“Five Secrets to Mom,” by Charles Dillon Ward, uses old family photos and Microsoft Paint as a backdrop for a series of confessions made by an anonymous teenager online. We asked Ward how it started, his use of automated voice, and what secrets he’s living with…

1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in movies?

I was born in Charleston, SC and then moved to Murray, KY when I was in first grade. Early on I was interested in being either a paleontologist, a theoretical physicist, or a filmmaker. I had bad seasonal allergies and wasn't very outdoorsy, so paleontologist was out. I was mediocre in math, so theoretical physics was out. That left filmmaking which didn't sound like a strong option to my parents who were public school teachers. Looking back now I definitely see where they were coming from. 

Murray is a small college town without much to do, and I remember spending entire weekends watching shorts on atomfilms.com and newgrounds.com as well as movies I rented from our local video store. I can still remember as a teenager watching Eraserhead on my portable dvd player and feeling absolutely terrified in the best kind of way. Later on when I was in high school I got in to the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts. This helped me get a scholarship and afford college without going into debt. It also convinced my parents to let me study filmmaking. I ended up going to Western Kentucky University and graduated in 2014 with a B.A. in Film & English. Since then I've worked a variety of film-related and non film-related jobs.

2) I’d love to hear the origin story for this project. How you decided to put these elements together, and how it all coalesced?

A few things came together. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a Reddit post that had a screenshot of a random anonymous confession on Quora. It was clearly written by a teenager and the tone was very serious even though the content of the confession wasn't that big of a deal. It included the usual things people experiment with in middle school and high school. But I really liked the voice it was written in and thought it was funny and made a little note to possibly use it for something in the future. I came back to the idea later on and imagined if my sister had written the confession. She was quite rebellious as a teenager, and I thought it might be something she would impulsively do. This lead to the idea of using family photos. And instead of asking each family member's permission to use an image of them in a weird short film, I decided it would be visually interesting and also keep with the theme of anonymity if I marked out their faces. The first choice that came to mind was to use a black digital pen similar to Microsoft Paint. And that ultimately led to the idea of using Microsoft Paint as a backdrop to create a digital sense of place. Also, there was this Facebook group called "f***off mum I'm 12 now" and tonally that was something I used as an influence.   

3) A lot of humor comes through with the use of the automated voice. Can you talk about the decision to use that technique? Did you have to play with the voice a lot to get the intended effect, or did you try different voices?

I originally was going to use the automated voice as a scratch track. But after hearing it, I thought it fit better than a human voice. It kept everything digital. To capture the voice, I used text edit and the computer's text to speech function. And then I messed with the pace and cadence in premiere to get the timing right. 

4) What is a film(s) you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

Recently I watched The Heart of the World (2000), a 6 minute silent short by Guy Maddin. He was commissioned to make it for the Toronto Film Festival. He saw a commission as being similar to propaganda, and so he decided to make a parody of old Soviet propaganda films. The story is about a female scientist who studies the earth's core and realizes the world is dying of heart failure. While she tries to figure out how to save the world from imminent destruction, she also has to deal with 3 romantic suitors: a mortician, an actor playing Jesus Christ, and a wealthy businessman. There's a lot to love about this short. My favorite thing is how successful Madden was at making a short in 2000 feel like it could have been made in 1920. 

5) What else are you working on at the moment?

I've made two other shorts that I'll be submitting to film festivals in June. And I hope to make another short later this May and potentially two more shorts by the end of this year.

Bonus Questions: Any personal secrets you’d like to get off your chest?

I don't have any personal secrets to get off my chest, but I do have classic film secrets. I still need to see Gone With the Wind, Titanic, Seven Samurai, West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Deer Hunter, Out of Africa, The Color Purple, The Third Man, Notorious, The Searchers, On the Waterfront, and The French Connection - just to name a few. Maybe the act of admitting this in writing will motivate me to fill these gaps in my viewing history. 

Contact info: 

Email: charlesdillonward@gmail.com