The Art of Storytelling– Jill Soloway gets “Transparent” for Amazon Studios
Prior to the release of her Amazon Original pilot, Transparent, we asked creator Jill Soloway a few questions on the art of storytelling, her inspirations and the future of her new show. Read the article below.Writer/Director/Producer Jill Soloway has always considered herself a “storyteller first and a filmmaker by necessity”. As a child, she and her sister created and performed plays for anyone that they could get to watch. This evolved into a drive to write and direct films and TV and to tell longer and better kinds of stories. Her career has been a successful one, serving as a writer and producer for series such as United States of Tara and Six Feet Under - for which she was nominated for 3 primetime Emmy Awards and a WGA award. She also took home the Best Director prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival for her feature film Afternoon Delight which she both wrote and directed.
We spoke to Jill about her inspirations, her approach to her multiple job titles and her expectations for Transparent.
What inspires you the most about filmmaking?
It’s a huge privilege for me to have an audience give me their brain space for however long I get. I get excited to provide a female voice, and I love inspiring other people to take their non-traditional ways of seeing and transform that into art.
Do you approach writing, directing and producing differently?
Those three jobs have all evolved into one big fat braid of creativity. I’ll write the script first, and then prep would be considered producing. As we prep I get new information about the script.
As a director, 95% of my work is casting. I absolutely have to cast people that I’m a little bit in love with. They have to be so funny that they make me laugh as hard as my sister does. The other 5% is showing up on the day and staying present in my body so I can get that little buzz that says, “Ooooh, this is WORKING. Go in this direction.”
In writing, how do you approach the blank page?
I never sit down and stare at a blank page. I get inspired to write or create a project because the world is revealing itself to me in my head. It happens while I’m driving or falling asleep or waking up. It’s as if the characters are ghosts out there in some vague semi-conscious land, and they’re borrowing me to have an audience with the public! It’s a lot like playing or indulging in imaginary stories as a kid. So when I sit down at the computer, it’s usually because I’ve imagined a scene or heard some dialogue and I want to get it down. Once the actors are cast, the voices evolve and I can get even more specific information.
I was always waiting for people to say they didn’t like something, and I would pay more attention to that than the ten previous people who said it was good. It may be worse for women, who are so acculturated toward being told that they’re good or attractive or likable, but I think all artists deeply suspect that they suck and they really jump on the negative stuff.
A few years ago it really hit me that the only thing that makes a director is having the gumption to say it, to declare it, over and over again, and not really give a darn if people like you. Of course, that’s not to say I don’t crave and use creative feedback. I love test screenings and sharing my work with people so I can tell what’s working. Now I tell young artists, “You have to be open enough to allow other peoples’ creativity to power the machine of your content, but no so open that anyone can slow you down or stop you.”
What excites you most about Transparent?
This cast (Jeffrey Tambor, Judith Light, Gaby Hoffmann, Amy Landecker and Jay Duplass), this family and the way they’re magnetized toward one another as they search for authenticity feels so real and alive to me. It’s definitely a salute to my childhood – that relationship with my sister where we were just so alive and in the moment creatively because all we wanted to do was satisfy one another.
If the show gets picked up for a full series, what sort of character arcs and story lines are you excited to explore?
The best way to describe what I want to do is just a crazy-good soap opera. I think about the shows throughout my life that I loved and refused to miss – from Six Feet Under and The Sopranos to Felicity and My So-Called Life to All My Children and One Life to Live – and infusing that kind of relentless family drama with the kind of wry, dark, postmodern comedy you’d find on Louie or Girls – and that’s my dream show!
There are already a million stories in my mind for this family. I want to do stories that all kids can relate to – in that your parents are supposed to be or behave a certain way, and they don’t – so now what? I think just dealing with the aging process – supporting your parents whether it’s financial or emotional – seeing them as real flawed people who may now need parenting themselves – is ripe for relatability.
I also really want to explore all kind of questions about gender in a big way. It’s just everywhere right now. There’s the obvious topics – trans rights, trans youth, crossdressing, being genderqueer, being intergender or third gender… just questioning and playing with every politically correct notion about what can’t or can’t be said about sexuality and gender on mainstream television, and doing it with comedy.
The people who work at Amazon Studios have given me so much trust – of course, they still have input and great creative ideas – but as a headline, they believe that I know best what the show wants to be. It truly feels like the most awesome marriage of art and commerce I could ever imagine. Now we just gotta get this thing picked up to series!
Check out Transparent and other projects on the Amazon Studios development slate.
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