Holy moly, do we like Carson Mell’s work. It doesn’t hurt that his short films and Saguaro, his novel, tend to deal in the subjects of rock music and science fiction (the intersection of which remains a place we’ll hopefully sell our souls someday), but Mell’s real strength lies in his characters: Men stranded in parallel dimensions, aging rock stars looking back on impossibly eventful lives, and simple, lonely writers. In spite of his strange, varied choice in protagonists, all of his shorts are equal parts funny, weird, and touching, with a stylish sheen of something we’re having trouble calling anything besides “cool.”
Whose Fault Is That: What types of movies were you trying to make when you first started out, as a kid? What would you consider to be an early filmmaking success that motivated you to stick with it?
Carson Mell: The first movies I made, like everybody else, were just parodies. Stuff shot on VHS, edited in camera. I think the first real success with filmmaking I ever felt, were some of the scenes from this guerilla sitcom my cousin and I made together, Rodericks. Even though it looked really bad, I was proud of all the actors’ performances and the jokes, and that’s what’s most important to me in comedy.
WFIT: What do you mean by ‘guerilla sitcom’?
CM: That’s just what we call it. Just show up with props and a little wardrobe, shoot without permits, everything’s improvised. It’s sort of like Dogma [95] without ever having read the rules behind that. We just shot it however we could, and literally didn’t allow ourselves to worry about how it looked.
WFIT: At what point would you say aesthetics and form entered into the equation?
CM: I don’t know. I feel like when you’re shooting with friends helping for free and don’t have a big budget, you have a certain amount of capital to spend on the movie. If you spend it making it look nice, then you might not get the performances you like. If you can get both that’s great, but you have to prioritize. I think it’s all about striking a balance, and I always think of GoodFellas when I think of a perfect balance of both.
WFIT: Do those sort of monetary and prioritization concerns play a part in your decision to work alone on most of your projects?
CM: Yeah. I started making cartoons when everybody’s lives got to busy to help. I’ve written a lot of epic screenplays that I just can’t make, so now when I’m writing a screenplay it’s important to me that it’s something I can actually make. With the cartoons, I think fifteen minutes may be as long as they can get by myself without me going nuts. So to make the transition to feature length I’m going to start working with other people, whether I do animation or live action. This is something I’m excited about though, I really like the social aspect of film and the process of making the cartoons is a little too monklike sometimes.
WFIT: What relationship, if any, do you think that kind of creative process might have with any recurring themes of solitude in your work, like Bobby Bird’s loneliness in Chonto, or the stranded and lovelorn protagonist in Field Notes From Dimension X?
CM: That I’m not sure about. I do spend most of my day alone, but I actually really enjoy being alone.
WFIT: Another interesting thread I think runs through your work is the way it tends to be referential to general conceptions of, say, rock and roll or science fiction without grounding itself in references to particular artists or writers. Who are some of the people whose work you were hoping to evoke?
CM: It’s nice to hear you say that, because I don’t necessarily want to evoke specific folks with Bobby Bird. I borrow from a lot of musicians for him, but even though Michael Jackson had Bubbles, I don’t think anyone thinks of him too much when watching Chonto. Or at least I hope not. With Field Notes I haven’t actually read much science fiction. I’m more interested in the covers of the books, really.
WFIT: I think I understand your point about the book covers. I feel like I’ve seen lots of old sci-fi paperbacks and magazines that have covers featuring really bizarre imagery that tends to go well above and beyond the contents of the (relatively boring) actual stories. Those sort of images come up a lot in Field Notes and The Writer.
CM: Yeah, when Field Notes is done I want it to feel like a succession of those covers. And it’ll probably be illustrated to some extent, so that’ll help with that feeling.
WFIT: Is there anything specific about the myths of rock and roll or science fiction that interests you as a backdrop for your stories?
CM: Anything with music I like because it’s an art form I am bad at and have never even dabbled in. I know a little something about the rest of them, but music is still totally mysterious to me. I like sci-fi just cause you can do anything with it. It can be heady and full of monsters at the same time. But that said, I don’t think everything I do will be about these things.
WFIT: Have you considered any specific genres or you’d like to work in going forward? On a similar note, have you thought about any stylistic deviations from the monologue-based, first-person pieces you’ve created thus far?
CM: Yeah. I want to make a horror movie soon. And I don’t think much of my work will have so much narration later on. I really like narration, but I like third person stuff just as much.
WFIT: What would you say made Saguaro turn out as a novel rather than another short (or a few other shorts)?
CM: There was too much material to animate. That’s the main reason. I would have been alone in my room for five years and would have left it thirty pounds overweight and thinking I was Bobby Bird.
WFIT: That makes sense. I’ve always been sort of in awe of people like Don Hertzfeldt who seem to just sort of disappear for months or years at a time and suddenly reappear with a movie that’s as much a feat of endurance as it is an actual animation.
CM: No kidding. I don’t have the ability to do that, but I really like Don’s stuff. Actually, seeing his movie at Sundance in 07 made me want to scramble to keep up. I made Chonto because of that feeling, and that was five months out of my life.
WFIT: Do you think your projects will increase in scope from here on out?
CM: Well, the next project is a novel three times the length of Saguaro, and I want to make feature length cartoons and movies. But I’m also doing a two minute movie/animation for Birdhouse skateboards right now with James Dirschberger. I like making short stuff, too, especially after spending a couple of years on just one thing like I did with the new book.
WFIT: What’s something you’d like to accomplish with these new projects that you haven’t with your previous work?
CM: I don’t really know. Always, I’d like to reach a bigger audience and make work that people connect with more and more. The more laughter and/or crying I can help get going, the better.
Joe Bernardi interviewed Carson Mell in August 2010. Carson’s website, complete with links to each of his shorts and a link to buy Saguaro, can be found here.