Interview (Part 1): Jane Therese
My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.
My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.
Jane Therese wrote the original screenplay “Sins of My Father” which won a 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jane about her creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to her.
Today in Part 1 of a 6 part series to run each day through Saturday, Jane talks about her background as a photojournalist and how that has influenced her as a storyteller.
Scott Myers: You have an eclectic background. Let’s see if we can provide some context. You’re originally from Southern California, is that right?
Jane Therese: Yes, I am from Southern California around the Peralta Hills area.
Scott: That’s where you grew up.
Jane: Yes. I went to a Catholic school, Cornelia Connelly, which unfortunately in December closed its doors. There were several parochial schools in the area at that time, Marywood, others. It was very interesting to have that happen on a chapter of my life.
Scott: You’re both a screenwriter and a photojournalist. Let’s start with photojournalism. How did you develop an interest in that?
Jane: I went to Fashion Institute of Technology, FIT. I left two weeks before graduation, which I still sometimes have nightmares about, that I didn’t complete it. But I left to go work. Part of that was in the fashion industry. I love the fashion industry.
I just found behind the scenes interesting, the psychology of people, why we do what we do, and situations that bring us to make the decisions we do. I began to gear my point of view more towards the journalism which is what I thoroughly love to do.
I went to Haiti, I just love that country, and it needs so much attention. I came back, put some work together and started at a newspaper. I am so grateful that my photo editor at the time allowed me to write and produce my own stories. It opened up a whole new world for me.
Scott: Originally, you did the Fashion Institute of Technology. That’s in New York City, were you involved in the fashion industry in New York?
Jane: Yeah, being in Fashion Institute of Technology, it was definitely geared towards fashion, and fashion photography and working with designers and clothes. The great thing was we could use the collection.
Now I say we can use. I don’t know if we were allowed to use it or not, but I went in to where they had the collections and asked to use some clothes and went into modeling agencies to ask them if they want to put a book together.
I would give them the images for their book for modeling from my book. One of the greatest moments I had was shooting on top of the San Remo building and Robert Stigwood actually had that penthouse. I made banana bread just to ask if I could shoot up there.
He was so gracious that he blocked out all the windows. They gave me carte blanche to do what I needed to do. Did my shoot. That was it. It was a pretty crazy time.
Scott: The journalism, I suspect that reflects an interest in storytelling.
Jane: Yes. I’ve always been a storyteller all of my life in one phase or the other. In fact, in junior high, I think at the time, we would have these, between the schools, these competitions. One of them was storytelling. They would give you three words, and that was it. You had to construct this whole story line based on just three words.
It was lots of fun. It’s always been whether through the written language or the camera, and I love being behind the camera, because I just think the world looks so much better through the lens of a camera.
Scott: You mentioned you’re going to Haiti. This is just after the Duvalier regime collapsed. Also you worked with indigenous people and displaced families in America. There’s a project you got involved with, called “Breaking the Silence of Autism.”
It feels like just reading through your personal history, certain personality traits come through… passion, curiosity, empathy, and advocacy. Do you feel like those attributes are a large part of your life interests?
Jane: Yes, absolutely. I also feel that is what gives me the momentum to continue to tell stories. The “Breaking the Silence of Autism” started with this young six‑year‑old boy, Jamie. I just fell in love with him and started documenting him, then adding more families to be able to give a broader perspective on autism through a variety of situations.
When I approach people, I approach it with the premise that I’m the vehicle for their story, and I truly believe that. I think the only way for change is to allow somebody’s voice if you have that ability to help them move it forward as a storyteller or a photojournalist or whatever it may be.
I find being that vehicle gives them the security to believe their words are going to be heard the way that they want to be heard. That’s important.
Scott: I think you studied psychology at Hunter College. Is that right?
Jane: Yeah, Hunter, and at that point, I was living in the City. Then I moved out to Pennsylvania, to Bucks County, and continued on at the community college here, just taking all the courses and using that knowledge in my storytelling.
Scott: If one of my writing students asks, “Should I minor in something,” I always tell them, “Do psychology,” because we spend so much time with our characters, we have to understand them.
Jane: Oh my God. Definitely. Psychology, philosophy, and logic ‑‑ ethics is extremely important, but I went into psychology if my photography wasn’t going to work out. Psychology is a science that pretty much explains your behavior.
You are certainly not going to try to define psychology on your own terms. It defines you, and “you” being one person, not our collective.
Scott: The individual you, yeah.
Jane: Exactly.
Scott: We talked about photojournalism. What about the screenwriting? When did you introduce yourself to that?
Jane: I’ll just say a friend of the family’s had reached out and contacted me. She was going through a situation where her son was murdered in Baja and wanted me to tell her story. She knew I was in photojournalism.
I flew back home and started working on her story ‑‑ interviews, court records, just all of it, from a very investigative‑journalistic approach. It was really fresh in her mind.
You sort of have to stand back sometimes, she was still needing to go through something. Anyhow, I moved back to the East Coast and started working at the newspaper, but that story right there of her son really kept that script alive.
Through that script, I was able to hone my craft a little bit better, receive feedback, and get an idea of the screenwriting world in LA, that whole industry, which ‑‑ I was forever fortunate because I think to assume that I could just jump into a craft and “Ooh, this is going to work,” really woke me up to a lot of different things.
Scott: You didn’t go to film school, so how did you go about learning the craft?
Jane: I’m a huge movie buff. Don’t even ask me what my favorite movie is. I watch all kinds of movies for a variety of reasons, and I think screenwriting, the way the storyline is broken down is an added bonus to being a photojournalist for me.
As I’m going into my stories as a photojournalist, I have this way things should be played out, so at least I have a structure going in. I think as a screenwriter with a storyline, I have that same structure. Obviously, sometimes things don’t work out that way, you have to be very flexible, but that’s how I approached it. It was along the same lines.
Tomorrow in Part 2, Jane discusses her Nicholl-winning screenplay “Sins of My Father” and what inspired her to write it.
For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.
For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.