BPS 272: Down the First Feature Rabbit Hole with Carlson Young

Alex Ferrari
I like to welcome to the show Carlson Young How you doing Carlson?

Carlson Young
I'm doing well. Thank you.

Alex Ferrari
Thank you so much like we were talking about earlier. Before we came on the first time I remember seeing you is in that amazing? Key and Peele short jacket jacket. I want to say your real name Jacqueline, but it's Jacqueline Quellen decided JAKE Well, Jake, Jake wallet which has been it was downloaded like 50 million times. And I mean as an actress you want to be seen 50 million times especially when you're a young actress.

Carlson Young
I suppose that's true.

Alex Ferrari
Yes. Did you get do you get did you get called out like a lot of people were like

Carlson Young
I really did I remember like being at a at a stop sign like in Franklin Hill, Franklin village in LA Beachwood Canyon and somebody likes screech the brakes and roll down the window. It was like Jay Quellin. And I thought myself nothing else in my life. I am Jay.

Alex Ferrari
Well, you've done other things as well. You've done definitely done other things as well. So how did you how did you get into the business?

Carlson Young
Um, I, I had really always wanted to pursue acting and be an actor and director and writer, my whole childhood but my parents didn't really know how to facilitate that for me, which is all well and good because I really am a firm believer that that should be your own accord not parents and I found myself in Asia and I was like 14 or 15 Did some commercial work. Did a Disney short show my junior and senior year of high school that actually shot in Austin and then to LA and ended up going to USC for him. Creative Writing and doing acting work throughout, you know, my early 20s. And then yeah, just look, the blazing world is my first. This is the thing that I want to do.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah. And it's, it was I had had the pleasure of seeing it and it is a definitely a trippy film without question. It's like, you definitely go down the rabbit hole, and then some in that film. But before we get to the feature, it started off with a short, right?

Carlson Young
That's right. Um, it was a short, I was inspired by recurring dreams. And I was having as I was working on another show, in Louisiana, and I yeah, I just the short is very much a vignette and a sketch of the character's life and just my visual sort of sensibilities as filmmaker, and I knew that I had to sort of make this seed in order to sell people on moving able to direct the future.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah, so that was my that was my next question. How did you get people to give you money? How did you get the financing for this? How did you bring this all together? I mean, cuz it's tough. It's just tough period. It's insane.

Carlson Young
It's, it's so hard. You know, I mean, we attached her first actor, the beginning of March 2020. And we were so excited, felt like it was really happening. And then, you know, the pandemic and the world shuts down. We're like, well, and so I, you know, my producer, and I just were like, well, I mean, I rewrote the script in a couple of carts, then maybe we could take this out of public places and have a really contained quarantine environment. Um, so that took a couple months of reworking and truly engineering the entire project around COVID. And the restrictions there, and we shot in August 2020. And I swear to God by the skin of our teeth. It was really hard. But yeah.

Alex Ferrari
So you've been so you finished August of 2020.

Carlson Young
And had her submitted to Sundance October 7. Oh,

Alex Ferrari
God. That's it. Are you so tired?

Carlson Young
I'm exhausted. And it wasn't even my film. I'm exhausted thinking about that process. Because well, first of all, shooting in August of 2020. I don't remember. I mean, you think was there a low in COVID at that point, and no, was it was it was it? There was a lull? Right. There was a low it was like, the worst was very much yet to come. And it was, it was still, you know, like, okay, there's like, 300 cases in Texas. You know, it wasn't anything like the winter, you know, winter was coming. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari
So So you fit so you see, so But again, I wanted to just ask, like, how did you approach investors? How did you get how did you like, did you show the short and go? Here's the short. here's the here's the feature script. I want to direct. I've never directed, but here's my short and they said, Okay, obviously,

Carlson Young
I mean, it's always the like, catch 22 Like the first time directors nightmare of like, I'm a first time director, please. And then and, and, but, you know, the short was really good proof of concept. It had been embraced by a good festival. We had an amazing co writer, we had a great team around the project. And we were like, this is very much what something that could be a festival, you know, movie, if you want to get on board with sort of the bigger vision of music director and this whole team, then that's kind of how we did it. Private equity in Austin.

Alex Ferrari
That's, that's, that's pretty amazing. Now, how did you get your cast like you're you have a pretty remarkable cast.

Carlson Young
It's a great cast. I wrote, I wrote the lane Ed role for Udo Kier, who had always been like, he, he'd always been like a legend. I mean, he is a legend, but he'd always been like a personal like, I love this man. And I can't describe it, um, feels like my father on like, a spiritual level. Doesn't make a ton of sense, but I just love him and so I wrote the character for him. So when we got him the script and he wanted to do it, it was just like, Okay, wow, we're off to the races and then Dermott NASA so co John Carter. Now we have a great guest.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah, it was. It was a pretty remarkable cast to say the least now, so you're shooting during COVID which is doing shooting your first movie in July. As a rough scenario, let alone with the COVID pressures on top of you, which you could like, am I going to get shut down tomorrow? Am I not going to get shut down tomorrow,

Carlson Young
mortal concern of every person who has been generous enough to give us their time, and their best work in this incredibly crazy time, just was like, I felt that weight every day, um, on top of the normal stress of an 18 day shoe, like, it was hard. Um, so I tell I tell everyone I'm like, if the second one is just 3% Less mortal stress, then he really

Alex Ferrari
would be amazing. Now as directors, you know, there's always that one day on set where the world is coming down around you. You literally just say this is gonna, I'm crashing and burning. I'm drowning. The whole world is this is this is a disaster. I can't believe I'm here who gave me the coup gave me the keys to this car. What day was that for you? And how did you overcome it.

Carlson Young
Um, you know, as stressful as the outside environment was just because of the COVID of it all this set and the shoot was really Zen. Like it, like we had so much to do. And such an enormous scope of a story to tell that there just really wasn't any room for stress. Um, was like this weird compartmentalized, because I was also acting so I mean, there just like wasn't room to like, short circuit, like, there were just there was no, no capacity for it. Right. So, um, you know, I, it was really hard. I mean, like, for just personal things were happening for me, like, it was very much like art imitating life imitating art imitating life, there was things when my sister got married, I wasn't able to be there, there was all sorts of things going on, we were in a proper quarantine camp. So it was a surprisingly Zen shoot itself. But the whole world was trying to like, get in my head, and I had to keep it out.

Alex Ferrari
So okay, so then it's tough enough to direct it stuff enough, the director in a COVID pandemic, but then you also acted in it? How do you balance? Like, I've never I've acted once or twice in something I've shot and I was, Oh, God, it was horrible. Because I'm not an actor. But, uh, but how was it? But how did you balance that, especially in your first time out as a director?

Carlson Young
Well, I had had a little taste of it from the shorter, um, and just just from the short, I knew that I could do it, I knew that it was something that I have the bandwidth to do. And I, you know, I was fortunate enough to have an incredible assistant, who was really keeping me honest, as to the character and where we were, I sort of had like this big energy map that I was mapping everything off of, in terms of moments and story and tone. And I, I just again, I just didn't question it. I just didn't, I just didn't give myself any room to, to question it. I, I have experienced as an actor, and I just, I'm not, you know, I'm not camera shy at all. So it's just like, you know, it's a great thing, being a director and an actor, because I know exactly what I'm looking for. And then I can give that to myself, which is kind of a rewarding thing.

Alex Ferrari
Now, you mentioned energy mapping, can you kind of dig into that? I've never actually heard that term before. So what is an energy map in your world? And how did you use it?

Carlson Young
Um, I think, Well, whenever I watch a film, like the most, the thing that really pops out resonates with me the most is the tone. And that's in my, in my mind tone is kind of synonymous with energy. Because it's, it's like the air that the character breathing and that the scores on and it's like, you know, dropping a needle on a record, it's like a very particular vibration, which also sounds a bit like abstract, but, um, in this story, in particular, she goes under the water, she's in the bathtub, so when she goes under the water, I, I sort of totally did the rest of the story, like she's losing oxygen in her brain. And so, there's different modes. There's different like grace periods that her brain is going for. and then it drops. And then yeah, so like the tone becomes more frenetic and more sort of manic as it as it goes.

Alex Ferrari
And you were using that as a kind of guide guideposts in the in the sand, if you will, as you're going through this process because you're without, so you appreciate the lost at sea almost,

Carlson Young
you're lost lost at sea and then you know, I mean, you can give it you can get a an amazing performance out of an actor or right, I could give a good performance or something. But it might not be right in terms of where we are in the story and energies. So it's really easy to watch something and be really blown away by it. And but it might not be able to fit into this thing. So, yeah.

Alex Ferrari
And how do you how do you judge your own performance? I mean, that must be brutal. Like, did I get it? Did I not get what I wanted as a director?

Carlson Young
It's I mean, I don't know I'm, I'm excited to like for the next couple and not not act in it. And I think that that will be a really nice distance. But for this one, I, my my editor and like everyone on the team would would always kind of chuckle because I would never refer to myself as the character it would be, you know, it was her, Margaret Margaret, what is she doing? What is she doing? It was never me looking at myself, like I'm looking at the character. And I'm, like, our editor thought that was kind of jarring at first because you'd be like we're looking at like you on the screen. But you're like referring to this like other person. And so that's how I can gauge their performance. So I'm not looking at myself, I'm looking at some an actor performing a thing.

Alex Ferrari
It's a way for you to disconnect. Yeah, totally disassociate. Yeah. Yeah, it's a completely just disconnect from what's going on. And because as an editor, you're looking at things like even again, the small times that I've directed myself in a scene. I just just like, Who's that guy? Oh, God, Jesus. Oh, he's horrible. Oh, this is like, I become my director hat comes on on like, I start beating up myself as the actress must be tough. But but you not not so much with you?

Carlson Young
Yeah, yeah, I sort of like have a level of like, respect for myself as an actor. And so and all the other actors, which is bizarre, because usually, I'm like a total masochist, who has like, no respect for myself. So that's like an interesting grace that I have apparently, for myself, I don't know.

Alex Ferrari
So as an actress, you know, you've worked with a lot of directors in your career, how do you like to be directed, I always love to ask actors that, because every actor is a little bit different in regards to how they like to be directed,

Carlson Young
I love to know, I love to have, it's possible to have the opportunity to get inside the directors previous work, and to also get inside their head as to what their thinking for this particular project is not not always you have a you don't always have that luxury as an actor, sometimes you just show up and you're just saying the lines and going home, you know, which is so much of the case of TV, which is what I definitely have done the most of, um, but film is this thing where you, you get to have a language with the creative team and and get to hear everybody's perspective on the character and then give your interpretation of it. And that's what I really liked about that.

Alex Ferrari
No, what do you look for in a director? As far as someone who's going to direct you? What are the qualities? What are the techniques that you're looking for? Because I mean, we've all heard the stories of the crazy director on said who's abusive or yelling and you didn't get the there's, there's so many different, you know, images of directors over the years, from the monocle to the blow horn, back at that silent days. To to someone like Clint Eastwood, who just goes, that was good. Let's move on. And that was the success four words to you.

Carlson Young
Yeah. I mean, I haven't had, you know, I haven't had the luxury of working with. I worked with a lot of directors, but I've never worked with like a real lot tour before. Um, but the one that the thing that I've noticed about directors I really like working with is they're calm and decisive, and they have good taste, and they know what they're doing. And I think as a director, the most important thing is making choices and making choices and knowing the knowing how to steer the ship, and then everybody else trusting you and not so the worst thing is like if a director like doesn't know, you know, like,

Alex Ferrari
I don't know maybe what do you like there was the what do you think because it's a collaboration but when you feel Like, they don't know where the ship is going. Yeah, the whole thing's gonna crash.

Carlson Young
That's a little concerning.

Alex Ferrari
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. So yeah, so and I always tell this to to young directors, you know, when you're working with actors, actors want to feel secure, they want to feel safe, and they want to be able to have a safe space to perform. And to be I mean, what actors do what you guys do is remarkable because you're exposed, exposed emotionally, you're, we're asking you to go, you know, that really difficult, horrible thing, I'm never gonna experience I want you to do that, for me for my pleasure, please. And action. Like it's, it's tough. It's an insanity, really.

Carlson Young
It's a form of insanity, no doubt, no doubt about it. So you get it, you get every now and then you get an actor who. And with boys and girls, this is very much the case where they have a personal investment in the character and the project succeeding, everybody was so generous with their time and their energy for these characters, like everybody had an entry point into the material from a really beautiful, profound place. And so it was just a luxury to sit back the director and watch them work. And I just the on ramp was respect. They respected the story. And so I was able to create a safe space for them as

Alex Ferrari
actors, and is that how you approach pulling performances out of your actors or coaching, like my coaching, but guiding them to the performance that you're looking for? How do you approach it as a director?

Carlson Young
Well, you know, for this one, we didn't, we didn't have rehearsal time or, or anything like this. So firm was setting the stage of I, number one, thank you so much for being here. I deeply, I'm a big fan of your work, and I respect you so much as an actor. Here's what I'm thinking. And here's how, here's, here's all of the backstory, and the good, nitty gritty details that I can give you as a director as for what I'm thinking, and then those tools are yours to use at your leisure. You know, here's your tool belt, and feel free to put it on for the scene and like, let's see what happens. And, um, yeah, and so I was it was beautiful. I loved working with this with this team. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari
I mean, the team and the cast, I mean, the cast must have been wonderful. And you had, how did you deal with all the, you have a fairly good amount of visual effects in this film? And for someone who's never directed a feature film, let alone dealing with visual effects? Because I've been a VFX supervisor, I understand the complexity of that. How did you deal with that?

Carlson Young
Was it was a challenge. I mean, there was, you know, there was a time where I wanted to do like, all of that practically everything. All right, um, but, you know, we had a limited limited crew size, because of the pandemic and not very many days at all. So we couldn't do any of those things. So the best we could hope for was a locked shot and then a VFX supervisor on set.

Alex Ferrari
Not so much with the move. So not so much with the moving shots on the VFX shots is what

Carlson Young
I get in trouble if it was there was someone yelling at you. It's really expensive moving ones. Yes.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah, I was like, Oh, you want us to track that? That's gonna cost another 50 grand.

Carlson Young
I just, I have learned so much. I cannot even tell you.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah, no, I could have met look first when I when I first started directing lock off shots, best VFX shots, lock off shots, don't don't move the camera, lock that shot, lock it don't move the frame. And then then you as you get as you develop a little bit more than you feel like, oh, I can move the camera. And okay, I gotta get the tracking shots in and I gotta do this, this and this. And, and technology has come a long way and all this kind of stuff. But, uh oh, God, you could get into some deep trouble very quickly

Carlson Young
and talk about zero time to do it. I think I think our last VFX shot was delivered January 20. And Jr was born January 29. And Sundance just like screaming at us when you have to get this and then we're like and then the the cut that actually premiered like on digital platform at Sundance wasn't even the final VFX shots. Of course, I remember people being like, the worst or something and I'm like it's not fine. Oh, shut the fuck

Alex Ferrari
it's so easy. It's so easy to to criticize the gladiator in the arena. But they don't get in sometimes. Tell me aboutit's so easy to sit down sit in the in the in the audience and just go look at that gladiator look what they're doing. I could do it better. I know. So so so then you you submit to Sundance, which is obviously the dream of every independent filmmaker to get into Sundance, especially your first first feature. So you know, it's a shot in the dark, you know, you roll the dice, and you get and you throw it in there and see what happens. And you know, the odds are obscene to get into. I mean, whether the thing last year was like 30,000 submissions or something like that. And there's like 100 in and Yeah, six accepted or something. So what was it like when you got the call?

Carlson Young
Oh, it was so cathartic. It was so beautiful. Like dropping to my knees like, like, tired. So tired. I just want to go to sleep. I think I like fell asleep. Good night. Thank you. Um, but it was it was just so rewarding. Because I mean, that, like, this is truly what happened. We finished the final score. Like that literally is like the last note the thing was mixed. And my husband shut his laptop. Okay, like we're done. Oh, you want to like, go get some dinner or something to celebrate. And then literally, my cell phone rang. And I was just like, it was it was too good to be true. It's it's, it sounds fake. But that is 100% What happened?

Alex Ferrari
That's, that's insane. I have to ask you, because I love asking artists this. Why do This is insanity. It is the most difficult things we could do. It tortures us It beats us up. We get disappointed. But you know, it's so I mean, exhausting is the word I like to use. Exhausting, brutal, and yet, it's like we keep coming back. For me. What is it about what we do that? Is this kind of I call it a kind of a beautiful disease. Because once you get bitten by the bug, you're done for life. You can't, can't go back ever.

Carlson Young
It's true. I think it's I think that it's the storytelling component of what we do and the heart the heart of truly profound and moving stories, no matter like what your taste is, no matter if you like horror thriller, quiet indies like Marvel movies, whatever it is, whatever stories speak to you, it's incredible the amount of like, just darkness that you can sort of power through and put up with, if that's what you're in service of. Like, I think like people really suffer in this industry. Because you know what it's like to have that moment of like, oh, like, we just did something really cool in this like nanosecond of geological time that we live in. You know, there's something like everybody who, who is in love with film, or great television even knows what it's like to be truly moved into empathy and compassion by characters and an amazing story. And that's just, that's just something that that's a depth that requires a lot of sacrifice. And I don't know, I mean, I guess it's got to be why we fucking do it like

Alex Ferrari
it as a director, I mean, at least you're an actor. So you get to, to work all the time. As an actor, you can, you can do shows, you can do movies, you can do and you get to perform your art. But as a director, you're lucky once a year, if that's like best case scenario, it's best case that's like once maybe every two or three years, it takes you years to get a project off the ground, if you writing it, getting it off the ground, packaging it, and then you get to shoot for 18 days. That's, that's the only that's the only time you get to actually be what you want to be. And then this obviously, the pre production part of it and the post production part of it. But generally, we don't get to direct as much as we want it.

Carlson Young
Yeah. What's something interesting that I think I found throughout the blazing road process because it was a long one, it was a long process. 2017 was the short She's 2020 was the feature. But what was so interesting was that the, you know, challenges and the slow sort of growth process of every, you know, making a film like checking all the boxes, and each time you check a box, it's it's extremely slow, it's painfully slow. And you have to climb the stairs extremely meticulously, and so patiently. And one thing goes right to things goes to things go wrong every time and, and so, interestingly enough, in that incredibly challenging process that required a lot of resilience. I learned something about myself, and the character and all of these characters and the whole story that I was trying to tell. And that and that just feels like, I'm like, I look back, and I'm like, I don't even think I don't think I would do a single thing differently. Because of that, because that was just so beautiful. And I think that's something probably a lot of people could, you know, I certainly could have benefited from hearing that. I know that people do say that. And it's easier, easier to hear than to put it into practice. But it's pretty cool. Like looking back on all of the just gut wrenching nose and the things that didn't go right and being able to see how they were. So very in service to a lesson that was being learned or something.

Alex Ferrari
How did you deal with the nose? Because you must have gotten a ton of them prior to actually getting on the set.

Carlson Young
So many, so many, but I was used to it as an actor. I like literally all day every day. No, no, no, no, no. There's like 500 knows and one yes, like, that's my life. So I was like, pretty. I was pretty used to it. Although this was a different thing. Like this was like, my heart and soul. I'm not I'm not just playing somebody else's character. Like this is a totally different thing. So admittedly, the knows her a lot worse than an acting No. But I do think that that like just habitual rejection as an actor. Was it a nice little? Wasn't was a nice prep for the whole process. Yeah, I

Alex Ferrari
can't even understand how you guys do what you do. I mean, every time I do a casting, I'm always very gentle with the actors and was like, I try to be as nice and pleasant as possible. But it's right. You just said you get 40 nose a day. Yes, it's it's insane. What what made this story like, obviously, this is a personal story to you is coming off your your dreams, you were saying? What made you say because we all have dreams. And we many of us have recurring dreams, what made you say, I got to get this out into the world, I need to let this this this thing loose.

Carlson Young
Group therapy. I mean, I knew that, you know, I, the blazing world title comes from 17th century writer Margaret Cavendish. And she was so bold in 1666, to write a complete like fantastical component to her husband scientific journal, where she's dreaming up this, some world and all of these magical creatures. And I love fantasy, and just fantasy mythology so much, it's how I make sense of the world. And it's the stories that I personally really love. And so I always knew that I wanted to make films that were magical and had a fantasy component to them. And I love horror. So some of that sprinkled in there too. And but but this story was the more that I chipped away at how to claim power as a female in the way that Margaret Cavendish did in 1666. With her blazing world. I realized that in order to step into this like Empress this queen, this female empowerment that you have to clear out so much trauma, and the black hole started becoming for me this like dissociative gap in my psyche of things from my childhood that I hadn't processed yet that were that was just literal grief, just like sitting in my soul. And through group therapy and really amazing friendships and connection with people who were also being honest about their vulnerability. I realized that this was actually an incredibly universal story and that when people put it all out there and Like that is an opportunity for for healing for other people too. So it was connecting my story to the story, the big story, and then realizing, Oh, like this could be a fantastical fucking ride, where we could actually get somewhere. And you know, at the end, you know, it's a story about reframing trauma, she makes a tiny little decision differently. She's kinder to her parents, she includes them and reframes this memory of trauma. And I think that's it. And that's a beautiful thing to witness. And I've witnessed it with other people. And I just was like, that was when I found the confidence to tell the story.

Alex Ferrari
That's awesome. That's very awesome. Now, when you were you get the call for Sundance, though, have you been to Sundance before they've even been to mark city before that

Carlson Young
I did. I went in 2018 for the short, and that was really, you know, rad, because you gotta be there in person. So it was so cool. Like to be at Sundance, like, as a filmmaker, even if it was a short, that was the coolest thing of my life. So I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be there in 2020 in person, maybe the next one.

Alex Ferrari
Right, exactly. Yeah, cuz it was 20 Yeah, of course, there's 2020. So that you can go to in person but but with the short at least you got to go and be a filmmaker and, and, and enjoy that process. Because it is. It's an interesting, I've been there. I've been there as a as just someone who's been there. And I've had films there as well, that have worked on and it's just a completely different experience. When you're seeing so when you're screening something that's that you've been or you worked on.

Carlson Young
I I like having a smile thinking about how great that would have been. But yeah, we were just on on the couch and thanking our lucky stars. Yes,

Alex Ferrari
exactly. Now, where can people see the film?

Carlson Young
It's a limited theatrical. So anywhere you can find the theater go check it out, because it's very, very much meant to be seen in a theater. I saw it for the first time in the theater last week. And I was just like, I wish I wish that people could see like this, but alas, it is VOD and streaming on Amazon and Apple. And yeah, go go rent it or buy it, that would be extremely helpful.

Alex Ferrari
Now, I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I ask all my guests. What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Carlson Young
That no is not a statement about my worth as a human being?

Alex Ferrari
That's a great answer. And that definitely makes sense coming from an actor.

Carlson Young
Yes. The baby out with the bathwater.

Alex Ferrari
Now, three of your favorite films of all time.

Carlson Young
Possession. Um, so Larus, and scenes from a marriage?

Alex Ferrari
Very good. And what was the biggest fear you had to overcome? When putting this entire project together? Putting the script writing the script, attaching yourself as a director, all that what was the biggest fear you had to overcome? And how did you do it?

Carlson Young
Um, the biggest fear that I had to overcome was that I am invalid as an artist and that nobody will care what I have to say.

Alex Ferrari
Yeah. And you had to break through that. How to break through that. Yep. And last question. What was what? What did you learn from your biggest failure, either professionally or in life somewhere? That was a big failure? What was the biggest lesson you learn from that failure?

Carlson Young
Hmm. That failure is an opportunity for growth. In fact, we pretty much only grow in in discomfort and uncertainty. So as challenging as those times are, they're sacred. They're sacred times.

Alex Ferrari
And I want to thank you so much for being on the show. It was it was a pleasure talking to you. I tell everybody to go see blazing, blazing. We're all there was a lot of fun. It's definitely a a trip down the rabbit hole to say the least across and thank you so much. And continued success, my dear.

Carlson Young
Thank you.