I had the pleasure of interviewing Try Guy, Zach Kornfeld as he discuss his directorial debut short, Ouch!, which is about his autoimmune disease.
What drove you to make this short film about your autoimmune disease?
Yeah, the game as an exercise I wanted to come up with as many usual metaphors as I could both for myself but also too, just try and answer that question. How do you explain? It is thing that no one can see that I can’t see and I was left with about 25 pages of scenes and visuals and ideas and it wasn’t a story, but it was cool. I know I shared it with some friends and thought, okay, maybe there’s something here I then worked on it for a couple months like throughout everything I had written and started over, threw it out again, eventually it found its way to this piece. I’ll also say I, uh, you know, I’ve been deeply. Interested in passionate about Interacting for a long time, but my day job is in making YouTube videos right? I don’t, this is not an arrhythm that I get to play in as much? And so I was thinking about what was a short then that would allow me to play in a magnitude of different visual styles while making something bad had a deeper impact and frankly, that I thought I could get made And when I realized, okay, I’ve shared a lot about my the disease to an audience before, and it’s always been deeply impactful. Maybe if I combine the 2 my personal story, and with this proclivity, for fantastical story telling, I can kind of do something that is deeply selfish, which is directing. All of these larger than life visuals Needing tactics that is as unselfish as possible, just making something that is hopefully deeply cathartic, for a wider audience.
How did you come up with your visual language and the process of constructing a narrative around them?
Um, so for me, the message of the movie is that the things you love are more important than things that hurt you? And so I wanted the form of the short to reflect that, and so it was a no-brainer for me, then to take all of the cinematic references and styles and genres all of the things that I love the most movies I grew up on Scenes that we’ve run free in my head to let that be the language that I use to let and to let my love language be the thing I use to describe the thing that hurts me. I wanted to make. It’s the world’s most fun disability movie and again, it also came from this. I desire as a director to play in as many styles as possible all at once but doing so in awaiting it hopefully. All of the pieces, no Alas, to being one water points, I tried to direct this like they would never let me make something else again. And so I, I, he went balls to the wall, if just had as much fun as possible in a variety of styles.
Yeah, so I really loved all the different styles. So how did your years of being a YouTuber help make you this short? Did you encounter any challenges while making it?
Um, I think that my experience on YouTube taught me the power of personal identity and finding something about you that you can share with them from our audience. So maybe, uh, a short film about it, both exponto items, it’s not, uh, mmaker, the most obvious move to people but I’ve known from, I know from what else that I’ve made that they’re But it has an opportunity to be deeply impactful. I’m deeply meaningful to an audience, and then also my experience, while specific could speak to people with other climbing conditions with other disabilities or other mental health disorders that if I just speak my truth, that that can then apply to What other people are struggling with and be deke? Cathartic, in that process.
While making this short, did you learn anything about yourself or about your creative process?
What did I learn about myself? I mean, the the story of the short is ultimately one of acceptance that something like AS and most disabilities are with you for life and you can be run away from it or be frustrated with it or let it define you, but ultimately. But for me it’s, it’s, my condition has been a park thing to accept and II wanted it to go away. I was looking for the one thing that would allow me to ignore it. I do think making the film has helped me on my own journey of acceptance and I think it’s no mistake that that is ultimately what the film is about.
Two events were portrayed during the end credits with you being stuck in bed was that inspired by real events, or was it like based on a dream or a bit of a nightmare that you would have?
Yeah, one of the so my body gets stiff, it will literally started, and I used to wake up in the middle of the night immobilized in a deep amount of pain. Um there was actually one time my roommate was sleepwalking, he’s like 65 and he came into my room, and it was just this silhouette of a giant man I could have moved And it was the most terrifying thing ever. It is because my body is like it’s basically having an arthritic for a long period of time. Um, that scene, I love it is one of my favorite things that I wrote, it is really goofy and big Russ Rivera. I think gives such a fine performance of that my buddy Zach Evans as the robber, it’s big, it’s campy, it’s siwity. And it was originally around the midpoint of the movie and it just didn’t work.
Everyone who watched it gave me feedback that the movie, just like slammed on the brakes whenever it got to that scene. Um they hated it, and so we took it out and then put it in the end, credits, and it suddenly tested as everyone’s favorite part. I’m sure. So I’m, I’m very happy that it found a home, but yes to directly answer your question. It is based on up kind of the worst, you know in my mid-twenties, and even a little bit in high school that was one of the worst parts of having this is that I would wake up in an immense amount of pain Unable it would disrupt my sleep and so this is a bit of a, the nightmare projected forward of the worst case scenario of what a feature might look like.
You talked about how you rearranged scenes. Was there a scene that you shot that couldn’t end up making it into the final cut?
Yeah, um, the edit went through a lot of changes just to find the right alchemy. In order of CS. So there are I tried to use the whole Buffalo because everything made me shot is so naturally dynamic and exciting, my dp, toe for Osborne, she’ll be Ah I love how this looks, but there were. There’s only one shot that didn’t make it into the final edit, but there were certainly longer versions of scenes like The nuclear reactor moment was originally a bit longer. There was an extended portion in the doctor’s office, originally not seed out of 4 wall break and similar to the end credits. And I just found in the edit that the more I stripped away the dialogue the last literal I tried to be and explain my disease? The more individuals were able to take the forefront and the better the film ultimately was.
How did you come up with creating the creature design for your disease?
Yeah, my costume designer Theo Laden and I talked a lot about what specifics we could draw on from my disease, even if the audience didn’t connect those dots consciously, at least we would know we had a reason for it. So invisible illnesses are to rasp. It’s hard to get your arms around and really fully understand. And so we knew we wanted the the the margin we knew we wanted the borders of the monster to fight the creature and saying we knew we wanted the borders of the creature to be somewhat imperceptible, it was hard to know where it began and the shadows that it did even the outline. Of it is jagging, it ends. It looks sharp and painful, but you also can’t really get a full grasp of it. It’s teeth, our setting rows so much like a flare up once you get in, it is hard to get out of it. There were all these little things that we felt that if we drew on you know, direct metaphor has come from my experience that at least it would Give us a poise to a domain to plan. Uh, mm, and then also it’s just real freaking looking.
Yeah, no I really loved how it looked.
It’s cool. Yeah, I know I’ve had that costume in my garage still and it regularly scares the shit out of me.
So what are you hoping the audience gets from your short film outside of the general raising awareness about the disease?
Yeah, III hope that it’s fun and I hope that it’s cathartic. Um, you know, I think it’d be great if people left. And wet I know more about as, but that’s not my goal I, this is not one of directing. This is not a film aimed at direct advocacy, is II think it’s right to humanize experience like Disability your chronic pain but more than anything. I hope that this lets people feel seen you have to have some fun doing it. I’ve said before I think in this bet, the message to me is that the things you love are more important than things that hurt you. So I hope that this serves us if nothing else as a reminder that Your passions matter more when it comes to your identity, the things that nail you
What is next for you? Are you planning on making more short films or going back to YouTube, so what’s next?
Yeah, uh, well, my digital career never ends. That is that’s home base and I’m having a lot of fun doing it. We recently launched second try, which is a subscription service where people get to we’re getting to take some risks outside of the algorithmic ecosystem, YouTube will continue to be a big part of what I do I love it. It’s where my audiences, they are the ones that allow me to I hate these risks then and try new things, but second tries, where we’re spending a lot of our efforts and making new shows for that platform finding out what the audience wants work. Having so much fun doing it, I have a beyond that, certainly you know. I’m looking forward to exhibiting this film, letting people see you and I have A few more shorts that I I’m interested in that I’m thinking about which one comes next and then with between all that carving out the time to write a feature, but I imagine it’ll be a few years before you see that 1.
Is the short plan on going to any other festivals besides Fantasia?
We’ll see there are a couple more, I’m out to then we’ll find out Uber the next couple months stop, I’m trying to only play it at festivals that I can go to. So we’ll see what matches out. But I the reason that I’m not putting this out online yet is because I want to see it with an audience so I look forward to more opportunities to do that.
Where can people learn more about this disease?
Uh, I mean, I’ve made a few videos about my experience with this. So if you want my perspective, that’s a decent that is a if I say they’re somewhat biased, but I think a mostly an entertaining way to learn about it. Um, I don’t know that you need to learn more about the disease, if you don’t have it, I think that you want to, I’m sure you can Google it.
Given that the Olympics are about to start in 2 days. What are your favorite Olympic sports to watch?
Really caught me by surprise. I never realized the Olympics are coming 1 year, I saw I don’t even know if it’s summer or winter, but I saw competitive trampoline electric, fantastic exhilarating, I love any of the more obscure, uh, sports where you know nothing about it and you watch it on TV and like? The lobby of a hotel or a bar and 10 minutes in everyone in the room thinks that they’re an expert on it, and they’re calling out like footballs, and you’re like, if I know the bar is there or what even you’re giving her a 9, what are you talking about? Obviously the right answer is curling. I need to do a curling video before I die. That is the dream that it is the bucket list.
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