OVERVIEW
In this episode of the Musicbed Podcast, we sit down with director Young Replicant, AKA Alex Takács. Known for his high concepts and visual poetry, he’s directed music videos for artists like Lorde, Alt-J, and Flying Lotus. He’s also worked with brands like Sprite and Adidas.
Dive into this engaging conversation with Young Replicant, where he explores the value of replacing early confidence with technique and discusses why filmmakers should own their weaknesses and weirdness.
Show Notes:
- Tibor Takács – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0847749/
- The Gate (1987) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093075/
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117534/
- Cinfex Magazine – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinefex
- Ergatta – https://ergatta.com/
- Ergatta – Game On – https://vimeo.com/659831991
- Andrew Levy – https://www.pda.inc/
- Sam Wilkes – https://www.pda.inc/
- Sam Dew – https://www.instagram.com/sam_dew/?hl=en
- Sam Dew “”MOONLIT FOOLS”” – https://imvdb.com/n/young-replicant
- Frank Mobilio – https://frankmobilio.com/
- Joe Nankin – https://www.joenankin.com/
- M83, “”We Own The Sky”” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWsUNbdc5IM
- Animal Collective – https://myanimalhome.net/
- Iamamiwhoami – https://ionnalee.com/?lang=en_US
- The Seven Faces of Jane (2022) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15345936/
- Julian Acosta – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10640147/
- Roman Coppola – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0178910/
- The Director’s Bureau – https://thedirectorsbureau.com/
- Chris Chang – https://thedirectorsbureau.com/contact/
- Bentonville Film Festival – https://bentonvillefilm.org/
Young Replicant’s Playlist on Musicbed
Listen to Young Replicant’s handpicked playlist, curated to reflect his taste and approach to visual storytelling. These songs are chosen to complement the themes and insights from Replicant’s interview, where he discusses his work with famous artists and popular brands. Enjoy the playlist!
Hear the full playlist on Musicbed:
Episode #011 Transcript
Christian Schultz:
Well dude, thank you for allowing us to come into your home.
Young Replicant:
Yeah. Well. Humbled, flattered.
Christian Schultz:
I don’t know too much about your beginnings. Do you have family in the industry at all?
Young Replicant:
Yeah. So, my dad’s a director.
Christian Schultz:
What’s your dad’s name?
Young Replicant:
Tibor Takács. He made a movie in the ’80s called The Gate. He did Sabrina The Teenage Witch. My uncle is a rigging gaffer. My aunt is a makeup artist and wardrobe person. And my mom used to be a production manager until she had me, so I don’t know. There was sort of like, it was just always around, you know. It’s weird—I didn’t have that sort of, like, teenage rebellion phase, where I wanted to something completely different.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Young Replicant:
For whatever reason, I just fell into it. But I think if anything, it just sort of showed me that it is a possibility. And growing up, my dad had—I always sort of credit this as being somehow formative for me—a complete collection of Cinefex magazine. Blue screen, puppeteering, silicone—that kind of thing. So like, I was really sort of seeing those photos of people working on these monster movies or sci-fi movies like that. That kind of like stuck with me.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah, I can imagine being super young, especially if you get to get on-set at some point, it feels like just the coolest thing in the world.
Young Replicant:
Yeah, it’s just a magic atmosphere. And it’s like, as a kid, there is a sort of a magic going on where the norms are like—the rules are sort of suspended.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
And you can really see, especially when you’re young and you’re not really involved, you can really feel the energy, the focus of everybody on this singular task.
Christian Schultz:
I grew up in New Orleans, so there’s like, obviously a ton of music and stuff. So you just start playing music very early on. It’s weird how your surroundings do sort of inundate you with like, ‘this is who you’re going to be’ a little bit.
Young Replicant:
Yeah.
Christian Schultz:
Unless you like you said, you kind of rebel for a season when you’re like, ‘I’m gonna do ceramics’ or something.
Young Replicant:
Yeah. But you still end up coming back. That’s the trick is like, even you think like the faster you try to run away from it, the quicker you get to you get sucked back in.
Christian Schultz:
Something that I really admire about your work is it feels felt like—from very early on, at least when I started seeing your stuff—it felt like you had already sort of articulated your voice in cinema.
Young Replicant:
Right.
Christian Schultz:
Is there anything that you can recollect about how you got there so fast or anything like that?
Young Replicant:
It’s like me asking you ‘why are you you?’ I was thinking about this yesterday—that cocky 18-25 year-old is gone, but the wise man hasn’t arrived yet. And I’m in this like, sort of strange stage where I don’t know what that was. It’s like a type of hubris.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
I feel like that’s always a part of it. It’s like you think ‘Oh yeah, I know what’s cool. We’re gonna do it this way.’ You just have like a confidence that slowly gets replaced by technique, which is like a something that I also think about a lot. There’s that sort-of first blush, where you’re kind of like, it’s all intuitive. It’s all this just raw, kind of instinctive working.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
And, and if you’re lucky enough to have success with that first blush, then you spend the next 10 years trying to sort of codify those instincts into a technique or into a style. And because you want to repeat that, you want to pin it down and be able to pull it out of your tool kit whenever you want. And, of course, as you sort of learn, it’s not really possible. I mean, it is. But it takes a long time. It takes 10 years. Even if you sort of managed to internalize some of those early lucky things, it’s never gonna be the same. And you have to find new ways of making that lock again.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. Have you sort of gotten close to that at all in any way?
Young Replicant:
Yeah, I mean, I think the technique is to never settle on a technique. I think the style can be the message. The content—it’s not irrelevant, it has to be sort of suited, it has to be integrated—but the style can be transcendent.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
I feel like that’s how genre operates like, really beautiful genre work. It’s like, well, we know the story. And the content maybe isn’t so deep or interesting. But then it’s the style, the language that expresses something about what how you really feel as an artist.
Christian Schultz:
You remember last time we talked? You were like, ‘if I need to communicate something about the story through an object, I’ve lost. If the story depends on the object itself, then I’ve lost. Or it’s too complicated at that point.’ Do you still feel that way?
Young Replicant:
I don’t know if I believe that anymore.
Christian Schultz:
It was just two years ago.
Young Replicant:
Yeah. All those rules and certainties. I don’t know. The older you get, the weirder life becomes, the more uncertain things are early on. I guess the major shift over time is like early on those music videos. I would like board them all.
Christian Schultz:
Okay.
Young Replicant:
And every shot was not only boarded, but like shaded in, which is obviously like the coward’s method. But I think when you’re starting out, it’s kind of important.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
It’s an important tool to communicate with people. But then as things go on, I still do like little boards, like little thumbnails, but I definitely don’t spend as much time, and I only do the board’s like, once I’ve been to the location. I spend more time at the location now than before, I guess. And this is something I’m always insisting on and dragging the DP out with me, like three or four times to this shooting location, before the tech scout.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. Obviously you have a goal and in terms of the story you’re trying to tell. But do you have literally nothing planned, and you guys are discovering it as you’re there?
Young Replicant:
There’s a little plan. I mean, there’s a vision. There’s a glimmer of something. I try to stay as open as possible. And this is something I have not mastered now and I still grip onto those—you sort of fall in love with, or not even in love—but you hold on to some idea because it’s like, in the chaos of the production. These little ideas become like a life vest. And you’re like, if I if I lose this little kernel or this stupid thing ‘m tripped up on, I’m gonna get swept away. I kind of use a biological metaphor for this process. You need to be open to like epigenetic change.
Christian Schultz:
What does it mean?
Young Replicant:
It’s sort of like environmental factors can unlock certain genes that might have been dormant. So you have to build it into the idea, a sort of resilience or robustness so that when the vision meets reality, it doesn’t just explode or fall apart.
Christian Schultz:
It’s so true, man.
Young Replicant:
And I don’t really know how to do that.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
Like, how do you build that robustness? I mean, I don’t think the more robust an idea is, the better an idea it is. I think it’s really delicate ideas that you blow and it just falls apart. That can be beautiful, too. It’s just when it comes to filmmaking, it needs to be a little bit tough to survive the process of meeting the road.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. As soon as you get into a production on something, it changes two degrees on every side. I mean, like, it never stops changing.
Young Replicant:
Yes.
Christian Schultz:
So if it doesn’t have some sort of structure to it or robustness, like you’re saying, it would get shaved down in the wrong places, and it would feel thin.
Young Replicant:
Right. Yeah. If your ideas are contingent on a color or a type of light or something, you’re gonna get sort of screwed. But sometimes you could succeed. You gotta be lucky.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. Because your work really does—I wouldn’t say go off the rails a lot—but it is fairly wild sometimes. I’m fascinated with the brands that you work with, where I’m like, I’m watching the work and I’m just like, ‘this is like bold sh*t.’ And I can imagine a lot of those pieces are hard to describe. And in treatment—let’s take a piece of work, like the rowing brand that you worked.
Young Replicant:
Oh, Ergatta.
Christian Schultz:
Everything up until that I’ve seen with Ergatta it’s like very sort of warm like, right? And you come in with this very surrealist concept What is the pitching process like, to communicating that?
Young Replicant:
I did make a treatment, but it was like that already. I sort of gave them a kernel. I was involved so early that like I was sort of part of the agency, because it was like three people. Yeah, it was me, Andrew Levy, and Sam Wilkes and we really just like this sort of three-man team. And that makes it so much easier.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah, totally.
Young Replicant:
But to get to that point, there had to be all this trust. I also directed like a little piece for them, which was more of what you’re talking about, just like people in nice houses, working out and stuff. So that was that was kind of the first piece of the puzzle. And then I think Andrew just had sort of built up a lot of rapport and good will with them. And then so finally, this was the big payoff. It’s like, okay, now we have this celebrity athlete and a proper budget to do it. You know, what do you guys want to do? We trust you, so there’s that. That never happens. Like, that was something I cooked up on my own outside of the pitching production company.
Christian Schultz:
Do you find yourself doing that quite a bit?
Young Replicant:
No, I wish I could bottle that. I mean, it’s good in some ways. And you do kind of miss some of the formalities of the commercial job. You’re kind of buffered from certain things. And you know, when things go wrong with this model, often you feel personally responsible.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
You know, versus the kind of impersonal machine. Just like, you can blame your production company, right? Not this way. Because basically, I am the production company.
Christian Schultz:
Do you find that your concepts are rather simple? Are you trying to get to something rather simplistic?
Young Replicant:
I wish, man. But yeah, that’s sort of the holy grail—kind of like an unattainable thing for me. They’re always complicated.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
That’s just how my brain works. And I’ve sort of made peace with that over time. The way that I try to come up with ideas is a very organic kind of process where I take one thing and I look for something that rhymes with that. And then I like to look for another thing that rhymes. And then I try to push them together and then see what happens and see what comes out of that. There’s a lot of this digital elements in the ideas that may or may not be important. And it’s up to you to figure out. There’s something interesting here you can kind of you feel, you know. It’s like, you’re feeling a little glimmer of something. What’s the simple backbone of this thing? At a certain point, your weaknesses become your style. But only you can fail, or be weird in your specific way. This might be one of those things where not being not having the simple approach just—it’s one of my sort of idiosyncrasies.
Christian Schultz:
I imagine that that is probably one of your calling cards in terms of continuing to get, whether it’s music video, commercial, or whatever, is people sort of wanting to tap into that part of it. Do you recognize that at all, or?
Young Replicant:
This is not something I’ve mastered, but I feel like those are the things that you have to pursue. If you want to be unique, or like having a sort of special voice or finding your voice, at a certain point, you have to like learning to double down on whatever thing that you think is like, ‘oh, that’s weird. No one’s gonna be into that.’ Or ‘this is too obscure.’ Make peace with those things. I’ve always felt like I want to run away from those things, but then it’s like, no one else is doing that. I got to do that.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. What is this rhyming thing that you’re talking about?
Young Replicant:
Like when I’m coming up with ideas, I try to keep it based on instinct and feeling.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
Like that series of videos I did for Sam Dew—it was like nocturnal communications. And other sort of thing that I’ve noticed over time is that when I’m writing in my little journal or my notebook, it’s always like, the first third of the page is gonna have the idea somewhere in it. I’ll have written maybe like two or three pages after that, trying to come up with anything. But’s always that first blush of things. I think somewhere on that page is like nocturnal communications, or like, networks of desires or whatever, some sort of unseen invisible networks.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
And I thought of messengers, and then you know, delivery drivers or mailmen, or like the Sandman. And I thought, okay, so there’s like a rhyming scheme, where it’s not quite a synonym. But it feels like they kind of go together.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. Totally.
Young Replicant:
So that’s, I don’t know, that’s just kind of how I’ve been able to find my ideas.
Christian Schultz:
I bet it helps you not get stuck at all, you know, because those connections are like, just right there. It’s not like you’re writing two pages that have dialogue at this point, you just like getting from here to there and expanding it a little bit over time.
Young Replicant:
If you build a nice symbolic—I don’t let’s call it symbolic—but a poetic web. As the process happens organically, it’ll just sort of attract other things that are kind of related to it. And then by the end of it, you might realize like, ‘oh, wait, that’s beautiful. I didn’t even think of that.’ But the fact that you sort of set that up or built that out in the beginning, it just kind of brought in all this extra stuff. It’s like a net that you’ve dragged through the ocean, and suddenly, you know, you’ve got all this good stuff.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
I feel like that unplanned thing is probably, you know. Coming from documentaries, do you find that that’s a part of that?
Christian Schultz:
It’s the most stressful part of that, but it’s the most necessary. Because I think I’ve gone into a lot of things with a lot of plans sometimes. And I’ve never felt worse. But it’s like anything else. I want to have intention, but I don’t want to have the execution yet. The intention is kind of everything at some point on like, some layer. And I don’t mean intention in terms of like good will, or trying to do the best for X or Y. But it’s just like, the intention of your exploration. If it’s going towards a single direction, then I can have fun and just play with that because I know I’m in the box.
Young Replicant:
Right. What happens when it doesn’t go in that direction?
Christian Schultz:
I just go home sad. No, you try to work your way out of it, dig your way out of it with it. I’ve had numerous examples of just like, I have a day where I’ll waste a day, just like thinking that something was going to pay off. And it’s just mundane, or just like not in the zone, or it’s just not unique or whatever. And then I usually just say, ‘we’re gonna call it quits, I need to go home.’ And then just try and recoup a little bit. But I think the biggest thing that helps me is just conversation with collaborators, especially with DPs and stuff. I’ll get into a place, especially if it’s a hard day, where I’m just frustrated, and like, ‘why do I suck?’ Like, let’s talk about this real quick. What’s going wrong? Right? You figure things out in those moments.
Young Replicant:
Oh yeah, I’m big on I call it like discursive. Like, if I could describe my whole process, it’s that it’s discursive.
Christian Schultz:
What does that mean?
Young Replicant:
Producers are always like teasing me that like, you know, I’m standing around with my buddy Frank Mobilio. And we’re just like, ‘Frank, I don’t know, what should we do?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know. What should we do?’ ‘Well, I don’t know. What do you think?’ We’re just asking each other questions, and to a producer, that sounds insane. But to me, that’s exactly how things are done. And how it should be done. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you’re after, and having a plan that you really want to execute. And yeah, you’re really trying for something. But if you’re too confident that that’s the only way to do it, I think you’re just scared.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
Everything I do is from a place of doubt. Which to me is like, is one of those like weaknesses that’s like a strength—you’re always sort of pushing it to make it better. What if we did it this way? Is this the best way to do it?
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
What do we think about this way? And then we’ll like talk about it. And then we’ll be like, ‘Well, if we did it that way, x, y, z, maybe that changes the POV of the scene,’ or like, ‘it’s not about that character,’ or whatever. We come up with a good reason to rule it out.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
And of course, you can get lost in that. And if you have a strong collaborator, they’ll pull you back to that core thing. And then the decision making can sort of happen more fluidly.
Christian Schultz:
You’re totally right. Because the doubt part is something that a lot of times you feel like you need to get rid of, especially on commercials. Especially when there’s people watching.
Young Replicant:
Yeah, you gotta pretend that you know your sh*t—something that I definitely haven’t mastered. But it’s about creating, you have to build the structure around yourself to allow for this certain degree of movement and autonomy. I’ve never been able to achieve it because I’m always hanging on to the job by a thread in some way. I barely got my foot in the door, I’ve flattered my way into the job or whatever. And then like, if there’s nothing wrong with that, you’re just kind of like executing. But if you really want to elevate, you build an atmosphere of respect and dignity around the director, where it’s like, you have to trust this person to get the results that you want—that are going to be better than you expected. If we’re allowed to have room for this kind of stuff that you’re talking about—not boarding everything to death, not pre-planning it, describing it because those are the best moments, like everyone knows that You can’t tell that to someone who’s paying for the day that we’re going to be like, ‘now we’re going to try a shot that isn’t on the boards’ or, you know, whatever. You have to build that into the structure, make that part of your pitch.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Young Replicant:
Like, this is how I work and this is where your reps and your company can help you if they believe in that. They can kind of create that buffer—that room for you to play. But then also, it’s like you got to sell it in the moment and spin as something else, which I think I’ve gotten pretty good at. I’ve always been able to, talk my way out of term papers and stuff.
Christian Schultz:
Is it making them sort of believe that it was communally decided that now we’re gonna do this thing that was actually your idea? Do you know I’m saying?
Young Replicant:
Yeah, yeah. I think it goes both ways. It’s like, you have to make them think that this was everyone’s idea. And this is the “best” thing. Or you can play the other angle, which is like, you’re so excited and so passionate about this thing you want to try.
Christian Schultz:
That’s a good point.
Young Replicant:
That to me has always been, I don’t know, not my strength, but like, the way that I’m able to sort of communicate that I’m the right person for the job. There’s a lot of people who are good hype men. I’m not a good hype man. But the way that I communicate my enthusiasm is by going in and trying to go as deep as possible, and showing that I really thought about it.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. Because even just like now, like, this is my “very enthusiastic.” I’m a little bit more low key than most people. So like, I do have to kind of like, sit up and like, put my voice on.
Young Replicant:
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Obviously. I never listen to the call afterwards.
Christian Schultz:
No way, dude.
Young Replicant:
So painful.
Christian Schultz:
I do have some EPs that will send them to me. Like, why?
Young Replicant:
If someone offers to take notes on it, I’ll definitely do that. Because then I don’t have to listen to it.
Christian Schultz:
Have you found that your your treatment writing process has changed over the years?
Young Replicant:
Definitely. I mean, it’s matured. I used to be kind of like, I would like write a lot. And it would be sort of wordy. I try to be really thorough. And now I’m just trying to strip it down, keep stripping back. Nobody likes to read. I like to read but nobody reading a treatment wants to see a big block of text, and it’s sort of took me a really long time to come to terms with that, or accept that. That’s sort of the reality—make it as simple as possible. But still, you want to sound good, you want it to flow nicely. Um, I feel like people have told me like, ‘Oh, yeah, your treatments are really well written.’ Because I never like work with like a treatment writer.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
I find that too difficult. You have to end up doing more work, or revisions. It’s just that ends up being too much trouble. But, I mean, maybe that’s why I have won a couple of the jobs that I did, based on a good well written treatment. But I mean, I feel like at a certain high level, the treatment is just a formality.
Christian Schultz:
Sure.
Young Replicant:
And that would be the kind of goal is to like, be at that place where you can just write a Word document and send it off.
Christian Schultz:
When did you decide to go with ‘Young Replicant’? And like, when was that a thing? Was it conscious of a decision of like, I want to kind of remove myself from whatever you want to call yourself, the brand of whatever your identity is?
Young Replicant:
Yeah. I mean, the origin of the whole thing was a YouTube contest. For an M83 music video. You made it and submitted it on YouTube. And then like, we chose my best friend who’s also director, Joe [Nankin]. We teamed up, got a bunch of our friends together, and we made this goofy thing. And we won the contest. But we had to submit. I remember, we needed to make a YouTube account. And it was like, we need a name. It’s got to be some cool name. It was coming down to like, the last hour that we could submit. And so we’re just like, ‘F*ck, I don’t know, just whatever.’ And we just chose this name that we weren’t totally happy with but I don’t know. Maybe it’s kind of fine for now. But always with the intention of changing it.
Christian Schultz:
Do you kind of enjoy the history of it now?
Young Replicant:
Yeah, I mean, that was sort of like probably where it came from at the time. I think it was really cool to be like, super mysterious in 2008 and 2009. There was like a kind of like, Animal Collective or like—being a sort of creative collective was like a really sort of en vogue thing. That was also appealing to me—it was kind of faceless. You didn’t know exactly what was involved or who was involved. But there was this one artist I called Iamamiwhoami, sort of a Swedish electronic—these videos were like totally mysterious and nobody knew where they came from. To me, that was the most exciting thing that ever happened on YouTube. And I think that must have somehow kind of influenced it.
Christian Schultz:
Totally. So are features kind of like the long game for you? Is that sort of what you’re looking to move into next? And how does it look right now?
Young Replicant:
I don’t think the path is as clear as it used to be. Because you think, ‘Oh, this is like a fun thing to do.’ And then you like go do a feature, but you can kind of get stuck.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Young Replicant:
And it’s almost better just to start. I mean, obviously grass is greener, there’s like probably people like, who have only lived in kind of a Feature/Narrative Short, festival world who are like, ‘wow, it’d be so cool to do a commercial. It’d be so cool to do music video,’ and I’ve definitely met those people. I’m like, the music video guy. And they’re the, like, European festival rats. It’s like two different worlds.
Christian Schultz:
I mean, you did just do The Seven Faces with Jane with Julian Acosta. And who was it put on by?
Young Replicant:
Roman Coppola, Directors Bureau. Yeah.
Christian Schultz:
What was that like?
Young Replicant:
My buddy Chris Chang, who’s the music video rep at Directors Bureau—I went to UCLA with him. They were looking for the last person for [The Seven Faces of Jane] directors, and he hit me up and was like, ‘Yo, do you want to do a 12-page short?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, f*ck yeah.’ I approached it as sort of an experiment. It’s not my like, artistic statement, but it I felt like, what’s the most interesting branded thing I could do? And I think it sort of succeeds on that level as like its own story or short film. I don’t know. But I think it definitely does something interesting as a kind of branded.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. You guys just went to some festivals with it, right?
Young Replicant:
Yeah, I went to Bentonville [Film Festival], which is where Walmart is. That’s like the Walmart town. Weird place.
Christian Schultz:
Like, Walmart was like, the first one?
Young Replicant:
The drugstore was there. But it was like a great experience. There was a few moments on it, where I was really doing a lot of deep scene work with the actors. And, you know, I tried to take it really seriously. And I did like a made of my like, directors book and like, a lot of preparation. You know, half of it, you throw it out, but the deeper scene work, you’ve kind of done it already. And there was a few moments where you’re like, playing with the actors. And I’m like, ‘yes, this is what it’s about.’ This is real filmmaking as opposed to, you know, I don’t know, some of the other crap that we end up.
Christian Schultz:
Have you had that experience before? Narratively?
Young Replicant:
Every once in a while, there’ll be like a glimmer of working with someone who’s a trained actor. Well, not necessarily. Could be anything where you’re trying things and coming up with new ideas and you know, you strike something that makes it better, and you feel really good about that—even if you don’t use it.
Christian Schultz:
I would even create shorts now. Almost as an excuse to just work with more actors, where the situation is made for actors, and not so much like a visual thing.
Young Replicant:
Yeah, totally. It’s hard to get away from spectacle and as a commercial director, music video director, you’re on the hook to create a spectacle all the time. That’s what’s sort of nice about getting into these sort of scenes that are more about the performance. It’s less reliant on you, and then you’re sort of you’re trying to bring it out of somebody else. And that is its own sort of powerful kind of alchemy. It’s very challenging but also rewarding to dig into the psychology of people.
Christian Schultz:
And the camera’s just right here. We’re not moving—it’s just gonna be right here. And it’s all about you. The simplicity of it is fascinating. I don’t know how that set was, in particular, The Seven Faces of Jane, but I imagined it was pretty low pressure in terms of like the surrounding.
Young Replicant:
Sort of. There’s still the same sh*t because we shot it in two days. So it was like, wow. Fourteen pages in two days. Mine was like 16 pages, 17 minutes. So I guess it was just sort of a novel experience for me. You get through the director’s binder script and you’re making notes on it, you know, and it’s like, you’re kind of your classic director. You’re not running around, trying to be the DP.
Christian Schultz:
I love that. Well, I hope you hope you get to make your feature soon. I’m sure it will be exactly what you what you want it to be. It’s always a battle I think, but yeah. Appreciate you sitting with us, man.
Young Replicant:
Oh man, thank you so much.
