Interview: TJ Cimfel and David White

Recently I had the opportunity to interview TJ Cimfel and David White, screenwriters of the horror movie Shut In, starring Martin Starr, Beth Riesgraf, and Rory Culkin, and directed by Adam Schindler.

Here are links to the seven installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “Creativity to me is a lot about not being afraid to fail. That was it. In the beginning, it was just me failing over and over on my own, not even sharing those with anyone. Just getting that stuff out of my system.”

Part 2: “I would sit and brainstorm and try to come up with these contained in time and space stories. In this particular instance, I remember I was thinking about phobias, and how it’d be nice to set up a nice tension and irony through the logline alone.”

Part 3: “What was so great about it, though, was that it was clear that everybody involved was making the same movie, that the changes they were making were changes that had to be made because of budget, because of the house that they had found, but the story remained the same and the intent that we had remained the same.”

Part 4: “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.”

Part 5: “You’ve got that emotional dread and you need a story to frame it. It’s figuring out a way to put a concrete story, to organically put that dread into a concrete story.”

Part 6: “What it comes down to is, if you’re committed to making it work, you can make it work from anywhere. You just have to be prepared that there are going to be extra obstacles if you’re not in Los Angeles.”

Part 7: “Worry more about writing and getting better than how you’re going to break in.”

TJ and David are repped by Marc Manus.

Twitter: @dkwite, @TeaJaySee.