Anne Marie Pace’s Growing Fangs is one of the new Launchpad short films that can be watched now on Disney+. It’s a tale of a vampire family – but not of the sort you may have seen before. Our focal point is teenager Val, and creator and director Pace chatted with Paul Simpson about the movie…

 

What was the start for Val’s journey for you? Did you have an image from the story or an insight into her?

I think it was, honestly, diving into myself and thinking of a story that I wanted to tell of something I experienced that could connect with other people. That became her being half human and half vampire. For me what that was, was growing up Mexican American and bisexual and feeling in between these identities and struggling with where I belonged within them. And through life having to learn that because you’re part of multiple identities doesn’t make you any less of those identities and that they all compound and make you fully who you are.

So that was the idea, wanting to explore that with her, but I knew I wanted to tell it in a way where she could be Mexican and queer and those things be celebrated and normalised, so the vehicle became telling it through a monster story. A monster story is essentially an outsider story of being feared and misunderstood so it felt like the perfect vehicle to really take her on this journey.

And yet we start it with her, to the outside audience, seemingly in a very familiar and familial position. The meal scenes scattered through the movie I think are the best moments. Were those some of the earlier things you’d built the framework round? They just feel so central.

Oh absolutely and that’s something I was thinking of when I decided that this was going to be vampires: I thought about my own family and how they would be if they were vampires and it’s very true to my family! My grandma is devoutly Catholic, she would never stop being Catholic. Even if she was a vampire and the holy water would sizzle her skin, she’d still be Catholic and so implementing those cultural moments to it. I think at times genre films or monster films forget that element and the culture of it can make it so deep and rich and specific. So that was the exploration with that and what I feel brought life to those moments was just the authenticity of stories from my own family.

Has your family seen the movie?

They know about it and they’re very curious to see their depiction but I think they’re going to feel like they really relate to it. Even at the beginning, they’re all eating conchas at the table and pouring blood on it. That’s exactly my family, they love conchas and the moment they see that, they’re going to relate to it.

In the first scene, Val rises then has the problem of getting down after she’s stuck on the ceiling, but you’ve got a shot of her looking down at them and it almost feels like there’s an air of superiority about her that then vanishes as the movie goes on. Was that a conscious thing or am I reading something more into it than you had in mind?

No, I think it’s an element, in that moment, of feeling so out of place and for her that out of place was stuck up on the ceiling and how that feels in those moments of all eyes on you. I think anyone who’s felt like an outsider can relate to that, of just feeling eyes on you and feeling small and for her it was small on the ceiling, just stuck there.

When you were writing it, were you thinking of how you were going to direct it? Or were you thinking ‘I am now the writer, directing it is tomorrow’s problem.’ Was it always ‘I’ve got to get this in a way that I can shoot it?’

I think for me there definitely are two hats, the writer’s hat and the director’s hat that I’ll put on each time but at the same time obviously doing both they seep into one another. When I was writing the script, the first visual I did come up with was her floating and pulling back from her in this disorienting shot. At first being upside down and then righting it up but then she’s floating and everything is disorienting which is essentially what she’s feeling in that moment, a disorientation about her identity and herself.

So it does seep in – even if I try to keep one hat on over the other, they all tend to seep in together.

So would you write that as specifically as ‘We open on her and then the camera changes’?

Sure yes. If I’m directing the piece then I will sometimes put in camera direction just so I remember where my mind was at while I was thinking of that scene.

Film is written in the script, it’s written in the shoot and it’s written in the edit; how much did this change between your original concept and what we can watch now?

Oh totally, so much of it changed, but at the same time the theme and the heart of the story was always the same. It’s just the elements of how we got there changed, either because the script got better and more specific and needed to change, or during production, there were just certain things we had to do or had to do without. The same in post.

I think that’s sort of the beauty of filmmaking and why it’s is an art. No matter what, you’re not going to come up with the exact controlled things you had thought of at the beginning. But that process of letting go and letting things happen and having happy accidents happen, really is what creates the art by the end. So it’s a really great process and I feel so proud of what it ended up being with the collaboration of everyone involved.

What for you was the biggest challenge of this?

I think there was a challenge just in general of shooting during COVID and having to be very planned out and efficient – and of course the shoots went slower because you had to make sure everyone was safe and wanted to make sure everyone was safe. But I felt so fully supported through that with Disney, and the Launchpad program in general was just this loving and supportive element that made me feel safe and empowered to tell this story and tell it safely through Covid.

I think by the end of the shoot the hardest part was just not being able to hug everybody and thank everybody because of the Covid elements, but it was definitely a challenge that everyone came ready and excited, and passionate to tell this story – and passionate about Launchpad in general and what it means and what it means for Disney so it became really empowering.

Growing Fangs and the other Launchpad short films are streaming now on Disney+