The summer film season is often filled with movies that are all surface and no depth, opting instead to explore characters and their motivations on nothing more than a perfunctory level. Director John Suits must have sensed my cinematic ennui when he made The Scribbler, opening today. The tale is based on the graphic novel by Dan Schaffer and follows the story of Suki, who is treating her multiple personality disorder in a halfway house filled with a menagerie of off-kilter personalities.

I had the chance to speak with Mr. Suits about how he became involved with The Scribbler and the themes of the story that appealed to his directorial sensibilities.

FreakSugar: How did you get involved with The Scribbler?

John Suits: Basically, my production company does about four to five movies a year and we are always looking for content and so, in a backwards sort of way, we read the script before we read the graphic novel. It’s actually pretty cool, because we could start in our heads what we think the movie might be and then we could look at the graphic novel for context and see it in a new light. And Dan Schaffer who wrote [the graphic novel and the film’s script] is an extremely talented writer. Basically, the screenplay feels like an elevated version of the graphic novel and adds another timeline and characters and builds out the world more. It was really a neat experience and it was cool to have the graphic novel to constantly refer to in order to create the visual style when we got into pre-production and shooting.

FreakSugar: I would imagine that was a good way to approach tackling the project, not having read the graphic novel first, so you didn’t necessarily go into the project with any preconceived notions of what the movie should look like.

Suits: That’s exactly right. It allowed me to have a sense of what I thought it was before I approached it. I think the biggest advantage was be able to be interactive with Dan throughout the whole process. It was a really neat collaboration to be able to work with the guy who created it because he had the whole world built out in his mind. He was a great reference whenever I had thoughts or questions. It was a big advantage for sure.

FreakSugar: Were there any times when it was intimidating working with Dan and telling him that there was something from his story that you wanted to change for the film?

Suits: Dan is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. It made it very easy to work with him. And he also came from the approach of that he was open to ideas to service the story. He would come up with these brilliant ideas for fixes and changes. So it was actually a very great experience. And in post-production, we would show him cuts of the film and he would give us feedback. He was just a really great collaborator and it was so beneficial for him to be involved as he was.

FreakSugar: The feel of the film had a an aspect of claustrophobia and, at times, suffocation that really added to the experience of viewing the film. Are there any filmmakers that influence how you direct?

Suits: It really varies from project to project based on what the style of the film should be. Growing up, my dad exposed me to a lot of [director] David Lynch, so I was a big Lynch fan growing up. So for The Scribbler, I watched a lot of graphic novel adaptations, but I also looked at [director] David Cronenberg’s stuff and [director] Terry Gilliam’s films. And I watched stuff like Watchmen. Also, I think something that was a heavy influence was film-noir, which I’m a big fan of. So it was a matter of having those elements in a graphic novel context. But it was always trying to create noir in color that was the concept.

FreakSugar: So much the film set made the movie feel claustrophobic. Was that intentional?

Suits: A lot of that came from lens choice and space choice. It was approaching a scene trying to decide what mental state Suki was in a particular moment and how do we visually tell that. A lot of it was told in her perspective. For example, if we wanted the scene to feel claustrophobic, we would use long lenses. And if we wanted the viewer to feel disoriented, we would use wide-angle lenses to make Suki seem disoriented. We structured the scene around how Suki felt in a certain moment.

FreakSugar: Had you been interested in mental health issues prior to shooting the film?

Suits: I do think that the concepts of mental health and the aspects of conformity versus individuality the film dealt with really appealed to me in some ways because it’s subject matter that I’m really fascinated with. I had to read the script again and again to unlock all of the layers of what Dan wrote. I kind of like films that you gain something the second time through. But with The Scribbler, I felt like I had to read the script ten times to engulf all of the information. And I think for Dan, the themes are commonly found in his graphic novel work, with exploring mental health and individuality. He’s deeply interested in that world in a huge way.

The Scribbler opens in theaters today. It is also available on VOD and on iTunes. Be sure to check out our review.

About The Author

Managing Editor

Jed W. Keith is managing editor for FreakSugar and has been a writer with the site since its start in 2014. He’s a pop culture writer, social media coordinator, PR writer, and technical and educational writer for a variety of companies and organizations. Currently, Jed writes for FreakSugar, coordinates social media for Rocketship Entertainment and GT Races, and writes press copy and pop culture articles for a variety of companies and outlets. His work can also be seen in press releases for the Master Musicians Festival, a Kentucky event that drawn acts such as Willie Nelson, the Counting Crows, Steve Earle, and Wynona Judd. His work was featured in the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con convention book for his interview with comic creator Mike Mignola about the 25th anniversary of the first appearance of Hellboy. Jed also does his best to educate the next generation of pop culture enthusiasts, teaching social studies classes--including History Through Film--to high school students.