Discovering Classic Cinema

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Download the PayPal app to get started. sububject to approval. pay mononthly consonsumer loans made by Webank. available through PayPaling N ML nine one zero four fivety seven. Learn more at payPal. com slash pay monthly. Well, first of all, Ke Parsons, thank you so much for joining the O on film with Kevin McCarthy podcast. and honor to have you on. I saw the film last night. You had Sam Ssmail doing an amazing Q and A at the Grove. and it's one of the best films I've seen in a long time. And I genuinely want to dive into the craft of it from the production design, sound design your cinematography, your score. But I first want to give an audience just an introduction because for me and I'll just be honest, I waited to watch your series until I saw the film last night. So this morning I woke up and watched the entire series and I just wanted to have the perspective of somebody who is entering this world for the first time. And this podcast is about craft and kind of delivering the idea of how you that artist delivered your vision to the screen. I know you've been on a press tour for a while and you've told the story from A to B to C to how you got to the A twenty four film. but for the audience listening who might not know what Backrooms is, do you mind just kind of giving a brief like Cliff Notes history from the twenty nineteen four chan and kind of even explain the creepy pasta thing people know what that is Yeah. Yeah. well, yeah so so in May of twenty nineteen, there was a photo. or anything. I'm an unfortune person. So when I talk about Fortune, that's all second hand, it's trickled down. So in twenty nineteen, May of twenty nineteen, there was a photo that circulated on Fortunam of a sort of dingy yellow For now, I'll call it an office space because it was no one really knew what it was exactly at the time It turned out to be a furniture store, but I guess we can probably mention that at some other point. But it was this sort of, you know, there's this yellow wallpaper with like this chevron design on its, there's, you know, pretty pretty murky lived in carpet and a sort of drop ceiling with sort of hallmark fluorescent lights that that's are, you know, it's all pretty pretty pretty bundign pretty mundane. It's like a very painfully mundane image actually, is sort of I think the thing people felt about it. And it was categorized as sort of a, you know, an off putting eerie photo and someone else reposted it on another board and added this caption which was essentially like a paragraph setting up, just a loose fun concept of you know, if if you, um you No clip, which for those who don't know is like a video game or like game engine term for phasing through a solid surface and sort of exiting boundaries of the world. so it's sort of you know the I think there's a very literal like game centric view of it where, you know you are phasing through the surf, and now you're in the out of bounds environment where sometimes like recycled assets are kept as weird things that you're not supposed to see. The world just kind of stops making sense or falling apart. L you know, even in like a Truman S showow context, it's just like you've left You've left the boundary of what you as an individual are supposed to be able to see and it feels like you've, you know, entered a new sort of plane of perspective in some way Um But you know the concept sort of implies that beyond reality is this massive tangle of just these rooms in all direction forever. And if you leave reality in the wrong place by accident sort of implies that it's sort of an accidental thing that might befall anyone at the wrong time. Like you just lean on a wall. know, you're just tired one day, you just lean back and boom, you've fall through a wall and you're in a place and And you know, whether or not you're able to get back out is kind of, you know, I think it's implied that you're trapped there forever, but it's not set out right. like with a video game glitch, it could go either way. So it just sort of created this loose concept of that environment. and of course the buzzing lights are an element that are mentioned there. and maybe there's something else in there with you. But it's more the question of whether or not there is that, I think, cght on. So it's sort of this I think modern industrialized version of sort of a purgatory archetype sort of playing into that myth a bit minus any notion of you're there because you did something wrong. It's very much just like as sort of an adverse nature sort of trope, I think. Um And And so it sort of spread as a meme for a little while in May. and then it circulated as, you know, it sort of faded out of out of main view for a little bit because, you know, names have a very short life cycle and then and then you started I started seeing a rise in these liminal space image compilations, which Yeah I think trying to trying to unpack what limal spaces are right now is maybe tricky because It's always been a little little bit of buzzord U But essentially, you, you saw a rise in these photos that are sort of barketing to or, you know playing into or being literally pulled from the time period of people's life of sort of pointing to childhood are these memories that are taken out of context or It just very empty lots of empty spaces that are, you know, placing an emphasis on banal architectural traits that maybe as a child you You know, because as a child, you know, life is very There's a sort of vibrancy to the sensory experience growing up and I think a lot of information gets sort of prioritized and stored in the mind and just kind of gets left behind as you grow up. And I think these photos were kind of returning to that level of simplicity in a way that was It made me feel seene to see these photos. It felt like I was reconnecting with a a room I hadn't been in since I was six a hallway at a hotel or a hotel pool or you know, just u, you know, a window sill in an old apartment or something just various details sort of coming back to the surface in a way very easy to project ono This is long winded because there is a lot there and I'm not good at being concise. but I appreciate this because I'm imagining my mom listening to this or watching this episode, not knowing what backrooms is and you're doing an amazing job explaining it because What you're talking about in terms of projecting onto these images I had that experience last night. I've been, I mean, as somebody who I've been in therapy since I was fourteen. So like unpacking childhood and these loops that continue that affect the narrative of your life as you move forward. is extremely interesting. So you're making perfect sense. But and from that point you essentially, you create an amazing web series. The first one is rememarkable. So so what made you want to make that web series? And this was all done sentally in blender Um and then C it's CG, but it looks incredible but the detail that you go into is so immersive. but that you started the series to kind of unpack it for yourself in a way. Did you find catharsis in your experience with the image through the actual directing of the shorts I'd say so. I think one thing that I just forgot to say a second ago that I think is worthwhile context is that it's for chance so therefore the person who posted an image and the person who wrote the caption have never been identified So it's anonymous on there you know, if people are wondering how It spiraled in that way. It became a sort of very open source community based concept that lots of people or sort of creating their own interpretations of Um And so that's sort of like the foundation of how this started in the first place. Just I think that's worth worth mentioning. It's pretty crucial to it, actually. But so I was aware of it loosely asimine for a little while. I, you know, went down I don't want to say the rab hole because's not really clear destination at the end of it. It's just kind of like you know, lots of people were kind of figuring out that there was this visual trend u know, it was sort of manifesting as it was discovered just of liminal spaces and people were talking about it and sharing more and more and there's compilations everywhere. And so sort of swimming in in twenty twenty one And I just found because it's also, you know visually centered and never really in like an actual motion video format, you know, why not just try to tap into that sensation and in I've been using Blender, which is this free three D software for a number of years. and I was able to sort of you know, like try to rehash these environments and slightly with my own twists but sort of take on that feeling in a short film format Um It's nothing crazy. It's pretty simple mechanism but it sort of allowed me definitely live with that tone for a little bit and just get close to it and just have fun exploring it and I would say that like that first short. It's so reliant on a sort of, like I come from a very like sci fi set of sensibilities. like most of my life, I've gravitated towards science fiction. actually my whole life any every fictional property I've ever gone towards since like beginning of my life has always been science fiction in some regards. So I'm biased somehow from, you know, beyond my conscious awareness I think I just really enjoy looking at, you know, if the concept is being proposed as something that has this supernatural aspect of a sort of extrapolated human reality that is obviously playing into like a fear of a monoc culture, and like, you know, being in this bland mass produced industrial sort of, you know office industrial environment that goes on in all directions forever that obviously I think you can get a pretty clear sort of sensation culturally out of that. But then like you know, taking that and looking at what is, you know, if we wanted to do a fictional story about this in relation to like what if this actually existed This concept, as is written, actually existed somewhere in the world and you were treating it like you know, an honest for or fact of nature you know, how would people talk about it? How would it be discussed and how long until people become so fixated on the fact that it exists that they want to kill any notion that there's anything magical or beyond knowing about it and you know it's just treated like anything else in science. And so What would be an obscure way that only a few people could know about this thing? that there's like a secure doorway to this place and you know, what sort of accidental event could give like a small group of people consistent access to it? And we are allowed to sort of play out I like to think a realistic story sort of going through the steps that would be taken you know procedural but also a character level just you know, around it end't ended up becoming this MRA. sort of research contractor who like, you know makes MRI parts for for a larger company. It just a little independent lab and they u, you know, they open a hole to the backrooms completely by accident, pretty much in the basement of their of their office and u, you know, it just kind of becomes a procedural, not quite not quite a techno thriller, but it was like a a sort of conspiratorial edge to it with how this thing, this project sort of unfolds and you know, what are the potential applications of this thing as something other than just a space to wander in, you know, that these lights are on for a reason. What if we take the ceiling tiles out of like what if we take apart that trougher in that ceiling and look at the serial numbers on the ballast in there and whatnot. is like these trace to real locations and clearly have, you know, have been manufactured by people, but there's so many of them and this place is so huge that u that it just something's not clicking. There feel there's something that is not strictly grounded about the experience. So it's sort of, you know, seeing people So little a little nuts trying to make sense of it is kind of what I wanted the project to be in You know, this' partally because I'm going not to trying to make sense of it. So I mean, I have, I feel good about that is like narratively, I think we owe it to the audiences when we start a series like this to know where we're going with it, but You know, I think there's a lot that I've explored along the way Yeah, it's incredible. And I just when I tell people last night we were at the Q and A, it's an amazing story. And as you posted these videos, you started getting reached out to by the studios and executives just based on what you had made and now you have an A twenty four film hitting theaters, which is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. And I was actually going to ask this later in the interview brought this up just now about projecting ourselves kind of into these worlds. On a personal level, like I mentioned, I'd been in therapy since I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with OCD when I was fourteen. and that's an interesting concept of looping Like the the and for some reason, I got home last night. I was uptill one in the morning And you know, know, OCD is something that's kind of been a big part of my life, but it makes more sense when you metaphorically think about it as the backrooms, where I'm misreembering things that are making me more anxious and it's getting more and more distorted as it loops through my mind I know that there's different intentions and different ways to look at the perspective, but what does that mean to you to know that someone can project their own mental health aspects onto the story and find a bit of catharsis. It makes a lot of sense. like my brain is kind of the backrooms. and the subconscious is, the different layers and changes. I'm just curious if you if that's something that relates to you Yeah, I mean, a lot like that is deliberate. OCD specifically and in regards to the backrooms, I think has has certainly been a touch pointoint when designing and considering the relationship between how teaches us a lot about or at least, you know you can speak to with a lot of clarity conversation with OCD like the brain consolidates information and how it troubble shoot for lack of a better term and where it can get stuck and And, you know, I think that when and this is sort of what I talked about the Q and A yesterday. This is a very like mechanical roach I like to take to the backrooms and to the people engaging with it where You know, it is largely sort of coming from a place of I think foundationally, and this just comes from like the way I like to address sci fi in general, but also I think it's really important in this project to kind of be highlighting and emphasizing the ways in which that humans are not built to perceive reality perfectly. We are engines that are, you know We evolved to fulfill a niche and or at least, you know, like We converge to a point that makes sense for our environment and makes sense to continue our survival across the planet. But We You know, obviously the whole the entire structure of our brains and the way that we've takeaken information and process it is to be perfect, it's not built to reach a profound final truth U And so there's so many ways in which you know, the mechanisms can just wander and run into each other and get stuck in little knots and loops and whatnot. and and not to say that it's helpful emotionally to treat it like a machine, but when the background is literally, you know being treated as that machine externalized, I think it It gets you in type sort of cerebral horror sort of context u, where you're able to to look at these things for more of a You know, if you do want to approach them for more of aical mechanical direction as, you know, that's personally what I found to be therapeutic in my life. That's my own personal way of dealing with it U But I think that that's u I think that's sort of the approach that When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this showel will get a seventy five dollars sponsored job credit at indeed dot com slash podcast That's indndeed. com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. always taken Well it's another thing that I thought was interesting that was Chuitel's arc. And again, this is going to be coming out like the week of the release, so I'm going dance around anything vague and spoilers, but Chuitell's character is dealing with essentially this idea of being wired a certain way and you know wanting to push people away in his life. When we're younger and our brains are essentially forming in that way, like I was bullied a lot in school. So my narratives now as a forty two year old, I still that's still part of the way I view the world and the way I'm wired. And that's such a fascinating thing to tackle within a movie like this because we then project that on there. Can you speak about that idea of childhood our brains forming a certain narrative about ourselves. because the idea of Renata's character trying to find a path, a new path. to rewire your mind. Like I've read books on rewiring my mind about for OCD and stuff. So that all really resonated with me as an audience member Yeah, I think again, it goes back to treating the brain like an object in some ways where in growing up, you're very much looking for not to say a path of least resistance, but're you know, you are coming into the world fresh, mostly biologically most people sort of I'd say a clean slate. But you know you will find depending on the person, you know It's only a matter of time before you run into something that will be a version of pain, sometimes stronger than others. And you know, Mary sort of defines it as a wall in the way she talks about it in her writing and whatnot. And so if you're sort of know, hitting these walls immediately sort of charting a different course when you realize that place is closed off to you, that version of living doesn't work um, you can end up either, you know you can often end up sort of, you know you can construct every person does it. it's not like a fault. It's you construct a map of what is a viable way to live and what is not. And so much of that is like picking up social cues and and sort of ingesting you know, just broader societal traits from other people and so you can kind of assemble a shape of like almost a building of sorts that you are contained to where the way I just kind of like picture a little palm dot moving around to space until they kind of builds out an entire sort of habitat to be in. And for some people, it's a lot smaller and more cramped than others. I think in both of those cases it's you're just building a model that you can rely on later in life, obviously, it's I think Maria is very fixated on, you know of reliance on that system as an expressed set of rules that you can over intellectualize and actually try to negotiate with. Um And Clarark, I think, is not fully I think he defers to it as sort of a fact as a way of sort of, you know, denying a certain elements of responsibility that it could be taking in the present and And or at least I think I think he's not I don't think he's addressing the core rooute behind the N because there's so much in his life and everyone's life that is truthfully these very strong factors of limitation and restriction and discrimination yet you know, there are still many ways in which you can be metabolizing that information and sort of be willing to interact with it. and I think that that Clark has gone to a place where he clearly has never really had a trusting relationship with anyone else really. And he's very much in a place where he's still fixated on elements in the past that he you know, sits around and and, uh holds on to and proclaims that he could still, you know have a right to it in some regard, yet he has not made any meaningful attempts to actually anything other than really complain about the lack of ness life So fascinating. I mean I cannot wait for people to see this movie. I'm going be seeing it multiple times because just there's such a catharsis to it in an interesting way as an audience member. I want to dive into craft. but first, one of the things I've always found interesting about filmmaking are little details of characters. And if you look at, obviously you know this, but looking at all the characters in your films, some of them have necklaces you know, the shoes, the PF Flyers, the red sandals. I mean, I grew up on PF Flyers because of the Sanot. It was one of my favorite movies ever. And so these are interesting things that speak to characters and who they are. Chewitt tells watchatch. U And you know, can you speak to details like that that you present to us in a non verbal way almost that then later come back because we misreember the PF flyers and the sandals a bit, which is in the backrooms. We see them half in no clipped or whatever it would be like in the flame sized up as well. they're larger sizes Yeah. so I think like when I appreciate the you mention that because there's a few instances where we are relying on you know, either brand text or labels or print on a t shirt to sort of identify when we are seeing an object being duplicated or if it's being scaled up or being if it's being sort of Louder really inverted U There's an element in which we I think it's just helpful in sort of informing us on when and how the background is sort of working as a mechanism Generally, I mean, I think everything in the art direction is pointing towards certain little you know, either lived in details about the characters just facts of the, you know, they purchased this product for a particular reason, whether it be incidental or because they don't care what they wear or because they do U, you know, I think it's traditional our direction in that regard, but then also You know, I think there certain things is where like, you know, we we're originally Bobby's t shirt was not a end apartth tight shirt it was something else, but we found that it was not adequately memorable in a way that was actually going to help us when he like notices it again when he goes down into the den and sees like a giant version of that sht that he picks up whichich I'll admit actually doesn't come off as giants on camera, but it was like it's a much bigger shirt than what he was wearing U But I think we needed to just be very clear with the sort of little J just little threads that are placed in such a way that they're not like bizarre or out of place for the time or out of place for the context, but are just think memorable enough for people going into it now in present day that it would plant the flag and it would come back up for them when when we see it again. So stuff like that, there's layout details with with rooms that you know, we're shooting in the outside world outside the backrooms that without drawing lines directly and confirming for people, everythingthing's deliberate. There is, I guess I can say that almost everything is deliberate with the ways in which sort of the shapes of rooms kind of come back in a very similar way Like the shape of Chuwitel's office made so unsettling. Yeah, it's crazy. The funnel's a common visual of that in the kitchen and the mirror of room that we're using a lot of like the same shots in different spaces and you can overlay a lot of shots from different parts of the movie The geometry all kind of lines up and whatnot and It's all kind of recycled versions of the same space in some ways What's fascinating to me is obviously, you come from this CG background, but you're jumping into more of a practical world here too with the thirty thousand square foot foot of like you know of the backrooms. But then I don't know if you were using like cllassic techniques like force perspective, there's a scene with that sandals and shoes scene, I won't spoil it, but you see a purple chair further away as he gets when he enters that room. But when he gets to it, the chair looks massive. And I was just wondering if like were you playing with force perspective? Was that a digital effect? I just love stuff like that. That room, the throne room, we're calling it, it was just on set. We call it the throne room. That was the weirdest I think that's the strangest most CG looking room that is entirely practical, other than like the pit in the ground full of chairs. That's, you know, an extension Uh, because that that would Turna I don't actually know the exact cost for that side. but it would It would massivelyate we wouldd have to raise the whole thing u but yeah, that that whole room And you do a three hundred and sixty and it's all real. like the ramp that he climbs up is all real All of that looks just as weird in person And we were sort of, you know, we were marveling at it on the day when we were shooting it and choking about how everyone's going to complain that this looks super CGy because it looks fairly unreal Like you were just saying, I think there was never, I think I think the force any notion of like a force perspective quality, I think, is probably a happy accident there But I think that again, it's just, you know, we're playing with scale of objects in an unusual way. and And I think we come into a room expecting when we see a chair made for a person that it's going to When we don't have a grounded human figure in that space, we're expecting certain It grounds us in a certain scale. and then ason as we approach it and've actually got a human standing next to it, it throws us to see that it's you not abiding by that traditional Human centric logic Yeah I don't know why that purple chair scared the shit out of me, but it did. There was just something about the way that that shot was done. I mean the way you use frame is incredible. Jeremy Cox, your DP is amazing and I want to get into some of those shots. but The no clipping thing reminded me when I was a kid, my uncle brought me eight floppy discs of Doom two And I remember like getting all the cheat codes for God mode and all those things and I didn't know what no clipping was at the time, but just walking through walls. And so there's just something that kind of came back to me twenty thirty years later after playing those games as I was watching this If you don't mind me asking, I don't know if you've revealed this or if you don't want to reveal, it you don't have to, but How are you doing the scenes when the actors walk through the walls? In sense. can we geek out about that a little bit? because Yeah, like technically Like even the fly at one point, I won't go into too much, but like there's so many interesting ways that these characters know clip into the into the walls. Can you speak about how you got like when Renata and Chuitel walk through How is that done Okay, so we I guess maybe an earlier thing would just be ilt thirty thousand square feet of set. so there's like a ton of spaces that are all like, you know, I made them in Blender and then we passed them along And you know I worked with the art department really closely to make sure that it was an exact rendition of what was in the files Um And one of the choices we made that we did debate a little bit before we lockked in a final design was we at least design in terms of cutting up the spaces and we're replacing them on the four different stages, was do we want the first room Clarark enters on the other side of his threshold to be physically up against the same wall that is furnish like the basement is and that's what we ended up doing. We ended up making it. So there are two plugs, two holes in that wall, the back wall that he goes up against. One is like right by the breaker box and one is obviously where You know, the taped door sort of outlines And I mean, the Tate door is kind of the exact outline of the plug, actually. And so we would alternate on the depending on the setup. like if a character is physically passing through you know, that opening and it's passing through the wall, we would remove the blug, put a blue screen on the other side of the wall like inside the backrooms So we would have the ability to, you know, just have more, you know channel information to sort of, you know, map them properly against in like you know, it as a V effFX job ultimately of sort of have we I think we had reference cameras on either side of the wall just to get like the profile of like when that hand when the body part goes through, so we're able to correctly get like the you know, distance of the clipping plane Um But you know, when We're doing a setup where technically maybe he just came through and he's not actually passing through. we put the plug in just because it's easier for time and for visuals if we'd only have to do a. a seam cleanup rather than a full you wall rebuilt. So that's what we would do most of the time on either side, we would just invert where the blue screen was. Um But then beyond that, we only use this one time for when Mary passes through and we have that, you know, shot on the trailer where she's stepping through and isn't profiled. that's us using, I mean, that's why the other plug exists in the first place just to have a have a track and move the camera through and get theres there's about like a foot or so of space between either of the walls and so we had the challenge of making her And that's a foot that like the character has to step over, but we want to make it paper thin in the final product. So we had to Match move L we have to nuke the space between Uh, you know Thats. How's that impossible because the actor's moving Yeah, well, it's because we had Ranetta had to do that like eighty times until we got the perfect match move. and we'd cut it So it's totally a cheat that but we had to like back up her movement a tiny bit. So we're combined we're stitching two shots of her and maybe doing a little bit of blending I forget if we composit it into like if you didt sort of orp adjustments with her posture, but I believe it's a pretty clean cut sort of We just got enough performances that we had one that the timing matched up and And it looks seamless. So that's what that was Yeah Incredible. One of the things I find interesting and I don't know if I'm using these words correctly in terms of what you're trying to do and please correct me if I'm wr But when you look at the found footage element of it, you can argue that's a completely subjective view of the perspective of going through. And then in your film, you have instances where we're in the backrooms through the subjective perspective in the found footage. But then when we enter into your wide frame out of the four three We enter into kind of an objective perspective of the character as we watch them, even though it's still their perspective of going through the backrooms Can you speak about that shift? Because throughout the film we go in a couple different ways. I actually found it scarier when we were in the objective if I'm using that right because We're almost like wanting to warn them about something. We're not in their eyes sight anymore. Can you speak about those perspectives and do you agree that it's objective and subjective or is it different for your perspective I think well no, I get what you mean. I I think it's subjective in so far that it's bound to a very specific person's perspective. And so therefore you're stuck with this one individual and you're almost through their eyes. I think where I would maybe semantically question which is which is when, you know, if we talk about if I'm looking at a film and I want to understand, you know, what is Not that this is a film that is overly playing with an unreliable narrator aspect, but it's like I would be very surprised if the unreliable narrator trope manages to get inside of actual hard media from that world, like a camera, like a recording in that world, I would maybe actually trust a little bit more than something you know, that's part of the partially just cultural expectations around film Um But in some ways, I would expect that to be the objective one, but it's objective with false where you know you can see that the camera is clearly interacting with the presence of this of this null zone it's called in the mythology or you know, that's what some people call it. There's not like the term for it. But you know, this opening is clearly doing something on sort of an electromagnetic level too the camera and the way it's picking up information as it passes through Um, so that's clearly like a, you know, an artifact that kind of maybe maybe I think highlights the ways in which that know, it reminds us that we're looking at it. piece of tactile physical media that is being touched and damaged by the things it endures. U Whereas whereas, you know, everything else is like you said, we're you know, you can sort of feel a warning. there's there's an element of you know, when when Mary goes through the first time when she's in the basement, she's sort of you know veryer similar blocking and structure wise to, you know, when she's as a child like touching the window latch turns around and sort of hears a creak in the background of whether or not her You know, obviously her mother's not actually going to come down those stairs, but but there's a feeling of sort of stepping out of that boundary in a way And it's it's so's sort of, you know, we're focusing on different things with each of these entry points of each of the three. u you know, there was there was a time when we were scared that like, you know we're over doinging it and and we' we're, you know, it's over like people get it at a certain point and we're like, do we just have Mary go into the basement and we just cut and she's on the other side? And like that's I'm glad we didn't do that, but like Um, we certainly were, you know, making we were worried that it could become a little like get it at this point. But I think we found ways to sort of you know, keep it fresh as we went along. Like the fly going through, for example, was sort of an invention in post was a specific example of something that wasn't accounted for on the day And that was really cool. I mean it kind of again again, it just kind of plays with that. but I like that you shifted perspectives in terms of the camera worked because you're dealing with what? likeike you have a four three Th then you have like a one hundred, seven, eight or a one hundred eight five as you jump out to the the to the. I mean, it's just like it's such a cool way to play with it and also you have that low grade quality of the video camera, which really obviously speaks back to what you did originally in your shorts, but seeing it on the big screen is pretty cool. I want to talk to you about your use of frame I told you this last night, but I I was just so leaning in to the immersion of it and to a point where I would look around walls myself, even though that it wasn't an option on screen, like I'm waiting for the character to get to a wall, but I'm kind of like this or like I'm like looking around. And I don't know if this is intentional, but if you have a centered character like Chuateel walking through the space There are moments where I leave him and I start looking around the room myself And I'm just wondering if you can speak to that because you I remember seeing Quentin Tarantino's Hateful Eight and he shot that on sixty five mil like Panav Vision, like the old Ben H lenses or whatever. and it was just in a small space, but it was super wide. So I could watch Michael Madson over here and Tim Roth over here, I got to edit where I looked in a way Can you speak to that like, can you speak to that as an audience member and like how we are almost kind of editing it ourselves looking around the room Yeah, I mean, we wanted, because It's interesting with the YouTube series being so found footage and or almost entirely found footage. Like the emphasis is almost entirely on Um notot entirely. There, you know, so much narrative and intellectual dialogue stuff that is, you know giving meat beyond purely just visuals. But there is like I think the first thing people interact with when they find this project online is going to be their relationship with the spaces And so you know, making sure that we're still harnessing that even when we're not in that traditional time footage medium when we have a character before us that we're by sort of experiencing the place You know, sort of by proxy Um You know, I mean, it very simple technical choices we made were to, you know, go very wide with the lenses and we did go very wide. and you know, make sure that we're centering the character at such a distance that we're You know, sometimes I do enjoy good like wide lens close up and when we're exaggerating features and whatnot. But like the goal is is it does us the favor of, you know The sets were big, but it does us the favor of making the sets feel even more expansive. It does us the favor of giving us a lot of in focus, you know, focus plane with the background and with certain details in the periphery that, you know, like you were saying, people get to inspect and and engage with and sort of question I think it opens up the curiosity around what I think I think when it's all in focus and it's all there clear as day, it's, you know kind of fair game where certain events can happen and where your attention could be falling. So I think it, you know, again, makes you feel exposed like you're out in an opening and and there might be, you, lions out in the plane in some direction watching you. And so it's I know, I think it's opening us up to the notion that anything could happen anywhere a little bit, I think it is, you know, psychologically what the hope was U Yeah. And again, like, I think we do go pretty centered for a lot of these shots. and There's moments, especially near the end, if I guess I won't point it out as spoilers, but there's like there's one particular shot that does feel like third person video game gameplay to me. Yes. There's a few of them. but like near the end there's one very specific one with a hat rack that feels like we're reviewing like a like a boss fight or something I would be lying if I said it wasn't slightly deliberate, but Yeah. I guess I guess more out of a general random artistic humor, I'd say in that specific case, but So cool. I want watch next us Yeah, I mean I was watching the motion detected episode this morning and that's another that's a great example of how we will look around the frame. Because like you set up the fact that this camera just had movement somehow and now we're looking around the room to see where this is coming from. It's just so smart. too me I haven't seen someone you since I remember seeing Chris Nolan's work for the first time because there's a way that you deal with memory. and time and also perspective that just blows my mind in a way that I just feel like I want to live in that world more and more. And as dark as the story can end up being, even look at Nolan's Oppenheimer, I saw that ten times in theaters. It's a dark movie, but I like living in the world of story. One thing you do really well is music U your score and please correct me if I'm wrong I got to a point where I couldn't tell if the score was in the world or out of the world Okay, perfect. It got to a blend where I'm like, okay, there's a speaker in the room That means music could be coming through. but you create such an unsettling atmosphere with sound design and score that I want to ask you about the key of your sound design. I did a Q and A recently with nine inch nails for the Tron film And Trent Resnner was speaking about how they had to design their score in certain scenes to match the key of the sound effects because it needed to somehow have a blend to it. Is there at all a deliberate nature to the way you're playing with sound design and score to make a way. Okaykay? Yeah. U I guess like backstracking for one second, I do actually I very much appreciate what you mean about, you know, seeing a film that many times just to live in the world of it and that actually This is not I'll try to I'll try to keep this sidetrack very brief, but Um For me, an example would be like I deeply love Mr. Robot. and that's why I wasm so excited about Sam being there last night. And he gave notes on the film and stuff on her in post. but that's a specific case where, you know, I I've watched it maybe eight times and I listen to the soundtrack very frequently just because I enjoy engaging with the world and like the sort of way it colors, you know, it's dark, like dark But it's a way of engaging with life and it you know, I like Art is a fun way to color life and to process it. So I mean, that's what it is. That's the job of our But I do very much find that know I do music on the side a lot and some of my biggest musical projects have been like expansions of the backgroundom soundscape in that world into just standalone albums that are not shared in the series. but you know, for people who do go down that musical rabbit hole they will be able to pull out certain information about that world. and you know for people and there aren't fans on my series who just want to live in that space a little bit longer and with more depth in their own life. So you know that's what it's good for. And when you do watch the series and then when you do watch the film, you will hear overlap with motifs and with certain pieces of sound design and with tones that are relevant to very specific in the narrative, they're all tied to like, you know what we're seeing and what's happening contextually, as Motifs often are And and so I guess that's just to say I love building a very consistent and very deliberate Sonic world And With this project, I was co composing and I was supervising the sound design with Yhuna, who's brilliantly talented guy. And so so much of what we have is him, but it is a mix of like the way that I wanted to approach the score because there is like a divide that I found. I was surprised by this, but also not surprised because it makes sense U iss just the ways in which sound design and score do kind of differ legally and like objectively and when when we're going about, you know, mixing the film where the way I'm composing is oftentimes I will come in after the fact after we've done a version of a scene when I'm still in the, you know the mix with with Yheno and that I want to justust try something on the fly. so I will have my laptop and I will make a few more stems and we'll put those in and we'll replace stems that were in the track that I had made before and then you like I'm with him and we do like apply, you know, we do filtering and we do effects on the sound to kind of blend it into the soundscape and blend it into the atmospheres and and let them both kind of walk the line and take know room tones and mix that into the music to a point where The tricky thing that comes out of that is like I guess it's not tricky because the tricky thing would be that, um you end up having, if you were to just take when we go to do the final soundtrack release, if you're looking at all the stuff we submitted on the score side for the film, it would not be reflected in the actual viewing experience because we would have altered the sound so much. But because that was partart of the intention, we sort of had a way of making sure that, you know, all the sounds, like we were able to export the sound design stems, uh back into, you know, our our our stws and sort of do final mixes of the tracks that account for the final sound of what we came up with in the Um in the timeline and And so and then we like embellish it some. So I mean, it's very much I appreciate you commenting on what's diggetic, what's not because we wanted that to be ambiguous in some places. And even if you you know, you can pretty clearly define after a watch or two like what is real and what's not. Yeah, but this sounds like like it's drifting and it's it's not quite clear. Yeah, it's like a it's like almost like water a wave. likeike it's like where is it where does it start? whereere does it end? And like Im even because you had speakers and even there's like a a I mean, even your sound design where you're shifting sound right to left, I won't give the scene away, but there's a scene where Chuateel encounters a some kind of character of some sort that's speaking and then you shift him to the walk in the room and it moves and we our brain tracks This episode is brought to you by Acccenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync Everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales usings automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Acenture d. com slash Spotify in a very, very cool way The actual, I mean, this is something I'm just geeking out. I want to know how you did this stuff when we're seeing partial pieces of desks and chairs that are like that are is is the term no clipping used there as well as they're clipping through the It's good for I use it a fair bit in the universe though. I would probably not have a person use that language just because it's so inherent know organic. Like just if a character were seeing that I just like to ask the question if like you, you individually saw what the characters are seeing in that narrative Go ahead and make up your own language for it. I don't like there being like a rule book around verbally what we should be calling each of these things, but no clipping is the the shorthand I go to as per the original text But when we see a chair it's half in the ground, or is that a production design where they've built the chair half and's crooked to fit That's actually really there. Well, sometimes it dends on the scene. Some of these scenes, some of these instances are, you know, CG environments. So like when we're descending through the levels and whatnot, like that's not the first layer is practical. The rest is derivative of that is sort of the u a CG invention,, but, you know, there's other instances like that that throne the throne that we're talking earlier. that's, you know we built a giant version of the throne that Clark sits on when he's filming the commercial early on and cut off half a bit of an angle the same way we did with the shoes and the parrots Um Yeah, we're just slicing objects at an angle bring them to rest on the ground. You know, we're living in a really interesting time right now with aour filmmaking where the name of the filmmaker is essentially becoming the driving force to the movie. I mean, like I mentioned Nolan. I'm going to see Odyssey because it's Nolan. I'm going to see your movie because it's you. I mean, a film by Kane Parsons, even Curry Barker. I mean, it's really cool to see the filmmakers kind of taking that forefront in a way. But obviously, I'm sure you've even asked this question, but this idea of like the YouTube generation in a way entering into this film space, having incredible success to me is an idea that We need new voices. We need people who are coming up in the digital age that understand visual effects in the way that you do, making feature films Why do you think it's all happening kind of right now in a weird way?ike Mark Aliers's movie with the Iron Lung making you know opening huge numbers. And then Curry's movie's gonna make probably one hundred million dollars at the box office foress for less than a million to make. Your movie's tracking insanely well and it didn't cost as much to make as some of these major Hollywood films. What is it about this time that we're seeing? and why is do you think it's happening kind of all at once in a weird way I am actually going to say I cannot tell you. that is something I may have a greater perspective on in a couple of years I have not been doing this long enough to have like a full grip on the film economy and you know, some of these broader trends, I want to take it upon myself to get a better grip on film history I bet there's probably just without knowing the specifics, I bet there's probably a point somewhere in the last I would assume less than a hundred years, probably like the past fifty years or so where there was some phenomenon in film very similar to this, where's suddenly a big jump and everyone's talking about all these new young filmmakers coming in and doing things a different way. but really it's kind of just the same way just articulated slightly differently. I think With the way I dress filmmaking on YouTube, it's obviously my influences are mayaybe a little different, but I think they're all derivative of like broader pop culture that you can't escape and trickles down to all areas of sort of organized society. I do think it's all kind of drawing from the same cultural bucket in some ways. and And I don't mean this to say that it's not special and it's not interesting. And I think there's probably Sorry compelling specific touch pointints that someone who's, you know seeing this from a more I haven't had a chance to step back is really what I'm saying here, but I think for someone who's able to I'm sure there' there's specific points that point to I think point a lot. I'm sure there's certain elements of this that point to a broader, very interesting trend regarding our relationship with YouTube and you know I think I can say is so far as my experience has been I have always, you know, desired to engage with film as a medum I have certainly not had resources beyond just like a laptop and that's about it prior to making this film Um, I and like, you know, like After doing YouTube for a little bit, I need to say that I was able to get some ad revenue and I was able to buy a camera and like a black magic camera and I was doing stuff with that But but never never like a crew or anything. And and so I think that YouTube is just kind of one of the, you know, the obvious place for me to be putting myself out there just because I enjoy doing the work and And I don't think it's the case of you, do something long enough and it's a guarantee that it'll be found and this sort of thing will happen I think there's an element of, you know, right time right place that I can't account for and that I truly feel bewildered by. I just say that so I don't feel like I'm falling into the camp of people who who say that, you know I think Kind sentiment but also maybe a little unhelpful when people talk about how everyone's got an Phone and everyone can anyone can go make make a and people say that and everyone Yeah. it's like the YouTube algorithm is not any of these algorithms are not It's not its it's not a sunshine and rainbows guys. And so I just mean that to say that's there's factors that are, you know, broader and I never want to I think I've been lucky in that I haven't had to sort of lean into my inner Mrter Beast when thinking about YouTube and trying to like over orchestrate these things. L I've been lucky in I think, well, maybe it's not luck. mayaybe it is like genuinely in an endorsement of like just being really obsessive with a specific type of work and making sure that you've got sort of you're dominating a niche in some way so that your stuff genuinely is, you know, the only place you can go to for a certain creative sensation. I don't want to speak so highly. I don't mean that to say that's literally what I' I'm doing I think there's a lot of other comparable artists out there online, but I I do think that that, you know It's it puts you in a it puts you in a better position, I think. and I think that maybe, you know, at a certain point when backackgrounds is obviously so widespread and so culturally Z that It's very It's me understandable that it would, you know, if it's sort of like a powder keg that when you do have like a point of contact, suddenly all these people who are loosely aware of it do have something to rally around in a tangible sense. So that makes sense, but I think it's a good platform for, you know, people doing work. ot a fair shot at bringing people around you takaking a chance to, you know, look at it and And eventually if some of the right people see it because I think it wass just like It was like the kids of some producers and stuff who would show it to their parents and It's been like a common sentiment I've seen and then it just You know, I think it was the view factor that cemented that as a meaningful collaboration, being completely honest. L if it had fifty views, I don't know that it would have traveled in the same way U It's as is the industry. and Yeah not Last night you mentioned during the Q and A something that actually blew my mind when you brought up one hour photo. And that was a film I remember seeing when it first came out. And I know that Sam even mentioned this in the Q and A as well that you like there's a lot of films in film history that you can't wait to see, essentially. You haven't seen it all the movies nobody has. But you know, I'm forty two and I'm still watching films for the first time I'm actually jealous of the fact that you now get to go on that journey and discover more films. And like as somebody who is now directed brilliant performances.ike I mean, she would tell for me, like Children of Men is my favorite movie he's ever made. And then I think this is one of the best performances he's ever given. Like down to the way he moves his fingers and like there's just elements to him that are incredible. Same with Ronada. I'm curious are there what films you are excited So now I know you said you're going to take some time off, but do you have Maybe three or four films that you've never seen that you're like really excited to kind of like engage with and see what they're what they're like. Maybe classics that you've been told, Hey, Kain, you got to watch this Yeah. the me There's a long list. like there's an upsetting me long list. I'm going be exposing myself if I u I say them all real quick, let me think Um, I feel like I haven't actually seen really much of David Lynch's stuff. so wow I think that that's going to probably be a first sort of filmography that I'm gonna I'm gonna binge. Lost Highway is the one I think that's going to blow your mind. Lost Highighway Just wait for that one man. Just waits. I I'm gonna I'm gonna take look at everything. I've only I think of've only seen a racer head currently. And then I've incidentally seen a million, you know interviews him and talks with David and I find him to be a delightful individual. but So I feel like I have an appreciation for what he does, but I'm like I haven't actually seen his film, so I'm a total poser in that way. Oh man.'s but I think You know, I want to you know finish seeing all of Charlie Kaufman stuff. I've only seen adaptation and being John Melkovich, which I enjoy both those very much I I want to