5 Questions with Cassie Shao ("There Were Four of Us")
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I am originally from China, I went for a few years of schooling in New Zealand before going to School of the Art Institute of Chicago for my BFA, and then got my MFA from USC School of Cinematic Arts Animation & Digital Arts programme. I have been freelancing since. I think I always was interested in making animation. I grew up watching anime series and films as well as a lot of indie films without exactly understanding they were indie films, until I went to SAIC and studied under animators such as Chris Sullivan and Jim Trainor and sort of got the whole picture. The experience always focused on conceptualising, encouraged experimentations and embraced the most unique characteristics reflected in one’s work. It fundamentally influenced how I established this style, where I try to look at myself as a being that reflects, and is reflected in my surroundings, as well as to sort of marry the conscious with the unconsciousness. I think through filmmaking I was able to learn quite a lot about myself that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, and the isolated process of making an independent animated film is also rather addicting.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
The initial idea was based on a dream I had of me being trapped in a room with three other people, trying to figure out a death and the question “who did it?”. It was really a dream that stuck with me because I felt intense waves of fear, hopelessness but also curiosity while the dream unfolds, even though I seem to already know what was going to happen. The film initially was just going to be re-creating and translating those emotions into pictures.
The same year I was planning for the film, my grandfather passed away. Apart from the weird incident at the moment of his death (as he was dying my aunt tried to contact my parents but for some reasons her phone just went blank, this lasted for a while and directly resulted in my parents missing the last moments of him), I also found a book on his bookshelf half a year later when I went back home. The book instructs you on how to live until you are a hundred years old. I wondered, also remembering asking my cousin, if my grandfather really wanted to live for that long. It seemed a foreign concept to me, I felt I would never wish for the same; but the fact that he had it, hoped to achieve it, and this kind of hope might have played a part in pushing him closer to death made me feel again the fear, hopelessness and curiosity I experienced in that particular dream. I then decided to tell his story with the dream I had. After deciding that, I reconsidered the film with a lot more examples of real-life moments that remained with me, that made it the way it is now.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?
I think the biggest challenge was to balance between narrative and these fragmented timelines, as there is a bit of story and a narrative, but when I remember things, I remember a fraction of a second, a seemingly unimportant gesture or a close-up of someone’s forehead. Those moments often remain with me, while the rest of what happened always seem more like a blur or a conscious invention. Sometimes I feel like my characters are not doing anything meaningful, a bit like in a theatre setting, they sit, walk around or they fall down. When they gesture, they don’t gesture to convey the meaning of a movement but a feeling. Although realising that might not be how the others feel about their memories, I find myself trying to reach the viewers through emotions we may share. It is a challenge as obviously it is hard to find the balance that works for everyone and myself, so I did just favour myself a bit in the end.
The easiest was working with sound designer Katie Gately, she is an amazing experimental sound artist and musician and the process was well smooth.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
All My Good Countrymen (1969) by Vojtěch Jasný and The Belly of an Architect (1987) by Peter Greenaway. They both have incredible, stylistically pleasant visual composition, where All My Good Countrymen was more of an epic story that surrounds the life of a whole village under shift in political climate and the influences between the outcome of each personal decision. The “larger” group and the “smaller” individual reflecting on each other is very well presented. I love that of course it has the characteristic of a new wave film where a lot of focus is on fragmented sections of time as the camera zooms extremely close onto someone’s chin, but this film is also tragically humorous at the same time, it has a degree of absurdity that is completely realistic, that I really love. For The Belly of an Architect, the director’s background in painting really does seem to incorporate rather well into his films and every frame is beautiful to look at. I do realise you need to sort of share/care for Peter Greenaway’s (softly) erotic theme for each of his film to like any of his films particularly, so I think the architecture of Boullée and human bellies just personally sit better with me.
5) What’s next for you?
I worked on a music video for LA based band Maggie Dave (whom I made a video for back in 2019, Maggie Dave – I’m Not Ready (https://vimeo.com/368206985)) on their new release “Old You”, which is going to be released around Late May. I am also working on animated elements for a short documentary directed by Sean David Christensen, named “That’s What I Had to Leave Behind” that will release around September. Some other videos that are still in early production, and I am also making a new film. Some stills and small excerpts of that could be viewed on my website front page (https://www.karasucassie.com/) or instagram (https://www.instagram.com/karasucassie/).
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