By Shanee Edwards.
<div id="attachment_10798" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10798" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-10798" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/doublas-soesbe-150x150.jpg" alt="Douglas Soesbe" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/doublas-soesbe-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/doublas-soesbe-250x250.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/doublas-soesbe-50x50.jpg 50w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/doublas-soesbe.jpg 449w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />Douglas Soesbe</div>
Written by Douglas Soesbe and directed by Dito Montiel, Boulevard stars Robin Williams as Nolan, a married man who embarks on a secret life when he meets a vulnerable street urchin named Leo (Robeto Aguire). As Nolan’s love intensifies for the young man, his entire life, including his marriage, comes crashing down.
The powerful engine that drives the story of Boulevard is Nolan’s secret. Despite being married to his wife Joy (Kathy Baker), Nolan is a gay man living in a very large proverbial closet. He and his wife sleep in separate bedrooms, but enjoy their life together, for the most part. Things seem pleasant enough from the outside, but big changes are coming.
<div id="attachment_10799" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10799" class="size-full wp-image-10799" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-01.jpg" alt="Roberto Aguire as Leo and Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-01.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-01-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-01-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-01-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Roberto Aguire as Leo and Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard</div>
“Secrets are essential in this movie,&#8221; says Soesbe. &#8220;It provides a mystery to the character and it also encourages writing that’s not real on-the-nose because the character, for obvious reasons, is not talking about how he or she really feels. We get a real indirect access to that person. It’s a very interesting way to get inside your character, thinking about those things that they may not want to talk about or admit.”
Soesby himself is in his late 60s and can relate to Nolan. “I came out very late and with a great deal of guilt. This movie is not about me, but I really understand that character. “
After writing a first draft of the script ten years ago, Soesbe says he never expected it to get produced. “I knew it was small and had a controversial subject matter for some people. Two or three times over the course of the next five years people would option it, but then I gave up on it. Then, interest and financing came along about three years ago. The four producers and I sat down with the script and they gave me notes. I did several rewrites, so really the script is only three years old in terms of what’s on the screen.”
The major changes to the script were somewhat inspired by the cultural shift in attitudes toward homosexuality that’s taken place over the last decade, causing Soesbe to change the location of the story from Los Angeles to a small town. “We couldn’t afford to shoot in LA but we also wanted a more featureless town that was more constricted than Los Angeles.”
<div id="attachment_10800" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10800" class="size-full wp-image-10800" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-02.jpg" alt="Kathy Baker as Joy and Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-02.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-02-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-02-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-02-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Kathy Baker as Joy and Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard</div>
But he claims that Nolan’s journey isn’t so much about getting in tune with current attitudes about being gay. It’s that he has to change his entire life.   
And Nolan does. It’s painful to watch but a very good lesson on torturing your protagonist and creating a clear character arc. But there wasn’t one single thing that led to his arc according to Soesbe, it was a series of events.
“A number of things are happening. His mother died six months ago, which Nolan refers to in the scene at the motel. My own mother died about a year before I wrote this and so I think his mother&#8217;s death releases him from the past. Maybe he was afraid she would find out he was gay and reject him. Nolan has this father who can’t speak, so that’s happened. Then, when this passion is reignited by Leo, it’s almost like he’s twenty-two again and infatuated with someone. That infatuation is another element of his change and that brings him more into contact with who he needs to be. When he’s exposed as being gay and when he tells his father, that’s a huge change.”
The monologue, where Nolan reveals his sexuality to his dying father (Gary Gardner), had originally appeared earlier in the script, but Soesbe says placing it so early was a mistake. “Once Nolan tells his father he’s gay, the big problem in the movie has essentially been solved, the second problem being that he has to tell his wife.“
Williams gives a stunning yet haunting performance that must feel bittersweet to Soesbe, due to Williams’ untimely death. Soesbe admits, “It’s difficult to watch this movie about a sad, depressed man and not go there. Robin was just the sweetest man in the world and when this horrible thing happened, I just couldn’t believe it.”
Soesbe says now that the film is out, the reviews are more about the eerie similarities Williams had to his character Nolan, than a critique of the film itself, but said this about Williams, “I will testify that when he made this film, a year and two months before he took his life, he was not depressed. He was really into that role and if anything, he was really in character. He was looking forward to his TV series and he talked about his family and his pets and he was funny. I picked none of this up. He’s very shy and it’s difficult sometimes to penetrate the shyness, which you wouldn’t expect from him. But I didn’t pick up the depression at all.”
<div id="attachment_10801" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10801" class="size-full wp-image-10801" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-03.jpg" alt="Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-03.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-03-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-03-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-03-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Robin Williams as Nolan Mack in Boulevard</div>
From his years as a story analyst for Universal, Soesbe shares some practical advice about writing screenplays. “It’s important to make sure your script is friendly to the eye. Be very aware of format. You’ve got to realize that your reader may pick up your script at ten in the morning. He or she may have had a rough night, maybe hasn’t had enough coffee yet, and when he or she opens that script and sees a mass of words or a sloppy presentation you already lose point. Why not give them a beautifully formatted script, one that’s appealing to the eye with no more than four or five lines of text, and start off by making your reader feel comfortable and allow the quality of the script to take over.”
In terms of length, Soesbe says the ideal script should be about 110 pages.  “Under 120 is always good. If you’re writing something historical, or very heavy sci-fi, you may go over 120, but that’s always a red flag.  Genre scripts, like a horror film, can be as short as 102 or 103. Boulevard was kind of long actually, but that was because I had a lot of “cut-tos” in it. Once I cut the “cut-tos” it was about 111 pages. You’ve got to watch those ‘cut-tos’,” he said with a laugh.
On the more inspirational side, Soesbe adds, “Never give up and don’t listen to people who say you can’t do it. Be tenacious and realistic about what your markets are and to write to market.”
<div id="attachment_10796" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10796" class="size-full wp-image-10796" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-04.jpg" alt="Douglas Soesbe with producer Jeffrey Gelber on set of Boulevard, from Douglas's private collection." width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-04.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-04-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-04-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/boulevard-04-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Douglas Soesbe with producer Jeffrey Gelber on set of Boulevard, from Douglas&#8217;s private collection.</div>

Boulevard: A Very Good Lesson on Torturing Your Protagonist

By Shanee Edwards.
<blockquote>
&#8220;Another clang in the march of time.&#8221; &#8211; Mrs. Patmore.
</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_13240" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13240" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-13240" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Julian-Fellowes-150x150.jpg" alt="Julian Fellowes. Image by Mingle MediaTV" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Julian-Fellowes-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Julian-Fellowes-250x250.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Julian-Fellowes-50x50.jpg 50w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Julian-Fellowes.jpg 424w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />Julian Fellowes. Image by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/47170787@N05">Mingle MediaTV</a></div>
With less than 3 months of filming left at Highclere Castle, the stand-in location for Downton Abbey, the show’s sole writer, Julian Fellowes, sat down with us to talk Season 5 and discuss the shocking challenges he masterfully wrought upon the Crawley family, in the costume drama that’s now popular on six continents.
If each season of the smash hit, Downton Abbey, has a theme, there is little doubt Season 5’s motif, both visually and theoretically, was the march of time.  
Of course, society was changing as a whole in the 1920s, but it seemed like it was the women’s characters, particularly Mary (Michelle Dockery), Daisy (Sophie McShera), and Edith (Laura Carmichael), who were most affected by the societal changes that emerged after the devastation of the First World War. We asked Julian Fellowes if focusing on the women and reflecting the female journey in early 20th century England was something he intended to explore last season. He admits it was, and in fact, and he had a great field source on the topic – his own aunt.
“I think it was a terribly important time for women, but it was also quite a bewildering time if you were in the middle of it,” said Fellowes.
The actor-turned-writer remembers talking to a great aunt who was born in the 1880s, and was in her thirties in the 1920s.
“She had been widowed in the First World War, her husband had died of wounds and so on, so she was fairly of her time. She said what was strange was, immediately after the war, 1919 to 1921, it wasn’t clear that all that much had changed because servants came back and maybe people had two footmen instead of four, but nothing had changed seismically.”
<div id="attachment_13242" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13242" class="size-full wp-image-13242" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/highclere-castle.jpg" alt="Highclere Castle: the real Downton Abbey. Image by Richard Munckton" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/highclere-castle.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/highclere-castle-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/highclere-castle-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/highclere-castle-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Highclere Castle: the real Downton Abbey. Image by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/31177003@N02">Richard Munckton</a></div>
But the wealthy and middle class’s attitude began to shift when it came to the property they owned and inhabited, and that led to other cultural transformations.
“You started to realize that some people were selling or demolishing their houses, that things were changing, particularly for women. The vote [for women] had started, and originally you had to be over 30 and there were property qualifications and you couldn’t be in domestic service, and all that sort of nonsense, but my aunt said that everyone knew that that was the beginning. Sometimes it’s now represented like ‘Oh, that’s never going to happen’, but she said it wasn’t like that. Once the government had given in, they knew it was a matter of time before women’s suffrage was exactly the same as men’s. In fact, I think it took ten years, but it didn’t take much longer.”
Of course, women getting the vote was an extraordinary change for the better, but beyond that, other less positive changes were afoot. People’s earnings had taken a serious hit during the war and on top of that, taxes increased drastically as England was struggling to pay for the war effort.
“It was clear that people’s income had radically changed. For a lot of families, that meant that women had to earn, even in the middle classes. Unmarried women had to start earning, becoming secretaries, later called personal assistants, or become managers, which they started in the first World War, running factories and things when the men were on the front lines.”
It was no surprise that the British government wanted to roll back these changes and encouraged women to all to go back to their pre-war roles. 
“There was a strong push to leave the seats empty for the boys and go back to being a wife and mother. The same thing happened in the 1940s, back in America. Messages like, ‘Put on your frilly aprons, he’ll be back in a minute,’ all that sort of stuff. After about four or five years, they realized it wasn’t going to work, women were not getting back into their frilly aprons, unless it suited them to do so.”
<div id="attachment_9524" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9524" class="size-full wp-image-9524" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/downton-abbey-christmas-special-2014-season-5.jpg" alt="The cast of Downton Abbey (season 5 Christmas special)" width="600" height="337" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/downton-abbey-christmas-special-2014-season-5.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/downton-abbey-christmas-special-2014-season-5-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/downton-abbey-christmas-special-2014-season-5-250x140.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/downton-abbey-christmas-special-2014-season-5-500x281.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />The cast of Downton Abbey (season 5 Christmas special)</div>
So, when exactly did British society realize they were in a whole new era?
“My aunt said by the middle 20s, you sort of realized that the world had changed. Even though the top families were rattling about, much as they did before, in a funny way, 1929 put the seal on that, even though it wasn’t felt as much in England as it was in America. I mean, it was hard times, but it wasn’t like here [in America], a dust bowl sort of thing. She said they entered the 30s knowing that they were in the modern world now.”
Fellowes said it was these conversations with his aunt that set the stage for the world of Downton Abbey and characters like Mary and Edith Crawley.
“I sort of wanted to get that sense into the show. You’re sort of torn, even as a woman you’re torn – in one way, you think, ‘Oh, this is getting much better, I’m able to do this and that.’ But in another way, all that ‘I have security’ and ‘I’m protected,’ knowing that you would be looked after – that was going away, too.”
One female character that had a big awakening in Season 5, was Daisy Mason, the Crawley’s cook. We all watched enthusiastically as she began pursuing an education in her spare time then were stunned when she questioned whether or not her studies were worth the effort. We asked Fellowes to help take us through her journey.
“Daisy has grown up in a village and come from the farm. She’s been taught a trade &#8212; she’s a cook and she’s actually quite well off in that society because she has a skill that is marketable. In a way, that’s fine, and probably in 1750, she would’ve gone on to be a top chef in some household and that would have been her life. But she’s come at a time of change. She starts to read books and she starts to study and she starts to talk to people &#8212; something is awakened in her and she starts to feel that this way of life is unjust because she’s not getting the opportunities she’s entitled to. I feel that was truthful for a great many people. These people didn’t know they were unhappy until they were told. But it doesn’t mean they are not.”
<div id="attachment_10533" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10533" class="size-full wp-image-10533" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daisy.jpg" alt="Sophie McShera as Daisy Mason in Downton Abbey" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daisy.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daisy-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daisy-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daisy-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Sophie McShera as Daisy Mason in Downton Abbey</div>
Fellowes sees the 1920s as a strange and puzzling era, particularly for the people of Robert Crawley’s (Hugh Bonneville), generation, making things challenging for men, too.
“Robert was born in the 1860s and had grown up as young man in a completely established Victorian age, which was one of those periods, sort of like the 1950s in America, which had total confidence in itself. In the 1880s and 90s in England, if a man was born an Englishman, he had a winning ticket in the lottery of life.”
Fellowes felt that for a man like Robert to see these changes coming down the pipeline, it must have been a bit unsettling at first. Ultimately however, his generation took them in stride.
“After the first war the puff had gone out of it. And everyone started to realize this was only a matter of time. And when Gandhi came along in India, many people said, ‘Oh, here he is.’”
We asked about Thomas Barrow’s difficult journey as a closeted homosexual, dealing with quack medical “cures” to make him more “like other men,” something we also saw Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), dealing with in 2014’s The Imitation Game. And if Britain was unique in administering these kinds of pseudo cures. Apparently, they were not.
“While there was a cottage medical industry in America to medically ‘treat’ homosexuals, there was more of a religious component to it &#8212; that in a sense, you were being tested by the devil, to see if you could be drawn over to the dark side. Your job as a Christian was to resist, fight back and go Jesus’ way.”
For Fellowes, researching the electrical treatments was the most disturbing part.   
“There was a kind of quackery industry in curing you of homosexuality, with electrical treatments and all that went right on into the 20th century, lest we forget that thing where you’re shown a photograph of a naked man and zap! Then you’re shown a naked women and woo-oo-oo [Fellowes hummed a rousing tune], I mean, that was still going on in the 1950s.”
<div id="attachment_10531" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10531" class="size-full wp-image-10531" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/barrows-with-jimmy.jpg" alt="Rob James-Collier as Thomas Barrow with Ed Speleers as Jimmy Kent in Downton Abbey" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/barrows-with-jimmy.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/barrows-with-jimmy-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/barrows-with-jimmy-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/barrows-with-jimmy-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Rob James-Collier as Thomas Barrow with Ed Speleers as Jimmy Kent in Downton Abbey</div>
Our generation, a hundred years later, is facing it’s own changes and challenges. The emergence of Caitlyn Jenner has our entire society rethinking gender. We asked Fellowes what the people in Downton Abbey’s time would have thought about her transition from man to woman.
<div id="attachment_10537" style="width: 117px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10537" class="wp-image-10537 size-thumbnail" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-vanity-fair-107x150.jpg" alt="" width="107" height="150" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-vanity-fair-107x150.jpg 107w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-vanity-fair.jpg 214w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-vanity-fair-125x175.jpg 125w" sizes="(max-width: 107px) 100vw, 107px" />Caitlyn Jenner, known as Bruce Jenner until June 2015. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlyn_Jenner">Wikipedia</a></div>
“I think, that was then and this is now. I don’t think they would be able to deal with it, but one of the reasons is because they couldn’t do it!  So in a sense technology brings its own acceptance. Because once something is possible, whatever people think, it will be done. And once it’s done we have to have an attitude to it, and our attitude then has to fit with our own morality. Because we are the generation who likes to feel that were liberal about everything. It’s difficult for us to condemn a serial killer, so we would feel uncomfortable condemning a life choice, and that’s in us now. For the Victorians or Georgians, where it wasn’t physically possible to change a man into a woman, they didn’t have to have an attitude to it other than, ‘What a terrible idea. Why would you want to do that?’  So I don’t think one can look to them for attitudes on things that belong exclusively to our own society.”
Article Featured Image Credit: <a class="owner-name truncate" title="Go to lafiguradelpadre Congreso's photostream" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lafiguradelpadre/" data-track="attributionNameClick" data-rapid_p="36">lafiguradelpadre Congreso</a>

Julian Fellowes on Downton Abbey

By Shanee Edwards.
<div id="attachment_9476" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9476" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-9476" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-mitchell-150x150.jpg" alt="David Robert Mitchell" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-mitchell-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-mitchell-250x250.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-mitchell-50x50.jpg 50w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-mitchell.jpg 346w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />David Robert Mitchell</div>
David Robert Mitchell found critical success with his first feature film, The Myth of the American Sleepover in 2010, which won the Special Jury Award at the SXSW Film Festival. Now, the Michigan-native writer/director tries his hand at horror with his dark and hypnotic new film, It Follows.
Mitchell claims the basic premise of It Follows, being stalked by something monstrous or otherworldly, came from a childhood nightmare. “I got to thinking about trying to make a horror film. I added the sexual element and decided I should just put it down on paper.” He wrote the draft in a mere ten days.
It Follows stars the super-emotive and lovely Maika Monroe as Jay, a 19-year-old bored suburbanite, looking for attention from a seemingly average dude named Greg, played by Daniel Zovotto. Jay and Greg have sex in the back of Greg’s car and Jay catches an STD, but it’s not what you think. What she catches is not a disease, but actually a sexually transmitted demon. Her life soon becomes a living hell. In this horror world, the only way to get rid of the monster following her is to pass it to another young man by having sex with him.
<div id="attachment_9479" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9479" class="size-full wp-image-9479" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-3.jpg" alt="Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows" width="600" height="337" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-3.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-3-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-3-250x140.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-3-500x281.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows</div>
But the film isn’t about sex-shaming. Mitchell said he enjoys playing with traditional horror tropes and while having sex is Jay’s downfall, it may be her salvation as well.
“I tend to play with clichés. I often embrace things that are sometimes overused and change them in very small ways. For instance, the idea that the characters are opening themselves up to some danger by having sex – that’s something we see in a lot of horror movies,” he said. But Mitchell suggests that sex is also a way the characters can be free. Or at least temporarily escape the evil that is trailing them.
“It’s not about condemning, or making a puritanical statement. It’s about doing something more than that.” Sex plays an important role in the story, but it’s a fresh take on an old, overused genre rule.
We asked Mitchell about his own personal recipe for creating horror and building suspense. Heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, he said a lot of the movie is about the anxiety that builds in moments where the characters are simply waiting. “Some of it is about putting emphasis on a scene that wouldn’t normally be a part of a horror film, things that might be a quick transition – I’m actually focusing on those things. It’s about waiting. It’s about the conversations that happen in between the terrible things that are coming, or between the attacks. Those sort of quiet spaces, those quiet moments.”
<div id="attachment_9477" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9477" class="size-full wp-image-9477" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-1.jpg" alt="Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-1.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-1-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-1-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-1-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows</div>
Mitchell said he was conscious of using metaphor while he was writing the script, but didn’t pick one thing to be the single meaning of the film. “I’m hesitant to say, ‘the film means this’. I like the idea that the viewer’s interpretation is just as valid as mine.”
We asked Mitchell about the film’s heroine, Jay, and her transformative journey. He said what sets her apart from other horror protagonists is that she cares deeply for those around her. “She’s not a selfish person, she cares about the people in her life, about others and I think it’s through that she finds some strength. There is definite growth there and change, and she gains a new understanding of her world and her place in it.”
It Follows is a quiet film, with very little dialogue and even less exposition, something that seems innate in Mitchell, given that he’s also a director. “I like to express things visually as much as possible. I see it when I’m writing the script. For me, the script is very much a guide or a blueprint so I can recall that idea I had at the computer so when I get on set, and I’m stressed about getting my shots, it’s a short hand for me.”
<div id="attachment_9475" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9475" class="size-full wp-image-9475" src="http://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-4.jpg" alt="Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-4.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-4-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-4-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/it-follows-4-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Maika Monroe as Jay Height in It Follows</div>
But he said that cutting out the exposition can be risky. “It’s tricky at the writing stage. You have to trust me, I mean, some of it is going to come out through performances, casting choices, through the visual language of the film. Everything is going to work together, that’s the goal. It’s about a tone or a feeling that can be hinted at on the page, but it’s also about setting it up to accomplish those things. There’s a tendency for people to want things explained on the page in a way that can result in a weaker film. It may be an easier read, but it’s not necessarily what you want as a starting point for your movie.”

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