The Internet Has Been My Co-Director: Kyle Edward Ball on Skinamarink | Interviews

There is one shot in the movie where someone is standing in the darkness, and I haven’t told anyone yet what it is. I don’t think I will. Everyone’s going to wonder what shot that is, but I do vividly know there is one shot in it where there is someone standing in the darkness. I’m going to keep that secret, for now. The only other person who might know is my DP Jamie [McRae], and he hasn’t told anyone either. There’s a chance he may have forgotten we had someone standing in frame. Most things were intentional, the things playing on people’s fears and dreams, things we have in common. But the grain playing tricks was just a happy accident.

Your film’s use of forced perspective is fascinating. The camera often implies the presence of the children, and of the house, but continually subverts that idea of how we’re seeing this film play out, from whose point of view we’re seeing until we feel detached from a perspective altogether.

Writing, shooting, and editing to play with perspective was fun. From the beginning, I said, “For most of the movie, we’re not going to see people. We’re going to do other things with perspective, like shooting ceilings and shooting POV.” It became bigger than that, because there are parts where you question, “Is this the kid’s perspective when we’re looking at the ceiling, or is this a shot of the room?” Consciously, almost every shot is from kid height, which isn’t something I came up with. Spielberg, forever, had that rule and, even before him, I think Ozu had a rule. In “Tokyo Story,” the camera never goes higher than about there, [three feet off the ground, the same height as someone kneeling on a tatami mat.]

The great thing about making an experimental movie is that you’re shooting in the dark, but you’re also having fun playing. Doing something experimental can be so rewarding, as risky as it may be. Playing with perspective, tricking people and yourself—people like that. Audiences are smarter than people give them credit for. Sometimes, people in the film industry—whether directors, distributors, or even other audience members—look at other moviegoers as idiotic, unwashed masses. That’s not the case at all. I made a movie that I would want to go out and see. And you’d be surprised by just how often that aligns with the general public. My mom is not big into experimental movies, not particularly risky with her viewing habits, but she loves “Twin Peaks.” When that came out, people responded, “Finally, something that’s not talking down to me.” Also, just because someone doesn’t like your weird, experimental movie, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not going to respond to another weird, experimental movie.