Julie Budtz Sørensen

Screenwriter (Denmark) who took part in the conference 02: Stories for Healing?

Julie Budtz Sørensen graduated from The National Film School of Denmark in 2015. She is the head-writer of the Viaplay Original series WHERE WERE YOU? (HÅBER DU KOM GODT HJEM, 2022), based on her fictional podcast DET MED LIV, for which she won the award for best European Radio Fiction Series at Prix Europe in 2018.

She has worked on several TV series, including as part of the writers’ team on the Netflix Originals THE RAIN (2018) and CHOSEN (2022), as a co-writer on the second season of LIMBOLAND (2020), and as part of the writers’ team on an upcoming mini-series adapted from Tove Ditlevsen’s autobiography GIFT (DEPENDENCY).

Julie is currently developing two drama shows with Nimbus Film and has a feature film in development with The Danish National Film institute.

— an interview by Guillaume Desjardins, Writer-director, member of Les Parasites, recorded at Les Champs Libres (Rennes) in December 2023 in the framework of the serie “What stories for our time?”.

« Open the World of Possibilities »

From Denmark.

I’m from Denmark, I’m a scriptwriter and I’m working with TV shows and also developing some films.
I started working with cinema when I was 15 in my hometown Aarhus in Denmark, where I was a part of an Atelier during my first short films. I kept working with film while I studied at university, Modern Philosophy in France. After that I was accepted to the Danish Film School on the screenwriting selection, and that was a two-year formation at the time.
Since then I’ve been working in Danish film industry, writing in the beginning as an episode writer, so working for a creator on shows like “The Rain” that was made for Netflix. And also developing new TV show for the Danish broadcasted TV2 and working on feature films with the Danish Film Institute.

Saying something about society and modern life.

I think that I do try in my work to push something to be a bit different, especially when it comes to TV shows. It’s not like I want to revolutionise anything, but take small steps of… I definitely want to do something that is not only for entertaining, that has a level of saying something about society and modern life.

Believe in your idea and deploy it.

When I get an idea I don’t write it down. If it comes back and it gets more, there’s more and more substance by playing with the idea in my head, then I will think this is important enough for me to tell it. I won’t be afraid that it doesn’t have any sense. I’m more like, I think this has meaning, is this the right way to tell it? Is it enough… Does it have enough material, can there be enough characters in this for it to be a real story?

“When I get an idea I don’t write it down.
If it is not important, I think I will just forget it.”
— Julie Budtz Sørensen —

Our experiences to feed the characters’ experiences.

My own life experiences I think give me more and more material to write on, and I’m definitely way more open.
I think when I was a young student I was more like thinking about what the filmmakers that I admired were doing.
Whereas now I’m more like way more using my life experiences and people I meet to create the stories. I have worked for others, for creators as an episode writer, and that’s completely different from creating your own shows.

Collaboration in the construction of the story.

When I’m working for others, we will have a lot of time talking about all kinds of stuff, everyone is bringing their ideas, but ultimately it’s the creator who has the vision, or she.
For my own shows, when there are few episodes, I prefer to write myself, but have the director very involved in it, not writing, but giving a lot of notes. And we have days where we put it up on a board and we talk about it.

The choice of people is the most important thing, if you have to work together. Not that you necessarily are alike, actually you shouldn’t, I think, you have to be able to challenge each other. But it’s like casting, it’s like finding a director, it’s very important, the collaboration… And it can be difficult to know in the beginning who you can work with.
In the States there are completely different ways of doing it, there are so many more people – I think there can be 10 to 12, and everyone has a very specific role. In Denmark we’ve been maximum 5 in a room.
So defining the roles is important too. And then spending a lot of time together, and be generous about talking about your own life and where you come from, private things that help to build a relationship.

Open the World of Possibilities.

I have a really good producer who is always like, this sounds great, and it’s like, at the beginning it is “the world of possibilities”. And then when you start writing: you have to write a synopsis and a treatment, and you have to go sell it.
And then I think for me, a lot of stuff happens when you start writing a script. And I think my teacher used to call it “a vomit draft”, the first draft, because you just get everything out, and you don’t think about structure.
And then you read it again and some things are really bad, and then some of them are quite good, or they have some things like a scene that can become key to you about what the story is about. And then you start working around that.

Intuition and structure of the story.

I always think, in of course every episode, there have to be some scenes that I truly love. Then I start editing it, and it is when I am more structural and more intuitive. When I write an episode, I think about some things that should be in it. Often I will work with a cliffhanger because I want the audience to keep watching.

The story is a game of clues.

I think that actually a good part of writing a TV show is that it’s a bit more vast, and you can digress, and you can follow a character more in one episode. For me it’s still more playful, or at least that’s why I like it.
But when scriptwriters work together, in a writers room, I think none of us have the same idea of what it actually means to use this structure. Everyone will be like, “this is definitely the first plot point of the story”. And it’s a bit arbitrary, because then we’re not agreeing on it even.

But if you have a story and you can sense somehow that something is lacking, then you can look at it more schematically and say what is the first turning point or the midpoint of the story?
But I think it’s always like a crutch, it’s like when you reach some kind of dead end, where you can’t continue, it can help you.
The more you know about your characters, the more you know about the story, it’s easier to write it without looking so much at this model.

The Premise.

I think you need to, deep inside of you, know kind of the message of your story. I think it’s better to become aware, even though you’re not saying it to your audience. And I think you’re still saying it kind of. So to think about, what it is you actually want to say with your story.
And I don’t think that’s the same as the premise. The premise is more difficult to work around.

“I guess there’s some kind of question you ask at the beginning of your story that has to be big enough to be explored from different perspectives. I think you need to know, deep inside of you, what is the message of your story.”
— Julie Budtz Sørensen —

Story & Collective.

And often you will be surprised in the end… I mean after editing, and maybe even after.
Now if I rewatch the show I made one year ago I will be surprised about some things, about what it ended up being about. When I read the reviews I was surprised also about what people got out of it. So yeah, it’s a long process to know what the story was, I think.
Not to forget that I’m not doing it alone at all, so the question will always be refined by first a co-writer, a producer… The director will for me be the most important partner in it because he or she will will direct it and direct actors and have another perspective on it that I have.

Listen and be humble.

The collaborative part of it will help of course to be more clear on what you’re trying to say.
I think even sometimes you get annoying questions, from people who are financing, but I think like most questions even if you find them stupid, there’s most of the time something true to it.
Even though they’re pinpointing something and you don’t want to go that way, what they’re saying is probably like some kind of lack in your story.
So I think also very important is to be kind of humble to understand you don’t know everything. The more experience you get the more you will also be able to see that in the process of writing.

Open the scope of the story.

I thought I was never going to do TV shows, because I wasn’t that into it or even the TV shows I like was very far from something I wanted to do.
But now I think what I really want is to try to tell something, what would you say, important for a broad audience. Not just a few.

The engagement of the viewer through genre.

TV show I’m making now has this element of thriller and crime. Also the one I’m working on now has a courtroom drama in it. So, a thriller has a grammar and a courtroom drama has a grammar that engages you as an audience to follow the story. But it can be a really good way to tell about some characters, because you have a motor driving the story like: “who did the crime?”, “what happened in the past? a mystery or something?”… that creates suspense.

The intimate and collective experiences of the characters.

My favorite TV show is “Twin Peaks”.
If you cut it to the bone it’s just about who killed the girl. A very simple question for a crime show.
And when it’s a show, because it’s many episodes, you will know – “I’ll need a suspect in this episode, I will need the mystery to go further, but still I want to tell about all these characters and their lives.” – these things can help a lot. It’s a motor driving the whole thing.

A bit of arrogance…

I mean, experience is like really gold. I used to write for others, and I’m sure I was pretty arrogant when I was young and making short films. And I think maybe you need that arrogance also to succeed. But sometimes maybe to really listen to other people because you don’t always have the right answer yourself.

Ressentir pour raconter.

The main idea has to be something you so strongly feel yourself somehow – whether it’s about death or survival or love between a mother and her child or whatever – you have to feel it strong enough to be able to tell it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download