December 13, 2022
Dylan Clark: Respect, Religion, and Horror
STORY BY alefiya presswala / edited by olivia mckeon
Dylan Clark (‘23) is a young filmmaker from Virginia who focuses specifically on making short horror films for his YouTube channel, which has already amassed 34.3K subscribers.
Alefiya Presswala sat down with Dylan Clark to discuss his most recent project, “Portrait of God,” his creative process, and the audience’s role in his films.
AP: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
DC: So, I'm from Northern Virginia. But when I was growing up, we lived in Germany and Austria. I took an interest in filmmaking in Germany. And then we came back to Virginia after that, and through high school I continued pursuing it, and that's what led me to Ithaca specifically. The filmmaking.
AP: How did you get into films, and why specifically horror?
DC: I got into films from a really young age, I think the same way a lot of people did, you know, reading, and then kind of opening up that visual side of it was really exciting. Watching something and having that ability to not question how all this magical stuff came to be and believing all this stuff that I was seeing was fully real. That was exciting. And then I got into filmmaking, and I thought “Oh, you know what? We could probably easily make all that stuff on our own.” And so my friends and I in Germany started making little superhero films. Then when we learned how difficult it is to make these things- especially with special effects and whatnot- I dropped the superhero side and turned to the horror side, so that was like a sharp 180 once I moved back to Virginia. I started doing horror shorts with friends because I realized how much you can make out of so little. Ever since then, it's just kind of been falling in love with that genre from a filmmaker standpoint and also from just a film enthusiast standpoint where I just love seeing those films as well.
AP: Where do you get the ideas for your films? How do you go from an initial idea to planning out the lighting and shots and getting to the final product?
DC: I think the main thing is assessing what you have at your disposal, and figuring out how you can maximize exactly what you already have so that you're not scrounging around and, you know, making things out of nothing. You're utilizing the things you already have. Especially in horror, you know, less is more. So, it’s finding a couple of those small things at your disposal and really honing in on them to craft a script around them- and then even further honing in on what could be scary about those things.
So, for example, recently with “Portrait of God,” which was the last thing that I had done, we knew we had this classroom, which was literally a Park School classroom, with black curtains and a projector. So, knowing that we had those in our disposal, one actor, a couple of lights, how could we utilize that room and the strength of that small location to create something scary? That's kind of where that idea came from, with hearing something from the darkness and darkness being all around you and then the projector being the main mode of exposition and information.
AP: Can you tell me a little bit more about that element of the unknown? I feel like that appears a lot in your films. There’s never really a big jump scare, it’s more the creepiness of your horror comes from not knowing what the horror is.
DC: It's really hard to get those big jumpscare and visual moments to be effective. If you can make that work, then props to you, but it's the buildup to that that's usually the most effective part and the hardest part to craft. But, it's also the part that you can craft without having something visually there because you're scared of the unknown. So, you can imply that there is something scary lurking in the dark threshold of the doorway, not show it and just linger on that doorway for a bit too long instead. And that can be terrifying. Or you can aggressively whip around to look at the doorway and there could be a scary zombie or something. You might get a tiny jolt, but there's so much tension that's left out there. It's not easy because so much of it is time, and you have to watch a lot of horror and do it a lot. But once you can nail that timing, it can make those scenes more effective.
AP: Now talking about “Portrait of God” specifically, do you ever worry about your films appearing offensive and how do you work around that?
DC: Yeah, I was definitely worried about “Portrait of God” being offensive because of the religious subject matter. Particularly, I wasn't so worried about atheists and people who are not religious because I think that the film works on that level for them. But I also didn't want to offend people who are religious and believe in any kind of God.
It's not really meant to take a stance either way. It's meant to kind of just be like, God is this overwhelming presence. And, you know, to someone who is a sinner, God is a very scary person, like there is an angle by which God is frightening. And in the Bible, angels and God are perceived as these very intense, powerful things, so I was interested in pursuing that as, not a villain, but as an antagonist for the film.
I thought, hopefully by kind of emphasizing that it's not a villain, but an antagonist and also leaving it open as to whether it is God or not- kind of leaving that ambiguity- I hoped that it would take away from the possibility for this to be really offensive to people.
And it seems like, for the most part, I've gotten so many more incredibly religious people seeing the film and reading into it as seeing God as this thing that should not be witnessed and then some people reading it as not God at all. And I think that's great, having that discourse open is helpful. Dancing around that touchy subject matter isn't nerve-wracking. Horror is kind of the right place to do it as long as it's done sensitively.
AP: Right. And that's cool that the reactions are so good for the most part that people are just interpreting it the way they want to instead of putting it on you in a sense. Instead of “Oh, he thinks this; he thinks that,” it’s more like “He made this thing. Here’s what I think.”
DC: Yeah, I've been appreciative that people have been seeing it that way. It's kind of like a respect-your-audience type thing. I was really nervous about it, but so far, people have brought their own ideas to it in a really kind of impressive way, I think.
AP: Alright, here comes the big Stillwater question: how do you use your art to disrupt spaces in stasis?
DC: I think horror, especially horror paired with this sense of ambiguity we keep bringing up, is a great conversation starter. Especially with “Portrait of God” in particular. Religion is something that is talked about, so I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a space in stasis, but I think art and horror can be a good disrupter and inject some life into a conversation, or at least into part of an element of that conversation that may be kind of dormant.
And in particular, this image of God and what people would do when confronted with that image and if they didn't think that image aligned with what their beliefs were, that was something I wanted to explore. So, putting that out there and exploring that and having people talk about it is kind of how I see my disruption of stasis.
AP: What do you want people to take away from your films? What's a big, if there is one, central theme or message throughout your projects?
DC: I think to get an audience to take anything away from it, you have to earn their respect as a form of entertainment. Some people think you don't have to necessarily entertain first, but in my opinion, especially with horror, I need to make sure that the audience is with me so that they're already along for the ride by the time I inject my opinion or the message side of it. So, my first and foremost goal as a filmmaker is to engage the audience to get them totally wrapped up in the world.
Usually what I like to do is have the first half of the film be the wonder and horror side of it, with the back half of the film being more of the narrative, conclusion, and the message side of it. You have to do it in that order because if you don't get sucked down with the first part, the entertaining stuff, then you can't earn their respect when you decide that you want to inject your personal ideas into it. So, that's kind of what I want them to take away from it. I want them to take away the message, but also feel like they were entertained along the way.