Interview (Part 4): TJ Cimfel and David White (“Shut In”)
The horror movie Shut In has its world premiere this week at the Los Angeles Film Festival, screening on June 12 and June 17. Recently I had the opportunity to interview the film’s screenwriters TJ Cimfel and David White. It was a terrific conversation which I will be featuring over the course of this week.
Today in Part 4, David and TJ discuss their approach to writing treatments and some of the other projects in which they are involved:
Scott: Here you are on the cusp of the premiere of your movie in the Los Angeles Film Festival. What’s going through your guys’ minds and feelings right now?
David: I am incredibly excited. I feel like it’s been… I can’t even think about how long I’ve been waiting to be able to walk into a theater, sit down, have the lights go down, and the movie comes up and it’s your movie playing. I can’t wait. I’m blown away by the prospect.
TJ: I feel the same way and also feel like it is so surreal. I can’t even… Even thinking of the idea, of “Oh, in just a few weeks I am going to be in a theater and the lights are going to go down and I’m going to see my movie.” I can’t even compute that because I’ve never experienced anything like that. I can kind of imagine it, but I know the reality is going to feel so much more profound.
Scott: One piece of advice for you. Vodka.
[laughter]
Scott: Let’s talk, you guys, about some other movies in the works here. You mentioned, Crawl to Me earlier: “A young family copes with a series of disturbing events that force them to question their relationship, their faith and their very existence.”
I did a little research on this and I understand you were up against a lot of competition to get this. In fact, Alan Robert, the author of the graphic novel you’re adapting, was quoted as saying, “For the last few months, we’ve received about a dozen different treatments from various writers to adapt the property. I can safely say that TJ and Dave’s unique take on the material definitely stood out from the rest.”
I’m curious, what kind of treatment did you write, that basically won you that gig?
TJ: Wow. That’s taking it back a bit. I mean, here’s the thing. I think it was the first treatment we had written. I don’t mean to say that we didn’t do several drafts of that particular one or that it somehow came easy to us. When you’re that inexperienced, you’re just going on pure heart and instinct, I think.
Well, and obviously, brain has to come [laughs] into it a little bit. You have to really think about it, but I think the main thing to me was, and how I feel about pretty much all creative endeavors, is that if you don’t feel passionate about something, it’s not worth pursuing.
In terms of Alan’s work, that comic, that story, that art, that’s something that when I opened it up, it grabbed me by the throat. To me, it’s taking that passion and just translating that, making sure that how you feel about the material is present in the way you present the material. I guess maybe that’s the best way that I can answer that. I can’t say that there weren’t a dozen great treatments shared by a dozen other writers.
David: I think beyond that it’s taking the intent of the story and again, the spine of the story. It’s structured very differently in the graphic novel than it could possibly be done as a movie because it started out as four issues, a four-issue story that was turned into a graphic novel.
The structure needed to change pretty significantly, so it’s basically finding those moments that really affect you within that story and figuring out where they have to go in a movie. You’re affected emotionally in a similar way, I think, as you are in the reading of the graphic novel. It has to be shifted and moved, while keeping that spine.
TJ: I think that’s another great point, the emotion that’s present in the material. Again, from a story standpoint, I was completely captivated by just the supernatural goings-on. I wanted to make that movie. Another reason I wanted to make the movie is because there’s just this incredibly strong emotional throughline to it.
That’s the stuff that draws Dave and I to material, that blend of commercial and character. Because we do write a fair amount of darker material or genre fare, we don’t want to just do the straightforward take on any genre material.
We want to find the thing that really makes you care about the characters because that’s the only thing that’s going to keep you really on the edge of your seat throughout the story.
Scott: Do you remember how long the treatment was you submitted?
David: I think it was about 20 pages.
TJ: I feel like in the beginning it was shorter. Then, maybe like even five to eight. Then, we sent it to Marc and Marc just encouraged us to continue fleshing it out.
David: Draw it out a little bit.
TJ: He was also very helpful in that process. He had a lot of good notes. I think he was the one, who after seeing our first take, encouraged us to free ourselves from the constraints of what the pages were showing.
David: That’s interesting. I think we definitely…
TJ: He pushed us.
David: … had an idea in our heads about certain things that shouldn’t be changed because we were…
TJ: Nervous, right?
David: We were nervous. We were making assumptions about things that Alan, as the creator of the story… we made assumptions about things he would not want to have changed. And I don’t think we made a ton of changes.
TJ: It’s not a ton of changes.
David: It’s more a restructuring, but I think Marc definitely encouraged us to be a little more free with our restructuring.
TJ: Exactly.
Scott: At this point, I assume you’ve now versed yourself pretty well in the world of treatments, so my question to you, love them or hate them?
David: [laughs]
TJ: Wow. [laughs] I’m thinking about the most recent one because it took so long.
David: I would say they’re a necessary evil, perhaps. I feel like, they are hard, but when you’ve got a story that you’ve cracked through writing a treatment, where you figured out point A to B to C, all the way to the end and you know the story, then you know the movie that you want to write. You know the movie that you want to see. At that point, it makes the script a whole lot easier.
TJ: No doubt.
David: But it can be a pain to write them.
TJ: That’s the thing. I feel like preparation is something that, God, you can’t write a script without it, having that planning. The form of a treatment to me deadens a little bit of the excitement because a lot of times you’re not writing with the kind of detail or the little dialogue flourishes or the little nuanced touches that you discover through the actual process of writing a script. You’re condensing it down to the necessary plot points in some ways.
David: When I’m working on my side of the treatment as we’re passing it back and forth, I always have a separate file open as I’m typing away and I get those details, those bits of dialogue or emotional details that pop into the brain… I put them into the other file. I feel like, “This is good. This is going into the script for sure.” It doesn’t fit into the treatment, but it’s going into the script. Then I just make sure that I go back to that file, once we go from treatment to script.
Scott: A general question for you: As a writer, what are some of the unique upsides and challenges in writing a horror movie?
TJ: The upside to me is the ability to create a genuine connection with characters in setup, so that when you set them up against whatever antagonists may be within this genre, you’re actually going to track and follow and care. I think that’s incredibly important. I think that’s where a lot of horror movies can go wrong.
Sometimes, they go wrong on the page and maybe sometimes, they go wrong in translation to the screen, but ultimately, to me, I mean the challenge is the same thing, which is that if you’re just going for the jump scare, you’re not doing anything. I’ll jump at a jump scare, but I might forget the movie five minutes after I’ve seen it.
To me, it’s much more about finding the intelligence and the emotion within the horror genre. Those are the things that really appeal to me.
David: I would say for me, the challenge is that it seems like so much has been done in horror that how do you do something new? How do you find a new way to scare people? And I feel like the upside to horror is also the solution to that problem, which is that you can really delve into the really dark psychological side of the characters that you create.
I feel like if you have characters that your audience is going to have empathy for, then you are going to draw, then the audience will be drawn into that story, following those characters. That’s where the unique scares come from, because the scares happen to that particular person, who you are invested in.
TJ: It’s an organic experience.
Tomorrow in Part 5, TJ and David discuss their approach to some key aspects of the screenwriting craft.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
If you have any questions for TJ or David, post in comments, and I will pass them along.
For ticket information about the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival screenings for Shut In, go here.
TJ and David are repped by Marc Manus.
Twitter: @dkwite, @TeaJaySee.