Jason Rogers can still picture hanging out with his friends at the New Princess Theater in high school.
Though back then, it was a coffee shop run by a Grateful Dead fan who would play indie art films during the week and host a showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” every Halloween, Rogers said.
It was his first encounter with a creative community, one that would help shape a screenwriting career that spans continents.
“It was the first time I ever came across a creative kind of community,” he said. “I was always told I was creative, and people liked to read what I wrote a lot of times. So it was something I kind of wanted to do – either be an artist or be some kind of writer.”
Growing up in New Hope, Rogers found his creative spark watching ballet performances at Mississippi University for Women and in the plays of Thomas Beck and Eugene Ionesco, introduced to him by supportive teachers. He remembers first being drawn toward screenwriting while going to weekend double features in Columbus and Starkville with his friends.
Rogers remembers watching the films and wondering how he would have written the story differently. By the time he was 15, he sold his first screenplay to a small horror production company in Texas, though he still wasn’t old enough to sign a contract.
Having someone outside of his circle value his work was a rewarding experience, Rogers said.
“When I looked at it I said, ‘OK, this group around me isn’t really interested, but there has to be a group somewhere who is interested,’” he said. “Luckily, I had those people who were showing me that there is a world out there of stuff that was similar to what I was writing or what I wanted to do. I (wanted) to branch out and see who else was out there.”
After he graduated from Mississippi State University with a major in English literature, Rogers began considering just how far he wanted to branch out.
“I always wanted to live in a foreign country, and luckily at the time, I didn’t have a mortgage or a car payment. I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids,” he said. “My dad kind of said at one time, ‘Do it now. The older you get it’s going to be a lot harder for you. If you don’t do it now, it’s going to eat at you for the rest of your life.’”
Rogers moved to South Korea to teach English, and he stayed there for the next 14 years. After spending some time in a metropolitan area, he moved to a village outside of a university town – not too dissimilar to his own hometown.
While he was there, Rogers started writing screenplays under different pen names and networking with filmmakers from other countries.
He ended up writing films for production companies across the globe, from India and Chile to Hong Kong and Wales.
“It was exciting because it was a challenge. It wasn’t just writing the same old thing over and over again – you know, have a hero fall into a mess, and he has to rise up to the occasion,” he said. “It wasn’t just formulaic all the time. It was very avant garde, very surrealistic.”
When he moved back to the states, Rogers had to adjust his writing. He said the industry in America gravitates more towards mainstream, genre-oriented content. He started to find comfort in writing films that left viewers with a feeling of joy, he said.
“When I was writing in Korea, I really wanted to open peoples’ minds, to show them what was out there, show them something new,” he said. “But nowadays, I’m more about just giving people something to be entertained, to help them find some comfort in a stressful life.”
Rogers’ latest film, “Take Me To Banaue,” aims to do just that. The romantic comedy, set in the Philippines, explores the humorous side of navigating an intercultural relationship, echoing themes from Rogers’ own life.
He and his wife, Mi, currently live in Salt Lake City, where he teaches English to students with a juvenile criminal record. Rogers said he often ruminates about how his upbringing in New Hope has influenced his journey since leaving.
“These days, I’ve done a lot of soul searching about how my upbringing and childhood really made me who I am,” he said. “I know it’s really pushed me to want to do a lot with my life – to see the world and create more (and) help people out.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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