Thirty Thousand Square Feet with Kane Parsons & James Wan

11:35Kane Parsons:program yeah like what i was doing is because it's an anime and manga this was like a fan kind of like you know short or whatever a fan project so it's an anime and manga and what i was doing was like a series of these videos well i did one thinking it was going to be one but then people lost their minds over it so i started doing more but it was like it's cool basically what would it look like what would an actual honest perspective into that world look like if it was somehow real so just like what is a scarier more realistic approach of just viewing this thing look like and and so i that's what i put out using blender so it's all things from the series but just through a slightly different lens but was it still animation like yeah like

12:07James Wan:2d animation 2d lots of compositing so so it looked roughly i mean like hoping you see past

12:13Kane Parsons:the vfx flaws like it the goal being it looks like real authentic but real whoa like 30s or 40s live action yeah black and white live action cool totally like trying to look photo real right um and and so like that i'd never had any kind of engagement like that before it's like the first one did like 10 million views and like the next one did like another 10 million like wow it kept like going big in my channel i think got 200 000 subscribers from that and then wow but i did that for all of 2021 and like i was riding a high with like that was it was really exciting i yeah it was

12:45James Wan:great having you were getting validation from basically fans out there yeah it was like motivation

12:50Kane Parsons:to like every week they wanted to do things it was like i was constantly kind of churning stuff out and that was just fun um that's cool because i especially during the lockdown when uh you didn't really have yes yeah i i uh i certainly found a lot to do during that time but then i got fatigued by it and because i used up all the plot points in the series that i could adapt and but people wanted more still. And I was kind of like, okay, well, I kind of want to do other things now. That winter in 2021, I guess for a preamble, I have to do a preamble about what the backrooms are, I would assume probably.

13:19Kane Parsons:Please, yes.

13:19James Wan:Give us a little bit of history of where all that comes from.

13:22Kane Parsons:Yes. In 2019, there was this 4chan post, which is totally anonymous. Anything posted there, at least in this context, is not really traceable. And we can't at this point in time determine who posted any of this, which has been a big defining part of the back rooms. It's weird. But basically, it was an image posted of an off-yellow sort of dingy, it was unclear if it was an office space or the back of a furniture store or what, with just a single paragraph caption basically setting up a concept of, if you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, and noclip is a video game term for phasing through a solid surface out of the world if you fall out of reality in the wrong areas you'll you'll end up in the back rooms which is essentially um an essentially endless uh array of like kind of not quite repeating but you could think of it as like procedurally generated or right just like you could keep going walking in any direction and you'll just be stuck in this world of uh you know drop ceiling this yellow wallpaper that's just kind of like sulfur looking and right and so it's a maze like well that it just kind of It's a maze-like world that doesn't have an inherent point to it.

14:31Kane Parsons:And I think the idea, what I always appreciated is that it's just described like it's a natural phenomenon. There's nothing like spiritual or like there's no like moral morality to it. So it's not like it's a divine judgment. If you've done wrong, if you've got guilt harbored, it'll take you away or something. It's just like – It's not hell. Yeah, it's not hell. It's not even like quite purgatory because you don't do anything to end up there. it just randomly happens and you can't really do anything to get out it's just like you said a procedural dungeon run yeah it's just a hypothetical like it's just it's playing into the the feeling of glitching and getting stuck in a video game basically exactly right there's no fairness in it there's not it's just like that really sucks if that happens to you right and so that's why it kind of caught on is like a man that's like a pretty abysmal can you imagine that it's like you know imagine being in like that monotonous you know it's it's like such a mundane uh mediocre sort of environment that could be in any place, basically.

15:29James Wan:Yeah, because visually, it's not that sexy, right? It's not like a dark, creepy place. But the creep comes from just the mundaneness of it, just like how bland it looks, right? I've seen - And so it started with a picture, right? Like that one picture, but then people started building upon it, right? They started adding stories to it. So they're adding myth and lore to it. Is that how it -

15:48Kane Parsons:So that picture was posted. Someone else saved it. I mean, that picture had been floating around since the early 2000s. it's from a furniture store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. But basically, yeah, they posted it with a caption and that became a screenshot. And then like it, that screenshot floated around, like everywhere as a meme around May of 2019. And I saw it, I was in middle school, I was aware of it. I didn't see it and immediately go, whoa, I need to make a, I need to make a series and a movie. And like, right. That was very, that wouldn't have ever crossed my mind. It was, it was more of a, this is, this is a random thing on the internet that is weirdly intriguing.

16:21Kane Parsons:And I can tell why people are interested in this and i kind of want more of it but there's nothing more to get because it's just an image and a caption and and then and then i moved on and everyone else moved on and we stopped hearing about the backrooms for the most part and you would get an occasional reference to it here and there you would get you know memes a character falls through the ground out of a tv like peter griffin falls through the sidewalk and lands in the background or something and the punchline is just wow he's fucked right pretty much uh and and and it basically like Like people I understand now, and I did kind of understand at the time, like there were some groups on like wikis and stuff writing, basically doing more with the notion of the backrooms where it's like, what if it's sort of like a game like level system to it?

17:04Kane Parsons:And again, like I don't mean to misrepresent like that side of the community, but it's in my understanding that it's more of like a community driven sort of like the SCP foundation. If people are aware of that, it's sort of like most anyone can add because there's no direct author and there's no claim to authorship of this thing. So it's just like the main lore that people would consider outside of my adaptation of Backrooms would be just kind of a miscellaneous collection of little entries that like many different people with many different views of the Backrooms. Right, right, right. But it's somehow viewed as one coherent thing, even though it's definitely not.

17:40Kane Parsons:Got it.

17:41James Wan:So then you came into it. Yeah. And then tell us your contribution to the world.

17:48Kane Parsons:I mean, I just wanted to, like, I didn't, in my mind, I wasn't thinking of like, these people are not getting the back rooms. I'm going to step in and show them how it's done. It was not, it was that so far. I was just into, you know, like I was getting back into these.

18:00James Wan:Like all great things in life, you know, it's a discovery process, right?

18:03Kane Parsons:And you discovered it. I was getting back into these liminal space photo compilations and stuff. And it was like, man, this is, I want to scratch this itch. I want to see what comes of this. And I went in Blender and I made environments that felt true to what the back rooms wanted to be and were trying to be. And I just kind of like moved the camera through. And it's like this is just a fun, relaxing project where I tried to evoke the feeling of this place, but in a video form rather than imagery. I didn't even like the opening thing was just like a thing I filmed after I did everything else when I was like, okay, well, to make this a proper like film, like how do I, what's a way in?

18:36Kane Parsons:What's a quick, easy way in that just gets us out of the real world and into the rest of the short? and it was like just got my friends at school one day just to stand around and they didn't really know what it was for exactly and i just like got my i was doing it on my phone and i ran the whole thing through the vcr so so it you know it doesn't look like iphone footage really but um and then just like at the end of it just make the camera go to the ground and they're like what was that why did you do that and it's like like i'll show you in a few days and then show you in a few days and it got posted and it didn't do great for like the first two days and then somehow i guess like Like some shadow figure behind the scenes pulled a lever or something because it suddenly started getting in the inboxes of – or sorry, in the feeds of certain reaction YouTubers.

19:17Kane Parsons:And they started watching it. And then that made it go nuts.

19:20James Wan:Wow.

19:21Kane Parsons:And it went nuts. But pretty much immediately within the same day because I'm neglecting to mention one kind of important part of this, I think, which is that I had had this other story. And as you do, just another random story that I had in my head for a little bit at the time. It wasn't defined exactly, but it was like enough of an engine there that was like, I knew I wanted to explore it, didn't know how, like what the opportunity would be. And I realized backrooms could just totally like, these two things could melt together. And then boom, there's like a very specific plot and structure that I can just start immediately.

19:50Kane Parsons:And I did. And so within a day of that first short, I started teasing this element with the Async Research Institute, which makes it more of a sort of like a worn down, like a mystery techno thriller with supernatural elements underneath. I'm not great with genre labels, but I would say that's kind of what it's become.

20:12James Wan:Right, right, right. So obviously it stood up very innocently, but then as you sort of like progress and the ideas came to you like, oh, maybe I can put a supernatural spin to this.

20:21Kane Parsons:Yeah, well, I think it's inherently supernatural. Like my version of supernatural, I personally am really drawn to any, like I need my supernatural to feel like hard sci-fi usually. Got it. I like things to feel like nature. I mean, like I was talking about the backgrounds. I think I personally as a creative struggle with things that promote an overly human view of existence and of life. And usually I'm biased towards things that feel like humans are incidental to nature in some way rather than being like a driving factor to the world that we live in. and letting like the laws of the universe be more, more, you know, factors that, that, that resulted in our consciousness being the way it is and perceiving a sort of sense of importance being like derived from just happenstance and being essential to existing and living and procreating and stuff.

21:09Kane Parsons:So anyway, I feel like what I was excited about with, with that concept was being able to sort of get past like the initial like okay we have a short about someone falling into the back rooms and it's a scary it is a scary place and i think it's like more intriguing than people give it credit for like i think people do miss the mark sometimes with their own back rooms projects when they go for like a space where the lights get too dark it gets too green it's like scary scary like if it's trying to be like a dark haunted house or a dungeon it just falls apart because that's not right right right the original image is very bright and it's very like low

21:44James Wan:contrast and kind of like faded looking so you're saying try that the key here is to not make it

21:49Kane Parsons:look like a horror movie yeah no i think that would be the blandness the simplicity that the

21:53James Wan:fact that it feels like everyday life is what makes it kind of terrifying it's it's the context

21:59Kane Parsons:in the the the way it extrapolates pretty much infinitely that's like the that's where the horror lies it can't be in the inherent visual it's the context that does it right um though the visual is off-putting.

22:10James Wan:And can I ask you, so philosophically, do you think there is this concept of the fear of technology? Or obviously, that's not the case, because you're obviously embracing technology in such a big way. But do you think, is that what you're speaking to, to some degree here? When you said, you know, like you're sort of leaning to the more like the hard science of where, you know, a lot of like the scary stuff is coming from?

22:34Kane Parsons:Yeah. So I would say that the back rooms is a thing in the first place because, I mean, I would say one of the main anxieties it's reacting to, if not the main anxiety, is the sort of pervasive, I don't want to use the word anxiety again, the pervasive fear that, you know, with all the resources that we, I guess, at least in this part of the world where we have the resources and we have the connection of the internet, are feeling like is, you know, we have more information than ever. It's starting to mean less and less the more we get. Information is starting to get put through a blender and fed back to us in a way where the human race is now starting to role play as itself.

23:13Kane Parsons:It almost starts to seem a little bit.

23:15James Wan:We trip in the matrix.

23:16Kane Parsons:A little bit. But I think that like gradually, and this is not like new, and I'm not saying anything like profound about this because I think we've known this for a while. But we've been like trending for a few centuries into like a spiral of industrialism that's causing and it's not like malice. It's not like malicious by any means. I mean, like, yes, there are individual people that you could name and say they are malicious and that's easy to do. But it's the fact that it's a natural phenomenon that arises in like every culture. And it's a systemic thing that is almost impossible to root out of our species.

23:49James Wan:Yeah.

23:50Kane Parsons:And so there's these, you know, obviously patterns beyond us that I try to engage with in a sympathetic way. And I think that like the back rooms is reacting to the fear of like, okay, we're kind of getting stuck in this monoculture, literally even like in an architectural context where you are everywhere you go. Like a drop ceiling is maybe not the most prevalent. It's not like everywhere in the world, but like at least in this part of the world, like drop ceilings are kind of a symbol of uniformity or I guess efficiency. I mean, they're pretty effective at what they do. They're not bad. I'm not criticizing the job ceiling.

24:27James Wan:Yeah, they have functionality to them, but they're not the most interesting of forms.

24:31Kane Parsons:It's the idea of spending all of existence in that place, in that non-space, basically, of that industrial environment. It is purgatory to some degree. It is. It is. It's a purgatory that we built. It's not like a purgatory beyond humanity. It's like one that we're clearly pushing ourselves towards. We're building prisons for ourselves.

24:51James Wan:That's essentially what it is. we're building prisons for our souls if you will yeah it's again it's like getting us further and

24:57Kane Parsons:further from what the human nervous system evolved to basically uh thrive on and and we're kind of getting past a place where like you know we evolved into our environments and then we changed the environments and now we're i wouldn't be surprised if that's doing doing something to to a lot of uh the subconscious um and just the general you know energy and health of of people I know.

25:21James Wan:So can I ask you then, so a lot of these themes that you have in your head, did you feel like the back rooms, you know, like that was a great, like a good platform for you to explore other ideas that you have? So like what led to like subsequent, you know, like other shorts that came along, you know, in the back rooms? Well, did you start going, I want to explore, you know, like other elements within this world. And then that basically what led you down, like the series of them.

25:47Kane Parsons:Yeah. I, I wanted to, um, I mean, largely express what I was just talking about a little bit. It was like a lot of it for me is just exploring these ideas myself and I want a way to check myself and test myself. And if I can find a way to wrap up these, you know, academic ideas in a creative package, then I can get creatively excited about it. And it's like medicine with the sugar sort of where I'm like internalizing these things and testing myself on these things and not, not in like a true, there's no compared, like this is not comparable at all to like an actual school experience. It's not what I'm trying to say with that.

26:19Kane Parsons:But for me, just as someone who enjoys learning and enjoys just knowing more about literally anything. I mean, it's kind of what the film is about in some ways. It's like, you know, that part of the brain that forces human beings into a state of curiosity.

26:33James Wan:So did you find when you started making, you know, the series of these shorts, that there were many people out there that shared the same interest as you? Like, you know, the people were fascinated by what you were doing and that wanted to see more of it. Is that what kind of like kind of forced you down that path? Not forced, but, you know, made you want to, you know, go down and continue.

26:54Kane Parsons:I was very aware that those people existed. And it was kind of the audience that I was. The audience that I speak to is the audience that I'm also a part of, which I think is maybe why I've had a decent rhythm with them for as long as I have. which is like, I grew up watching like web series and ARGs and like consuming that stuff. And not necessarily when I say watching, it's, I guess, I mean, just following because sometimes there's not even something to watch. Sometimes it's you're visiting a web page and you're looking at the metadata of files shared on that page and you get story information from that.

27:26Kane Parsons:Or you're, you know, like a lot of the time you're actually paying attention to a YouTuber who's talking about and summarizing a series because sometimes these series get so dense and complex and hard to follow that the real story like a more entertaining story is is in the recap of it right so i kind of like engineered my stuff to work on a recap level i think and a lot of the stuff on youtube has been exactly that and i've i was amazed like i was kind of losing my mind when when the shorts first caught on because it was like all the people i looked up to online were like suddenly talking about it and for obvious reasons that would be exciting i think for for anyone in that position but it was like can you uh mention who were some of these people just like youtube channels like like a brand of people nexpo night mind um i think it's like i forget like a full list of the time but it was like um film theory uh that's so cool right it was you know like it must have been validated it was cool it felt like it felt like it was very weird it was it was bizarre it was bizarre it was validating but also like is this real it yeah but i guess it was just like seeing like getting it through my teenage head that like the the world that i watch on a screen and i know this is so obvious and i i knew it but i didn't feel it was like i guess like when i was younger like so many of the things that i looked up to artistically um sort of like above in some way like there's some inaccessible barrier there where it's like you could never meet these people well, you could never, never, never, never interact with this brand or this fictional world in any meaningful way.

29:00James Wan:That felt like it's in a different world. You can do fan art, but like you don't get up there. And it's like. So here with this, you actually have the opportunity to break through. And that's kind of what you did, right?

29:09Kane Parsons:And it happened in a very casual way with no fanfare. I mean, it was exciting, but it's like, it's very simple. And I was like, oh, this is what it is. This is how it feels. That's usually how it always works.

29:17James Wan:When you least expect it, that's when it, you know, good stuff happens, right? You just do what you do. Be passionate about what you want to do. And like I've always said, you know, like I say that to young filmmakers like yourself and anyone out there who asks me for advice, I just say, just make your movies. Just do it. And, you know, if you do something great, people will discover it, especially with technology that we have today, right? Like YouTube. I mean, like there's so many platforms out there that you can just put it out there. Go shoot something for no money. You don't need money. You just, you can shoot anything with your phone these days, right?

29:47James Wan:You don't need a special cameras like I had to have when I was growing up, making these little shorts. So just go make something and put it out. They can be anything and you're bound to find fans. And that fandom, it doesn't matter how small they are or how big they are. It helps to flame the creativity in you and it makes you want to do more. And I think that's kind of basically what happened for you, right?

30:10Kane Parsons:Yeah, I mean, I've been, I continued doing, I did a few different series on YouTube and I've been doing YouTube all the way up until things became hot enough on this film that we were good to go and I was able to jump over the full time on this. How many shorts did you make of the Backroom series? I don't know the number. It's like three hours or so currently. So it's enough of, it's like, it's like a bit where it's like the Async has an arc. And then there's a few, like there's like three videos that aren't from that perspective, but are kind of like the first short. So then, okay.

30:36James Wan:I need to ask this. At what point during any of this process, did you eventually say to yourself or thought to yourself that, Hey, one day I could potentially turn this into a feature film.

30:46Kane Parsons:well i mean it was i i i uh i put out those shorts in january of 2022 um or i started doing it the first short went out in january 7th um it was like less than a month later that i started getting my first emails from anyone in the industry i had no interaction with anyone in the industry ever like prior to that point so i was definitely i was caught off guard i was very cautious and paranoid because i was like i've grown up seeing just like so many beloved ip just get torn to shreds by you know random suits in the industry who grab an ip take it pulverize it by giving it to some writer who knows nothing about the property and then boom it's dead and and everyone hates the movie and it was you know not maybe a worthwhile adventure but but i so i was like cautious of that i had that in my head and it was like assuming okay if i don't find something really helpful that's what it's going to be um so i met with a lot of people and it was like it turned into like no meetings ever and then suddenly in february i think every single day every weekday had like three meetings like generals with so it really happened that quickly almost instantly it was like a binary like it switched on so that's incredible um and and i atomic monster was one of the first or it was like within the first i think it's like the second week of that probably right and then i met with 21 laps as well and i i did like i remember being conflicted and i forget the exact order of things but but then but then there was you guys came together together yeah and then I talked to all you guys together and that was sort of like oh you guys solved the conundrum I was having because I liked I liked Atomic and I'm 21 and then boom they decided they want to do the

32:17James Wan:thing together so yeah yeah yeah no I mean listen we uh you know credit to you because you know we saw the potential in it and uh and we felt like you know we wanted to work with you we like you know we we saw you know like the kind of brain that you have the kind of creativity that you have And we definitely saw the potential that you have to kind of take this project and make it something bigger, right? Like, you know, kind of break it into the feature world. And yeah, and so, you know, between, you know, us at Atomic Monster and 21 Labs, we're like, let's collaborate. Let's collaborate. And the more the merrier.

32:46James Wan:Thank you for doing that. And see what we can do with this. Yeah. So I'm glad to hear from your perspective how that came together.

32:51Kane Parsons:I mean, like basically like I was thinking under the terms of just like there are unknown unknowns everywhere. So I'm just going to make sure I don't do anything without like quadruple checking it. And so I was very thorough about like, you know, beginning a process with you guys. And it was I mean, it was just very I felt it was very positive and I felt like it was what I was looking for. And that's what I was looking for and was was really like backrooms on YouTube is very creatively fulfilling for me. And I will do it. I can I will do more in the future. and I'm not like leaving YouTube by any means.

33:21Kane Parsons:No, no, that's great. But it is limited. Like it came about because I guess like what you were saying a moment ago with the accessibility of YouTube and filmmaking and whatnot is that like I found when maybe what I would advise, although I don't feel like I'm quite at a place to give advice yet, I maybe should let this film come out and then like wait a year or two before I start saying anything.

33:44James Wan:No, man, you can't always give advice. I feel like in the short period of time, you've experienced a lot.

33:49Kane Parsons:Yeah. Right. You can speak to your own experience. I can give anecdotes and I can give my experience. Exactly.

33:54James Wan:And then people can kind of like, you know, latch onto whatever.

33:57Kane Parsons:Because almost the first thing I would say is like the thing I've learned the most is like what worked for one person. Like don't expect it to work for you in a way, unless it's like a universal truth or something. Like it's, it's kind of like, it feels like the most simple thing you do have to follow is, is I think what I managed to do, whether or not I realized it with the background stuff and with what I was doing on YouTube is like, I found a rough thing that I could achieve. It's like, what can I do with free software on a laptop in blender, a bit of after effects touch up? Like, what can I do there with no extra anything, no live action shooting, no actors, no, like what, just me behind a microphone.

34:31Kane Parsons:I'm like, what can I do there? And then what's the, if I just keep working on that, refining that until it becomes like the best version of itself, it becomes like a unique product that I just had cut that. I just said product. Oh my God. Dude.

34:44James Wan:This is what happens when I go to LA.

34:46Kane Parsons:I absorb the language.

34:48James Wan:This is how it starts, my friend. I know.

34:50Kane Parsons:I know.

34:50James Wan:You've been in this business for one movie and now, no, I'm kidding.

34:53Kane Parsons:This is why I'm going to the woods after. I'd say it.

34:56James Wan:But this is all great stuff to have. Because I had to take it to market and we had to make this movie.

35:00Kane Parsons:so objectively it is a product. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, when there's so much money involved,

35:06James Wan:you know, like, listen, as artistic as we want to be, as much of like auteurs as we want to be, we have to think about, you know, like the studios that are financing our movies, the investors that are financing our movies, and we do kind of have to treat it, you know, to some degree with that respect. And the key here is, you know, for someone like myself who's been doing this for a while now is like, how do you somewhat appease what the investors are looking for? but yet making it your own. So every movie that you make should be personal to you. It doesn't matter how commercial it is. The big filmmakers that I truly respect, all small filmmakers as well, but from the likes of Steven Spielberg to Tim Burton to whomever, they're able to play in that commercial role, but yet every movie is super, super personal to them.

35:55James Wan:And that is how I approach with all my movies. And I think that's who you are as well. I feel like whatever movies you make here onwards, everything would be highly important for you. Every film you make will speak to you on some level that you want to talk about. You know, that's good to have. So, you know, you're just going to be mindful. You know, as a director now making these kind of movies, you kind of have to wear two hats, right? Yeah.

36:20Kane Parsons:What I feel is like, again, going back to like, because I do get full creative satisfaction out of doing stuff on YouTube. It is equal to what I do here. There's almost no difference. It's just a bit of a different process. And I socialize a lot more when working like I just did on back rooms. But in terms of fulfillment, it's identical. And I do make a living off of YouTube. Like it's, you know, I don't need much. I have a desk and I have a laptop. That's amazing. I stand in an empty room at my desk. There's something I want to ask before we get further down here, okay?

36:50James Wan:Because like this is so great to kind of hear, talk about, you know, the history and how you started all this. You know, obviously you started very young doing all this stuff, right? your parents, what do they think about all of this? You know, when you were just starting out and then eventually now you, you know, you're making your first feature film in Hollywood, how do they feel? They must be super proud and they, they must feel, you know, like, I don't know. It must be surreal for them as well to see, you know, the trajectory and the journey that their son have taken.

37:17Kane Parsons:Yeah. I don't want to speak for them, but, but I would, uh, they are proud and, and they're, I mean, my parents are both really great people and have obviously like.

37:27James Wan:They've been very supportive.

37:28Kane Parsons:I've been so supportive at like every point in my life and have always like, you know, helped this come about in a way like by just by not doing it, like just by not being in the way I think is like being, you can be two hands on and you can be two hands off. And I think they were just like. They found the right balance. They found the right balance. Yeah. And, you know, like I, they, they get what's going on and they, you know, like they're not in the industry. So it's not like they get it, get it. But, you know. Where do they live?

37:56James Wan:Where do you live?

37:56Kane Parsons:i'm me and all of them we live in northern california like sonoma county like oh okay all right that's where you're from okay yeah like sonoma marin um right and i you know like like they get it and like i talk to them like once a week or so like i'll call them individually and talk to my parents and try to talk to my younger brother and um it's been hard on this film just because of how busy it's been to like stay in contact with everyone in my life yeah um when

38:23James Wan:you're making a movie you're pretty much isolated from the rest of the wall yeah whatever happens

38:27Kane Parsons:i don't mind i like i usually am this way like so it's fine yeah but it's for people like us it's actually not a bad thing no it works quite well it's been like 10 more than than i'm maybe used to so it's been it's been a little a little more on the intense side but like again i'm i'm here for that uh but but yeah they they um i try to you know loop them in and then they're going to be coming to the premiere when we do that next week and it's going to be you know a whole lot of fun on that front and you know they've they've you know they're they're familiar with the film like i they got to they were i was showing them everything we were doing as we were building up to this and yeah and so you know they and my dad's always like on youtube looking at like reaction videos to my stuff and he's constantly constantly like he knows everything that's what they should

39:08James Wan:be doing as parents yeah yeah so okay let i want to talk about your feature film experience right So you've transitioned from these shorts into the process, into making a feature film through this pretty big infrastructure of making this feature with a proper film crew. Up until now, you've pretty much done everything yourself. Yeah, most of the things. And your actors are your friends. But now you're moving into the super big world, into the big league, so to speak. And you're working with professional crew, professional cast and actors. You know, what was that like? What was it like for you at the very start of that initial process?

39:51James Wan:Was it overwhelming or did you fully embrace it? Or was it a little bit of everything?

39:56Kane Parsons:So unlike some things that I've mentioned in our conversation, like that wasn't abrupt. Like there was a very gentle lead into that that made sense over a good period. And so, you know, I went up to Vancouver to do a test shoot in April. So that would have just happened over a year ago. um and that was my first time working with the you know a crew that is not like my personal friends from like high school or something and so that that i think i had questions in my head but i think it was like easy enough because it was a it was a skeleton crew it was pretty small and we were doing like a very minimal lean test shoot um right and i think there was something i found which was like you know i had it in my head wondering you know all these notions of what a director has to be and what I have to be facilitating.

40:39Kane Parsons:What do I not know? I'm assuming there's a million things I do not know. And I'm thinking of all the ways that could poison the process.

40:46James Wan:But what I found is - What you don't know could be a good thing, right? Or you don't know what you don't know.

40:51Kane Parsons:Yeah.

40:51James Wan:But exactly. I don't know what I don't know. So I'm doing what I can't.

40:55Kane Parsons:And I'm realizing as I'm getting there and we're starting and it's like, wait, that's all you can, that's all anyone can do. That's literally what I'm just, I go here. I know what I want. I don't know why I'm overthinking that part I just need to tell the people around me what I want in a concise manner and explain why we want it so they can also be personally motivated to achieve that thing and then we're just doing that in a few different ways and then we the day's done and we got what we wanted and boom and then we do it again and like I guess I just I think I did overthink it up front and again those were that was just the test shoot so it's a bit of a I guess I'll jump to when we were going to day one it was the same kind of thoughts coming back again it was like okay that was small before like what if what if it's gonna be so many people now that I haven't met like during pre-production i got to work with all these department heads and right you're saying like how working with my all the actors of my friends before like i would say everyone that i worked with at that point by the time we went to camera were my friends now and and like right that's great um it's cool the cast and and crew and and everyone is like it was a very friendly

41:53James Wan:vibe across the board good yes it was a collaborative experience for you so yeah so you felt like you know what you were asking for people kind of step up and kind of help to deliver the

42:01Kane Parsons:vision of what you were yeah like so so we went to when when i went up to vancouver and we got greenlit a few days into we had like a few days of prep and then we needed to get greenlit before we could continue and um but when that was happening you know i was i was meeting uh all the heads of all the departments and and we we had kind of met before a little bit they all know each other and they're all friends and it's like part of like um you know a great group that that sort of chris the producer up in vancouver who i work closely with and uh has sort of like really helped bring together over a good period of time.

42:34Kane Parsons:And so they're all very tightly knit and it's pretty great up there. But I...

42:39James Wan:So just to clarify, you found the pre-production process of planning the movie and kind of like laying it out and talking to the crew and, you know, talking to producers and locations and sets and stuff like that. You found all that pretty smoothly, the actual process? It was smoothly.

42:58Kane Parsons:i mean it wasn't easy but it was it was smooth and easy we were getting making films yeah it was time consuming and like used all my brain power each day but was like we got through it

43:07James Wan:um and i enjoyed it you find that um at any time that um the the sort of the bigger machination of filmmaking that kind of um uh kind of like um went against how you used to do things no

43:23Kane Parsons:no okay good um no it felt like it in a identical scaling of of what i normally do um that's great like the sets when i get there i mean i brought my computer with me um my laptop and like all the sets that we built because our production office was on the sound stage um or like right outside of it and and so we would like we had these four big stages that we could uh build on um and we were working out you know like you know like our construction budget at the time and everything and i uh and the script was like we were iterating on the script as we were going through prep and stuff so some things were changing and so everything was changing a little bit and it's too hard to describe the exact order in which things changed like one change would retroactively affect the thing that changed that change and whatnot but right but like the sets are all like i made them all in blender like i designed all the sets and and it's pretty much one for one for what we have in the movie like those all exist in the blender files and um i I would cross-reference and talk with Jeremy Cox, the VP I worked with, who's great.

44:21Kane Parsons:And I was showing him how to use a bit of Blender so we could send files back and forth if he wanted to tweak a few things on the day. That's really cool. Build the sets to accommodate four shots that we wanted because we were shot listing in Blender as well.

44:35James Wan:So basically, you were doing that like previs, right? Yeah, it was previs on everything. Yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. So you pretty much previs the whole movie.

44:42Kane Parsons:That's what I mean when I say like I need like the variable control up front. So I know I like knowing every single bit of what we're going to do and let everything be deliberate.

44:52James Wan:Your process and the way your mind works, you know, where you need to be in control, you need to kind of like be prepared really helps with, as you can see, the filmmaking process, right? Like there's nothing worse for a director on a film set. There's nothing worse for a film crew and a production is a director that is not prepared.

45:10Kane Parsons:Yeah.

45:11James Wan:Yeah. It's horrible. it's horrible if they don't know what they want they don't know how to achieve it that's really draining on a production and so someone like you it's it's a it's a breath of fresh air to come in so prepared knowing exactly the world what they want what they want the characters to be what they want to shot the scenes to feel like that goes a long way and i think you know i think that helps with why the transition for you was kind of pretty pretty smooth going

45:39Kane Parsons:Yeah, I would also lend just like, you know, sing the praises of all the people we worked with because like everyone in all of the departments are like genuinely like incredibly nice, really productive and really focused people. That's amazing. Obviously, I would like give them infinite credit on this. Like really the sets, like I made them in Blender, but like, you know, even the construction crew, they were like tirelessly going at this thing. It's like 30 ,000 square feet of backgrounds. It's incredible.

46:04James Wan:The set looks amazing. Yeah. It looked really cool. But again, you know, the crew really wants to, you know, help you bring your vision to life. Yeah. Right. And so, like, we trusted you because, you know, this movie is, you know, is an altar-driven film. And so, like, so it's kind of great that everyone trusted you and wants to help you bring all that, you know, to fruition. Yeah.

46:27Kane Parsons:And it looks amazing. Very generous of you guys.

46:29James Wan:You know, hey, man. No, seriously. Yeah. We, you know, we take our lead from someone like yourself. and I want to talk about what was it like collaborating with Oz Ozgood how was he like so it was

46:46Kane Parsons:after the test shoot before we went to get greenlit before we went up to Vancouver for the long stay and I met because Chris works closely with Oz and Oz is basically at every step of the way

47:00James Wan:Oz is a producer just to explain yeah he's a producer osgood perkins is a producer he's a director in his own right as well but he's

47:07Kane Parsons:a producer here on on the film with us yeah he was writing his next film while like we were in prep on this and so he'd be like just hovering around the entire time just like hanging out and like a big brother yeah to some degree right yeah um and he's he's great and and we would like i know like when i first got there is like uh we would just like every friday we would just go to a little theater and like watch a movie that would like help for the film it's like i remember that when we first got there we just like went and rented out a theater and just like watched 2001 and on and then that's amazing which was like a lot of fun um but then we we basically like like he he was very helpful i think in because there's a certain level of of change and iteration that went on with you know the the script and getting it right for the project that i've you know i've put out online over the years and people are so specific about like i think maybe that's not always taken into account.

48:01Kane Parsons:Actually, I know it's not taken into account because it's been something I've had to sort of fight for a little bit along the way in like a healthy manner. It's like reasonable why it wouldn't be considered because it's a bit insane when I say it out loud. But like, because it's a very like, it's not just a fan base thing. It's not my fan base. It's not a group of people. It's kind of a prevalent mindset that has come from, I think, my generation who has grown up with the internet, a lot of the same YouTubers and a lot of the same mentalities around media deconstruction and it's there's been this notion that when it comes to like internet driven horror especially horror is the main target for this but anything that's mysterious or horror driven and comes from the internet is like okay so that means it's got to be riddled with easter eggs and those easter eggs are in crucial to the plot and like the plot the true story is lying under the surface there's like a there's a meta level to this thing there's like you can zoom in all these things uh there's like the expectation is there's a lot of rich really specific information and and and you know i knew that because i'm a part of that group of people who think that and and i'm used to projects that give me that level of like engagement and depth and like growing up with that so uh so when i'm making the backrooms web series i'm designing it as such and and when you know a a object or like a light switch or a pillar or something moves over a few feet to the right it's not because oh we had to move it there because of like some logistical thing or like we had to rebuild the set and there was a pillar there so we had to account for like a slight shift it's like no it has to be because of the narrative reason because the building shifted in some way and that means something that will get addressed later on so people can kind of catch things like that right right so i made the not it's not a mistake i love it to death but it's like i made the deliberate decision to let audiences know that those little things aren't random and that they can expect anything they catch like right it puts them on guard that like there could be a lot of things they don't know are important until later right um and sometimes you need

49:57James Wan:multiple viewings to catch little yeah like it's the stuff i make on youtube is built to be and i

50:02Kane Parsons:would say even the movie is built to be paused and analyzed it's not meant to it's it it's inherently made for that that um that is nuts and i think that you know trying to bring that to this level involves asking for a lot of things that seem unproductive to people who aren't from that

50:19James Wan:trivial or weird even right yeah it's like why is he doing that yeah you know and we didn't win

50:24Kane Parsons:every battle because it's impossible because we don't have the resources to paint out every tiny cable and conduit that aren't exactly from 1990 and like the fire sprinkler models aren't exactly the model that would have been used in this type of piping in this year and stuff like and i know it's this is what i mean it's like come on guys like let me give give the film some slack but but i know my audience listen your imdb page you need to give the little the goof section something for them to write about right yeah yeah uh but but anyway i love them to death and and i think that you know that synchronizing you know everyone on that like took a minute just to explain why we had to do it but but then we got we did a lot we got a lot of mileage in that area.

51:07Kane Parsons:Yeah.

51:07James Wan:So, can I ask, so knowing you have to service a lot of that kind of thinking and partially because that's who you are as well, did you, was that a fine balance between that and a, you know, like a more traditional storytelling script that you guys had to write to get it out there, you know, because, you know, this is not just little vignettes of moments, right? You know, like you have to tell a pretty straightforward narrative to some degree, right? Like that has a start, you know, at zero mark and has to end in an hour and a half or two hours into the movie, right? Was that a bit of a process for you?

51:39Kane Parsons:No, I think the YouTube series knew what it was and it wasn't meant to be a substitute for something structurally similar to a feature film.

51:47James Wan:So you're saying as a feature, you approach it different to how you approach your shorts. Yeah, definitely.

51:51Kane Parsons:I think the shorts have their arcs. They're very vignette driven, like you said, where you get a lot of these pieces that, you know, for people online, it makes sense to put these things together. And then the story comes through repeated viewing and stuff or even one viewing you'll get it but it's like not maybe not appreciated to its fully degree fullest degree because it's it's sort of like a like a like i guess a more concept driven version of the or perspective into the story where it's not quite uh you know the hope i think i meant to say this earlier but like you know with the desire to do uh like did i want to do a film with backgrounds who's like yes and the goal would have been to like sort of get the foot in the door to, you know, get audiences who are not up to speed on, on my version of the back rooms and who are not, uh, you know, quite, I think the idea would have been to make something that worked for my audience that had direct continuity with what I've made and people, people have no idea what it

52:46James Wan:is.

52:46Kane Parsons:And so it could be a first step that kind of does the same thing that first short did in terms of sort of like opening the door to it. And then the real like thing when I, when I exactly, when When I talk about having something in the, like the ending that I want to reverse engineer from, or like have that moment I really want to get to, it's like, that's not, that's like, like I, there's so much stuff. I love every step along the way, but like, this is all driving in a direction where I would say the, you know, the material that is planned and is written out is like, it goes outside the confines of the YouTube series and it goes outside the confines of the film.

53:17Kane Parsons:These things lay inside a broader, I guess, like tree of the, of the narrative. Right, right.

53:23James Wan:Which leads me to your cast, right? This is the first set of, I would say, professional actors that you've worked with. And so what was it like working with Chiwetel and Renata? I mean, it was. And everyone else in the movie.

53:37Kane Parsons:Yes. And everyone else. Yeah. Everyone was great across the board. And I was saying earlier about them being my friends. I mean that. They're lovely, lovely people. And I think it was like, in the cases, when we were casting Clark, I'd seen some of his stuff, the stuff he's directed. And I like his brain. and I was very curious about like, you know, talking to him and I did. He's great. They're both, they're both great. Um, but I met, I met with him first. Uh, he was the first person that we were really going out to. And, uh, I, I mean, he was the first and only person we spoke to about, about the character.

54:09Kane Parsons:Cause I, I really got it in my head that like, after that conversation I had with him and seeing the things he was curious about with the project and with the backrooms in general, and, you know, just the general, um, you know, understanding of culturally what the backrooms is where it comes from and what it needs to achieve to be a meaningful addition to anything um it's just like okay so he gets it and he got a curiosity that's like i found this with renata very much so as well as like i like when i can tell they've got like the people i'm working with have like a personal uh curiosity they're trying to fulfill with this thing like some some reason that they're something they're trying to find beyond just like my agent set this up and i wanted like right let's do a horror film it's like right not that at all it was very much like there was something almost spiritual or profound about it yeah they're bringing their personal

54:57James Wan:life and story into the character which is what you always want that's all that's exactly what

55:01Kane Parsons:you want and i just found that i enjoyed the conversations we were having i i mean i i guess it's like i give it given the level of interiority needed for like some of the stuff with with uh with Renata and I knew they would be fits for like the pieces we needed them to fulfill um and then obviously once we actually went to production it was it was mostly the case of they made they made my job supremely easy right but but it was a you know a good case of just like we like they would you know hang out like behind the camera they wouldn't go off they would like you know be around and just like chat with people and it was like very good natured and fun and um and I think it helped like again having those sets that were like there and it wasn't CG and you could like walk through them and not see the blue screens and not see you could like walk through several rooms before you realize you're on a set um that's really cool and so it's like i was trying to provide as like answers to any question they could possibly have and have know where the walls are and basically let things still be fluid uh while like very strictly knowing what can and can't happen so that uh you know we stay on a very tight course narratively so we arrive at

56:07James Wan:the right spot that's really cool yeah and they um you basically use their characters as as a way in into the world, especially for people that are not familiar with this world. And they basically, you know, they play everyday people, right, that get caught in this crazy, surreal, backroom, you know, liminal space horror, so to speak, right? And they really kind of captured the idea that, you know, these two guys, you know, two people that are like stumbling into this supernatural world and not knowing what is going on. and they have to, and the more they dig into it, the more they discover how this particular space reflects themselves, right?

56:50James Wan:Their personality. And I think that's really great, you know, between yourself and the screenwriter, what you guys shape and create in terms of a story to try and bring in audiences that are not familiar with this particular world.

57:04Kane Parsons:Yeah, I'm glad it came through in that way. Definitely, like that was a pretty huge focus and I think it's kind of crucial to the project So we don't have like a insane, it's definitely more of a scenario where the risk would be putting too much lore and information into a single film rather than trying to scale up like a short that's not built for a feature into something larger. And so I think we trimmed out or were rather focused on the right most foundational elements of what made the idea work. The backgrounds as a general idea and found a way and it does not involve or necessitate a understanding of where this YouTube series goes.

57:39but it still relates to it in some way.

57:42James Wan:One of the things I do want to talk to you about is, you know, your shorts were made for YouTube. And so people generally, for the most part, watched it on their iPhones, on their computer, on their iPads. But now here you are making a theatrical version of the feature film, right? And so the feature film version for the theatrical big screen experience. How do you feel about that, firstly? And how do you think that would translate from the tiny little screen to freaking IMAX. We all make movies in computer these days. It doesn't matter what the platform is, right?

58:16Kane Parsons:Yeah, there's so much more polish that goes into this. And we do like billion iterations of each shot and like constantly refining and all that. But like I have, I would say that this film, you know, being able to, and this is what I wanted from the beginning with this whole process. The thing that I hope to get out of this was being able to, you know, I fulfilled the niche of the found footage work online because that's what I could do by myself. But what I wanted to be able to do is be able to have stuff that got out of that and was more human centric and more getting into the character work that could be portrayed by actual human actors who, who, you know, like were there for that.

58:48Kane Parsons:And, you know, this, in this film, we finally had the resources to attack the concept of the back rooms through that lens, which has never happened before. And I think we get to see like, you know, a much, a far more personal and intimate version of this story, which sort of like, I would say comes second in the conversation of like, people understand the back rooms, like enough online at this point that it's like and now this it's like this is the next uh or this is the slight advancement of the idea and we're seeing a slightly more um i'd say a slightly more thoughtful and elevated version of that that gets us to a place where we actually get to have a distinct relationship between individuals and the environment rather than letting the relationship be largely between yes there's a character always behind the camera but more often than not audiences come away with a feeling of like i'm kind of the person behind like they kind of relate to the person behind the camera in a way that is like almost more like playing a game or watching a game playthrough or something which is not something i deliberately cater to i just have observed that something happens and now they can see the faces it's so simple but like actually being able to give the time to these characters in a more direct way and let their context in life in the world outside of their relationship with the backrooms giving that weight uh i think will

1:00:04James Wan:go a long way that um what you're saying here now translate to the big screen experience oh yeah

1:00:09Kane Parsons:yeah no without a doubt i mean it's like it finally gives emotional context like it allows everything that we build with these human beings like then is transposed when they interact with the backrooms and and gives the backrooms of inherently without the backgrounds having to it's the same location that stays pretty much unchanged that whole element the complex but now Now it's much more than life. Because of the human element, because of how it's framed through the eyes of these people who you can relate to, which you didn't have before. So, yeah, I'd say that's probably the – and there's also just some cool set pieces.

1:00:39So I'm excited to show those.

1:00:41James Wan:Some big set pieces here that you can kind of like – I guess you know how you were saying you were talking about like just, you know, the fans or, you know, the people from the world just seeing little details there, right? details in the world so like i guess you know when it's blown up so huge big you know you can actually pick up little things that you may not actually experience or have noticed on your phone

1:01:01Kane Parsons:on your computer right so my audience would notice anything and everything but yes but that's what you say undoubtedly there is stuff and it's great because you can't pause it in the theater so for a select time you'll uh you'll maybe have to watch it a couple times to find to find everything that's in there because there's a lot that's cool well kate this has been amazing man it's been amazing Thank you, dude.

1:01:21James Wan:Thank you for having a chat with me about this.

1:01:24Kane Parsons:I love the movie.

1:01:25James Wan:I think you guys all did a fantastic job. The movie is great. And I really think you captured the spirit of what you did with the shorts. And here we have the feature film version. And so you must be excited to have people out there see this movie when it finally comes out.

1:01:40Kane Parsons:I'm tremendously excited. Thank you so much for just supporting this for the time you have. And it's like, we're talking, we're talking like, like, you know, like how this happened, but, but you've been around supporting this since the beginning, like literally the first month that any of this was happening, uh, we came into contact and it's, it's just been a great partnership. Okay. This has been awesome.

1:01:59James Wan:Thank you, man. Thank you, man.

1:02:00Kane Parsons:This is lovely.