Ken Cohen - Independent Directing in the Digital Age
Ken Cohen in an independent film-maker based out of South Carolina with a passion for thought-provoking twisted cinema. Past film festival awards he has taken home include Best Homegrown Horror at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival and Best Animated Horror at DragonCon.
What’s interesting about Ken’s films are the turn of events they take and when those turns happen in the timeline, it’s not uncommon to see major distressing circumstances unravel at any point in the story, especially when you least expect it. He will pull you in and bring you along for the ride until a resolution takes place.
During my time with Ken we spoke about how he got involved in film-making, his inspirations, how he writes his stories and character-plots, and the challenges of the indie film world in today’s digital age.
Film Director/Producer Ken Cohen
“If you want to make films, you have to learn to pay attention to details.”
V - What made you want to get into directing and producing short films?
KC - There are many film directors that made a big impact on me and I want to make an impact for someone else. If I can make an edgy story come to life in a way that someone wants to watch it over and over again then I feel like I succeeded.
As a kid I spent most of my time watching and going to the movies, it was a highlight of my younger years. Movies like Pulp Fiction, Fargo, Rushmore, Memento, and Election or other works from the Coen Brother’s and Wes Anderson really inspired me because of their edgier and bizarre writing. Those works were also a significant turning point in the history of cinema.
In middle school I started paying attention to how films were written and eventually began researching how to properly write and format scripts. I got a video camera in high school and would shoot little shorts here and there, asking friends to play out the roles I had written. There are a lot of variables in any given film and I couldn't wait to start playing around those variables myself.
Once you write something, you naturally want to film it so that’s how I started directing. Between using different angles (like shooting from inside trunks or cabinets), to using music as a tool to shift the mood of a scene, there are so many components working together at the same time to make one large sequence. It’s fascinating the way it works.
V - How did you learn to direct and edit?
KC - Trial and error. If you want to make films, you have to learn to pay attention to details. There weren’t any “real” film classes in college so I took a beginner’s audio class, and an “intro to film” class where we talked about the basics of what makes up a movie, but there was nothing technically film driven available. When it came to stringing clips together I would pay attention while watching movies to see what shots worked and how they were made. You can learn a lot just by trying to imitate and compare shots side by side.
Film Poster for “Skin Baby”. Ken Cohen directed, wrote, and produced this short which went on to win a Crimmy Award at the Crimson Screen Horror Festival in 2018. You can now stream the film on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Skin-Baby-Phyllis-Jackson/dp/B07KW6NPBR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=skin+baby+ken+cohen&qid=1572313316&sr=8-1
V - Which directors/films are your biggest inspirations?
KC - As I mentioned before, the Coen Brother’s and Tarantino really inspired me as far as writing goes. Most people don’t typically react well to something strange and twisted so if you can make them like something out of their comfort zone, that’s awesome. Alexander Payne and Todd Solondz were also big influences with their great dark humor and social commentary. Being John Malkovich by Charlie Kaufman blew me away at the time with it’s story and perfect momentum. I also have a pure love of movies like Star Wars, Terminator, and other big franchises. The feeling you get when watching a movie like those is unlike anything else. Independent movie theaters were also a big thing in Michigan where I grew up in the late 90’s and that was were I was really exposed to lower-budget independent cinema.
Even though I was a fan of the series, I never wanted to make something like Star Wars. Other films like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore stood out to me because they were very grounded, very low budget, very unique, and very stylistic. The 90’s had so many great scripts filled with non-linear structures and dark comedic elements that were so different for the time. That's the kind of stuff I want to do.
V - A lot of your films have strong female protagonists that are put in very strange situations, where did the inspiration for those characters and these situations come from?
KC - The majority of leads in major motion pictures are males, I feel like they’ve been in the spotlight enough over the years. Having female lead characters is not new but they are becoming more prominent, which is great.
Regarding the bizarre situations, I enjoy trying to explore them from the female perspective. A lot of the earlier films I wrote fell into the “hopeless romantic” category with male protagonists because it was easier to write those with some elements of my own life experiences mixed in to the stories. At some point, I started asking my female friends what they would do in certain situations and found inspiration through their perspective.
“I wish I was more clever but the ideas usually just go where they want to go”
“Her Lips are Mine” started out with the idea of a monster… What if they had taken body parts from people that are still alive? How would the victims deal with it? Would there be a support group? The idea of someone living with a missing body part and knowing it's on someone else just really intrigued me.
With “Feels Like”, you see these stories on the news all the time where people leave either children or pets in the car on a hot day. I hadn't really seen a movie pick at that. Rather than have someone rescue the child I thought, “What if the parent took vengeance on whomever was responsible?”. You can see the reaction in a responsible adult that you couldn’t see in a baby with no responsibility that was purely a victim.
V - Do you think about the layers of meaning behind your films while you’re writing them?
KC - I just keep trying to think of ways to make things interesting. By being open to having stories possibly go in so many different directions, a lot of it comes accidentally. I wish I was more clever but the ideas usually just go where they want to go. I'm glad they come across as having different layers.
Directed and produced by Ken, “Her Lips Are Mine” won “Best Animated Horror” at DragonCon Film Festival in 2019 and was later distributed digitally by Crypt.TV.
V - What are the hardest/easiest parts about making indie films?
KC - The easiest part is finding talented people to be in the film. Thankfully there are always people that want to be in films and luckily enough in a town like Charleston a lot of people will try out for roles.
The most difficult part is figuring out what to do after you finish a film and how to get it seen. Making movies is easier for everyone than ever before whereas it used to be very difficult. How do you get a film out there for the world to see? Millions of other people are doing it, how can you keep people’s attention when there is so much content and there are so many streaming sites and services? How do you compete with that?
V - What are your thoughts on films festivals?
KC - The film festivals are nice to get your film seen by people in a theater setting. They’re a way to experience the community, meet other filmmakers, see their films, and going out to a bar to network and talk to people about the films you just watched is always fun. You're around all of these people that love the same kind of films that you do. It's more for that now, it's not necessarily something that can get a film bought or distributed anymore.
It's nice to have people that don’t know you watch your film and come up to you asking questions about it. Hearing that it had a resonating effect on them is an incredible feeling. It’s definitely rewarding but again, even in a festival there's so much that content you have to compete with.
V - Is there anything you’d like to plug as of October 2019?
KC - I want to thank Crypt.TV for streaming Her Lips Are Mine on their Youtube channel. Vocal Cord was just released on my personal Youtube channel and Feels Like will be making some festival runs over the next few months. In the future I’d like to explore more outlets for digital distribution. At a film festival, your film might be seen by thirty people and it’s a great experience. Comparatively, if it lives online it might get viewed by 60,000 people which is also great. In a way the internet has become a more permanent host since people can go back and re-watch if they want to. I hope they do.
Check out Ken Cohen at https://www.youtube.com/c/KenCohen