character. The Ted character would disappear, and he was the character who gets hit on the head and put in the trunk.

All the feedback I got from people was like, “It’s just weird, because Ted has no closure.” When the curtains come up, Ted is in a trunk and knows that his son has disappeared. I thought, “Yeah, that’s awful. What an awful, awful feeling.”

I went back. What if Ted didn’t get hit in the head and put in a trunk? What if he’s not the one that pulls them over?” Instead, I wrote that scene, I replaced it. Instead of Ted, I put in a cop. I was like, “Oh, if he’s to drive around and doesn’t get them and some other random cop does, where would he go next?”

It evolved from a need to close Ted’s story, but he was always a cop, because I always thought that was a fun thing, but he was never involved in a chase.

As soon as I got him involved in a chase, it was the biggest breath of fresh air because it was the first time I was like, “Oh, my God, the story is coming together. Now, I can have him do this. Now, maybe it would be cool if he’s there in the end.”

It’s something I caught early on. I have the necessity to close some emotional holes that I knew still existed.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Jason talks about how he wrote 65 drafts of the script “Shovel Buddies”.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Jason is repped by CAA and Management 360.

Twitter: @JasonHellerman.

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