Interview:

Having only dabbled in screenwriting for the better part of a year, and with only a half dozen shorts to show for it, I guess I’m a newcomer to the business in the strictest sense of the word. I’m still very much honing my craft, constantly struggling with ways to keep the creative juices in flux whilst trying to figure out exactly what kind of writer I am (or want to be).

I’m currently majoring in English at Aarhus University (that’s in Denmark, in case you were wondering), which is also where I, at the behest of several frustrated American professors, adopted the Anglophone initials “T.J” at the expense of my difficult to pronounce Danish name “Troels Jacob”. With a background in European as well as American cinema, my style of writing wobbles between art-house and fun-house which I think marks most of my work, including the post-apocalyptic “The Mute”.

Is “The Mute” your first script? If not, what else have you completed?

Besides ”The Mute” I have completed a number of shorts, most prominently ”The Pool”, which is currently in pre-production, and ”Tall Tales” a super-short about man struggling to have a cohesive flashback of what caused him to lose his job.

Why did you write “The Mute”? And how long did it take you to write it?

Well, I’ve always been infatuated with stories about the apocalypse; of what would happen if the world suddenly went away, but I didn’t want the end to come with a giant meteor or the Empire State building blowing up. I wanted it to be the quietest of things. Literally. I think what eventually kills us off will be something from within; apathy, closed off in our cubicles, not communicating. Film-wise I owe a lot to Don McKellar’s ”Last Night” and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ”Kaïro”. And yes, I want scene points for namedropping art-house movies.

Describe your process; do you have a set routine, method for writing?

I’m still very much trying to get a method down. I get an idea (usually on the bus or someplace where I can’t jot it down immediately) and I figure out what I love about it and what I want to say with it, and then I just write for as long as I can without stopping. And then I go back, draw up a structure and start over.

What inspires you to write?

So much inspires me. A lot of literature and movies of course, but music and comic books too. I have this recurring motif (la-di-da) of reality vs. the imagination in my writings, and much of what I’m currently writing deals with the loss of the imagination and what happens when we surrender to adolescence and the adult preset. I guess I just miss being a kid, really.

Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

Naturally I’m a huge film-buff, but outside watching and writing movies I play the piano and a little guitar in a sorta make-shift home-studio I’ve got. I also have an affinity for languages and dialects. I’m trying to learn Japanese at the moment, which isn’t going as swiftly as I thought it would.

What influenced you to enter the Movie Script Contest?

Honestly, it was there. It was one of the few well-graded short competitions on movie-bytes and already it seemed to be garnering a fine reputation. So I took a chance, and I’m glad I did.

Do you feel that screenwriting contests are worthwhile for writers and why?

It’s hard for me to say since this is one of the first competitions I’ve entered, and certainly the first I’ve gotten feedback from. If only all competitions were as painlessly well-run as this one.

Who is your favorite screenwriter or writer and why?

I’m not sure I have a favorite screenwriter. Maybe Charlie Kauffman. I’m mostly inspired by short stories by the likes of Graham Greene or Chuck Palahniuk. Fitzgerald. Keats. Regina Spektor. Etc.

Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?

Oscar Wilde once said ”I am not young enough to know everything” so at 21 I think I qualify as being pretty much omniscient. Alas, all I can think of is clichéd sayings and dubious advice like ”Never stop writing!”. Although, if your name is George Lucas you can stop.

What’s next for you?

I have another short called ”The Pool” currently in pre-production, about three young teenagers who break into a swimming arena to see who can hold their breaths the longest under water. It’s gonna be directed by Matt Sanders sometime early next year.