Director Jane Schoenbrun Interview — Counting Crows, Michael Bay

[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”] 

There are probably a lot of IndieWire readers (and writers) who can relate to the desire to get an A+ on the test of whatever we’re doing in our adult lives. Certainly, on their first two features, Jane Schoenbrun wanted to ace the exam of directing film, working for months on way more than just a shot list. 

Among the prep documents Schoenbrun utilizes is the daily “cheat sheet” that they and their script coordinator, Sepi Mashiahof, put together. This is a printout of reminders of how each scene being shot that day fits into the overall puzzle, with sections on performance, thematic and aesthetic rules, what’s important about sound and music, how even the smallest inserts are part of a larger game, or goal, for the scene. 

Staying hyper-organized and detail-oriented helps the “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and “I Saw the TV Glow” director make art that feels intentional in every moment. But with their third feature, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Schoenbrun also wanted to push the bounds of what movies they make, how those movies feel, and what they say. That meant studying just as hard for the test, but embracing messier answers.

“ If you’re building a filmography — and I think it’s also like something of the self-consciousness of being a trans filmmaker and forever being in this kind of no-win bargain of, ‘Yeah, I am trans, and I’m making personal work, as I think most filmmakers should. Of course the films are going to be engaged with my transness,’ and also, it just gives people such an excuse to pigeonhole you as doing one thing,” Schoenbrun told IndieWire on an episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast. 

It’s not that Schoenbrun let go of their cheat sheets for “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” it’s that they wanted to put their hyper-focused perspective to a story with a different, definitely more affirming tone and perspective, while still playing with the language of horror — and, in particular, the glorious, campy excess of the ‘80s slasher film.   

“Trans is one identity that I have and artist is another, and you always want to be expanding what you feel allowed to do,” Schoenbrun said. “My conception of how to have a long filmography that expresses truths is to never allow oneself to be put into a box, even in one’s own mind. So this film — it was a really empowering experience for me to take the risk of maybe falling on my head by being like, ‘I don’t think anyone is wanting me to make a goofy sex comedy after ‘TV Glow,’ but I have to.’” 

What lies at the center of the Venn Diagram of goofy sex comedy, earnest exploration of art and intimacy, slasher franchises, and hyper-detailed-oriented filmmaking is what lies in the literal middle of “Camp Miasma” itself: a killing spree sequence set to the Counting Crows’ “Long December.” Of course. 

“[We did] probably like 100-plus hours in prep just on that sequence. You’ve got to shot list it. We went to each location and walked it and timed to the song second by second and figured out how the camera moves would organize around themselves to feel seamless. I love watching it now but for a while I couldn’t watch it because it was too close to the truth,” Schoenbrun said. “Once we had the bare bones, it just became, like, interdepartmental hell.” 

Hell is sometimes a series of conference rooms meetings, where the SFX and VFX teams need to talk about how the work of faking maimings, decapitations, and buckets of fake blood are going to be shared. The costume department need to understand how many duplicates of each outfit they need and how messed up to make each. Everyone needs to weigh in on how a rolling, talking head is going to look seamless. 

The stunt team not only needed to figure out the hero choreography, but how to throw 20 to 30 extras around the space. And a lot of the work, and a 60-pound camera rig, fell on the shoulders of Jack Haven, playing Little Death, who had to dance out the sequence’s choreography in a way that draws viewers into the catharsis of the kill spree while also looking effortless. 

“It was one of those all-time great, not even movie moments, life moments. With a shot that ambitious, it takes five hours to get ready to even film and then how many hours do we have left in this day? How are Jack’s shoulders doing? It was really fourth-quarter Super Bowl touchdown energy, where what was very clearly the last time we could do this was the one,” Schoenbrun said. “Not that the others were bad, but this was awe-inspiring. It’s like watching that Super Bowl moment of everything went right at the last minute after a ton of hard work. But even hard work can’t guarantee it.” 

The best that hard work can do, perhaps, is make you ready for the moment when the movie rises up from the bottom of the lake of its own volition, and asserts itself. “The joy and the high of it is everyone there is chasing glory and the film is chasing joy in the same way, and it came together so beautifully. And thank you to Adam Duritz, obviously, as well,” Schoenbrun said. 

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is now playing in theaters.