From Screen to Script to Staged Reading: An Interview with Mak Johnson

“Screenwriting is the art of what you don’t write. It’s not what appears on the page but what lies in the unseen.”

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Mak Johnson, a VFP major at MTSU, will direct the In Process reading of Margaret Hoffman’s animated television script, The Land of Extinction, episode 1: “The Escape.” In lieu of a bio note, she shared a personal statement:

Storytelling has always been the epicenter of my pursuits. I have found great joy in everything from poetry to screenwriting. Diversity and inclusion are of the utmost importance to me, and all my personal projects serve as a reflection of that, as well as my participation with MTSU’s chapter of Women in Film, where I serve as president. Empathy is what draws us to the theater, and it’s why I do what I do.

Can you tell me about your major and what you want to do with that major after you graduate in a few years?

I am a Video and Film Production major, and I have minors in Theater and Writing. I consider myself above all else a storyteller, but what I want to do in my field is screenwriting, and ultimately I want to direct. I want to write and direct my own scripts. Here at MTSU, I’ve gotten to engage in a lot of technical crafts. I started on short film shoots. I’m actually a campaign videographer now, as well. So I’m working with politicians to tell their stories. I just want to use film as a way to bring those stories to life because I think that as far as sensory goes, when you have audio and video, that’s the best way to make people feel things.

Is there any specific genre that you feel drawn to that you would like to do scripts and directing for in the future?

I write what I like to call “Southerns,” so similar to a Western, but I write scripts with Southern themes, and they’re thrillers. It was very interesting, though, with Margaret [Hoffman] — we were speaking about this the other day — because she writes for children. Like, animated scripts. And I write things that are a little bit more gory and with those thematic elements that you would not want eight-year-olds to see.

What were some of the things that drew you to this career and that genre?

With the genre, I grew up in the South. I encountered a lot of things. I’m a queer woman living in Tennessee, so it’s kind of ironic at times. You get this Southern hospitality, but then you’re not met with that. I’m actually writing a script right now called Southern Harm, and it’s about a character that encounters similar obstacles.

And then what drew me to screenwriting? I started out in poetry, and then I took on novel writing and I liked that more “prose poetic” — which is hard because screenwriting is objective. You write what you see. You can’t have characters’ thoughts and emotions, but beneath that, there is that subtext where all of this occurs. Screenwriting is the art of what you don’t write. It’s not what appears on the page but what lies in the unseen. And I was really drawn to that. I like the art of having to utilize less to make more.

How did you get involved with this project with In Process and Margaret?

Dr. Barnett, who we love and adore, I took her playwriting class last semester because I wanted to challenge myself to step outside of screenwriting and I knew that there was a lot to learn about film through drama. She put me in contact with Margaret at the end of the semester. She [Dr. Barnett] asked what I wanted to do, and I told her that I wanted to be a screenwriter, and she pulled me on board for this.

Did Dr. Barnett already have the idea that you would be staging something or did it come about when you started talking to Margaret?

Margaret is actually a former student of Dr. Barnett’s, so she [Dr. Barnett] had her [Margaret] scheduled beforehand as the guest speaker, and then she [Margaret] knew she wanted to make something collaborative — to bring new students onboard. We’re actually trying to continue doing that through the directing process by letting students act in it as well.

How long have you and Margaret been working on this together?

It was the end of last semester that we had our first conception meeting. But then I had to go through the non-disclosure process this summer, and I didn’t receive the script until July

Is this something that she has created specifically for the event? Or is this something that is going to be directed and broadcast on television?

To my knowledge, it doesn’t have any distribution currently. I do know that she had it written beforehand. This is a fragment of a large script. I asked her out of curiosity what her intended audience was and how long she thinks it is, and it is for around an eight-year-old range. She said that, of course, their attention spans aren’t fully developed, so [the episodes] run about 20 minutes, the length of your average cartoon.

I found it interesting, though, because it’s about a retirement home for extinct animals. So you are trying to make children relate to the oldest thing imaginable.

What was the process for casting and adapting this script because you are staging it in person when it was originally written for television?

We knew that we wanted to have theater students. Once I had the script, I wrote out — and this is still an ongoing process — but I wrote out the people that we need to fill the roles. I’m working on a flyer right now to send to [Dr. Barnett] to give to students.

I’m using my experience from my playwriting class. We’re going to have a music-stand reading. It’s similar to what we call in film a “table read,” but we use music stands and you’ll be seated in your chair, and once it’s your turn to speak you raise the stand up that has your script on it. That brings forth a lot of limitations. Although it is a live performance, it’s not like you would witness in theater where the lines are memorized. It’s a reading more than it is a show. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make it more immersive. With that, we can have characters do actions, but you also have to discern when it is an action line — which is what we call “stage directions” in film — whether or not to read it aloud or to have the character actually perform it.

How have you been making that distinction?

Practicality has a lot to do with it. I remember, there was one script that I did for Playwriting, and I had characters sitting at a bar. It was a dialogue-heavy scene in a tavern. I created a bar top with music stands. So, you have a lot of creative freedom with it, but you have to figure out how to make these music stands into set pieces. It isn’t prop-heavy, it’s a little bit of letting your imagination fill in the blanks.

For this script, are you planning on disguising the music stands as any kind of prop?

Right now, they move around a lot. There’s a lot of scene changes. What I’m encountering is as they travel, I don’t know if I want them [the actors] to pick up the music stands. Right now, it makes the most sense to have them stationary. But I think it would be cool to have a starting point where there are music stands placed and they commute to another place. But I’m hoping I’ll have an epiphany here, kind of like I did with the bar top I had in my play.

What kind of advice has Margaret been offering to you?

Margaret has given me a lot of creative freedom. She has not set any specifications. She wants to see what I can do with it.

Do you find that scary or do you find that exciting?

Both. When I write a script myself, I understand it. I know the world of that story. I know its rules, its guidelines. When you have somebody else’s story that you’re directing, you have to make sure that your comprehension is where it needs to be to assure that it’s conveyed correctly. So, I do worry that the images that she has in her brain are different than mine. But I’m choosing to see that more as a beautiful thing than something to be afraid of because that’s why people pull different people on to direct. It’s because they see things differently. It challenges you, almost, because you gain empathy from learning how the other person experiences the story.

What are the next steps for this project?

Once we have it cast, what we’ll do is I — even in the short films I make have utilized table reads to give direction there. So, I will instruct the actors how to deliver their lines of dialogue, what actions they need to do, and then we’ll rehearse that blocking and those lines until everyone feels comfortable and the delivery is uniform throughout. Then after we have our rehearsals, we’ll have them [the actors] use the music stands because they pose challenges. You have to take your foot and press it on it before you [raise it up], so make sure everybody knows that so we don’t have any embarrassing music stands to the head because that’s happened.

What would you say that you’re the proudest of with this project so far?

I’m proud that I was the one they reached out to. That meant a lot to me, and I was very honored to be put in contact with Margaret. She’s worked on Sesame Street and things that I had heard of, so I was super excited to meet her. Regarding my own work on it, I’m most excited about how I’ve been able to translate someone else’s words into my own visuals because I always struggled with that. Screenwriting is my specialization, and I’ve been a TA for the screenwriting department, so I get sent a lot of scripts, and my attention span suffers so I have to focus and re-read and make sure that I comprehend it well. So this has served as good practice.

Sarah Hicks has a B.A.T. in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) with a minor in Linguistics and is now in her second year as an English M.A. student at Middle Tennessee State University. Sarah is also a graduate assistant, working as a tutor in the University Writing Center. Her primary research interest is how narrative operates in interactive, immersive location-based experiences. She hopes to become a show writer or narrative designer.