In case you missed it, Kane Pixels did a Q&A at CCMX which was livestreamed on YouTube. It can be watched here,
We’ve chosen what we thought were the best parts and given our overall thoughts on what Kane shared with the audience.
On what the Backrooms are:
The panel begins with the hosts asking Kane to provide an elevator pitch for Backrooms and why it’s become so addictive, although Kane wasn’t able to provide a summary in that short of a time!
It was this anonymous image coupled with an anonymous caption on 4chan in 2019 that became a bit of a meme and people latched onto it as sort of an idea of this place that is kind of a monoculture unspace – like a space that we see every day that we pass through – like an industrial backspace that you can’t imagine anyone being sentimental about. Sterile, not abandoned, but definitely neglected. And so it’s sort of just like playing into the idea of what if – for no fault of your own, not because it’s divine judgement or anything – what if you accidentally ended up in this place forever. And that’s like the most simple version of the idea.
I loved hearing Kane going into the origin of the Backrooms ‒ mentioning about the original post on 4chan (which he also mentions again later) and acknowledging where it all began is something I think most fans will appreciate.
He went on to further acknowledge the community aspect of Backrooms content (including the wikis), how it kickstarted the liminal space trend, and how he started creating this world himself. As a fan of many aspects and lores of the Backrooms, I was very happy that he acknowledged this. While there are some fans out there who may not like certain aspects of the Backrooms, at the end of the day it all comes from the same place ‒ that original image. There may not even be anything else out there where something so simple has inspired so many.
One one of the Themes of the Movie:
This film is a look at what happens in the life of these people who are living these very atomized lonely lives. They come into contact with a sort of physical externalization that is very real – of essentially like the unexplored – you know the sort of when you have nowhere left to go. There’s this sort of internal space and they kind of find themselves in there in a way.
One of the things that many people love about Kane’s Backrooms is that beyond the Found Footage videos, it brings a story to it. The Async storyline in the series not only brings intrigue and mystery with it’s ARG and analog horror feel, but it also brings very human elements to the characters. We see characters that we can care about or even hate.
The theme Kane talks about here shows us the human element of the story. It will go beyond just being a horror, but this statement instead shows us there will be characters that we will care about. Even from the trailer and subsequent Cap’n Clark’s video there have been people online saying that they don’t want anything to happen to Clark because they already care about this character.
On the Two Views of the Backrooms:
The host mentioned that there were two kinds of people in the movie – those who wanted to explore and those who don’t want to have anything to do with it.
“I think working on the film has been an exercise in a meta way of doing similar things to what the characters are doing while obviously very removed from the the actual, any kind of threat to life. I would say I would definitely let the curiosity get the better of me. I know that for a fact I wouldn’t be able to leave it alone and it would become like the only thing I’m focused on probably until I somehow get my head around it. But that may or may not even be possible in the first place so I think it would mess me up pretty bad.”
“It’s alluring. I think a lot of people find that it’s almost more of a intriguing concept than simply a scary one. I think there’s a lot of intrigue around the idea of it. It’s the the simplest experience of a person alone in a room and that can be very profound if it’s treated meditatively and it can be very destructive if it’s forced upon someone.”
This was one thing that we don’t really hear Kane talk about. As his series ‒ and as an extension, the movie ‒ focus on the horror factor. Personally, I am one of those people who find the idea of the Backrooms intriguing and even comforting in a way ‒ I’d be that person who just wants to go and explore them and even get lost! So to hear him acknowledge this side definitely was a personal highlight. However, I’m not alone in this and Kane acknowledges this too ‒ out in the greater Backrooms community there are many of us who feel this way, whether it be about Backrooms or liminal spaces in general.
On the Fluorescent Lights:
“I mean the hum-buzz is one of the most iconic elements of the place. It’s like the wallpaper, carpets, drop ceiling, and then in the drop ceiling you’ve got these faulty ballasts in these troughers humming at this constant frequency seemingly forever. and its inescapable wherever you go. It’s just like a grating sound and I think that serves to just emphasize how mediocre of a place it really is and how grating but not violent it is. It’s like constantly in an in-between state of feeling almost threatening but there’s no clear threat so you almost start to invent them yourself.”
The last sentence in particular actually is a direct correlation to how some interpret the original concept – that you have ended up in a place and you don’t know where you are so you begin to think there is something out there with you. It’s interesting that Kane connected this directly to the hum-buzz sound of the lights too, as sound can have a profound effect on people – some sounds in particular can elicit more fear than just silence.
“The sound team we worked with – I’m really happy with how it sounds. I think in a theater it feels like you’re really there.”
This was one of the more mind-blowing aspects that he revealed. That the sounds of the lights will make cinema audiences feel like they were there. I absolutely can’t wait to hear what it sounds like! And it goes to show the quality of the production.
“I could sleep to it, I have slept to it before.”
New product idea – hum-buzz mediation sounds!
Creating the World in Blender:
“Blender has been an integral part of making the film at all levels.”
Kane talked about how much Blender was an important part of making the film at all levels. From his initial concept art that he used to pitch the film to studios, to pre-production, shot listings, storyboarding and lighting preview. As some in the community also noticed that extensions (as in a CGI extension of a wall) were used in some parts of the trailer, it appears that the use of Blender went beyond that mentioned here. It’s also interesting to note that Kane has stuck by using Blender, even on a larger scale production. As some will know, Blender is actually a free 3D rendering software, while generally in industry paid programs such as Maya, Cinema 4D and Unity. For Kane to be able to continue to use Blender ‒ the program that he began all of this with even before Backrooms ‒ is a testament to his abilities. And just goes to show that free/open-source software can be just as good as paid options!
“All the sets I made in Blender I then handed over to the art department and we just built exactly what was in Blender. So all of the sets in the film exist like there’s a full 3D replica of them and we did everything there.”
It’s quite exciting to hear that a full 3D version of the sets exist. Could Kane even possibly release this to the community like he did with the maps from his YouTube series? This would definitely be an exciting thing for the community if he did! Of course this may depend on any contractual agreements with A24, so we will have to wait and see.
On his Inspiration and Fan Service:
I wanted to try to faithfully adapt to the original 4chan post for it and make something that held up to that and didn’t go crazy out of bounds or anything. I kind of just focused on what was working already because I think inherently you can trace what works at all levels for Backrooms back to that first and I think the simplicity of it is what worked.
Those who might have read some of our other articles, might recall that he came across the original image/text on Instagram and was inspired to recreate the area in Blender. But to read that his inspiration was to keep the feeling and simplicity of the original text is certainly something that shows his respect for the source material.
He went on to mention that he tried to stay away from fan service (for this is is unclear if he is referencing other Backrooms lores, or things that were popular in his own lore ‒ as many of us have picked up on several ‘fan service’ elements in the trailer ‒ particularly the re-creation of the area in the original image as well as many references to things from his series).
I feel like there’s been a plan that I think with this film in particular, we really wanted to find a version that would work for fans of my Backrooms series and for fans of just Backrooms in general. No one really owns the Backrooms, there’s just many interpretations. And then there’s people who have never heard of the Backrooms. I think this film offers something for all of those groups and I think it works well.
Firstly, the acknowledgement that that Backrooms doesn’t belong to anyone is a big one. Some people were worried that with a studio backed movie, A24 or even Kane might try to claim the Backrooms. And while many of us knew this wasn’t the case as the Backrooms as a concept can’t be copyrighted (myself included), it’s always great to hear someone like Kane say this. His attitude towards such aligns with how most members of the Backrooms community feel ‒ and even Black August, writer of the original text. Most of us acknowledge that the Backrooms are that ‒ a shared universe which has inspired so many people to create in many different ways.
This part of the Q&A also shows that he really cares about and understands the audiences who will be watching the movie. So many adaptions of movies from games in particular fail because the producers/director don’t understand not just the source material, but also the intended audience. Of course we already know that Kane understands the source material through his own series being such a great representation of the Backrooms concept. But this statement extends on this, showing that he can see what different groups of fans ‒ and even non-fans would like to see.
If you’re reading this and are only a fan of the extended lore, give the movie a shot! Even if it doesn’t have elements that you are familiar with like levels and extended lore entities. You just may be pleasantly surprised!
On why are we Obsessed with these Spaces:
” think the Backrooms is kind of an externalization of that anxiety of what happens when you stare at a blank wall for too long. You start to hallucinate and start to find meaning in that hallucination.
Kane went into a lot of depth here about how such spaces reflect what is happening in the real world, almost sounding philosophical about it all. There was too much to unpack here as he gave a lot of different examples. The knowledge and thoughts of someone who is only 20 really shone through here and showed that he’s someone well beyond his years.
“I think this film does a really good job of foregrounding of what I think most people want upfront. But then it does start to travel into some slightly more interesting, slightly different areas. It kind of shows us a little bit more under the hood of what this place really is. And you know it’s obviously under this fictional concept lies a deeper obsession with the world like the architecture and everything but there’s a lot of different spaces in this film.”
He goes on to relate these concepts to the movie itself and how it goes beyond the initial idea. From what he says, it sounds like it will look into some of what the Backrooms are ‒ although we do hope that he doesn’t reveal too much. Part of the allure of the Backrooms is the mystery of not knowing what it truly is.
“The concept is disintegrated and put through a blender and ends up in the Backrooms. That it’s kind of just the world put through a blender and pieced together on the other side.”
While this description goes hand-in-hand with not just what Kane’s Backrooms are in the series, but also what we know from the trailer. With rooms and memories being recreated, but there’s always something off about them, something not quite right, or something that is incomplete.
On the Internet being a place for Modern Urban Legends:
“I’m not the authority on this, but I want to think that it always has been as long as people have had a way to share stories, the internet has been a place to do that. I think that maybe properties like this are being recognized as having larger audiences and larger commercial value and everything. So I think you’ll see a bit more of a jump towards the path that the Backrooms took to the big screen.”
Not long before I started getting into the Backrooms, I had begun to delve into the world of Creepypastas. And while some of them admittedly can be mediocre at best, there are others which really are intriguing and interesting stories. There is definitely a lot of good material to be explored from this area with some of them ‒ like the Backrooms ‒ having a pre-existing community of fans.
Many of these stories and legends continue to intrigue and encapsulate many people. I feel that these internet stories definitely are the modern folklore. In the past people told such stories through word of mouth or written means. Now they spread and told online, reaching a much larger audience from all over the world. Some of them even have an aspect that makes them feel like they might be real. The Backrooms is one such case of this too ‒ there are many aspects of the Backrooms that can feel very real, and in fact there are accounts of people out there having gone to such places, having dreams about such, or even just having a familiar feeling of deja-vu.
On what he wants to Continue Doing:
“I firmly love the work I do on YouTube and I love my YouTube audience. I want to keep doing stuff on YouTube while doing stuff like this when it makes sense. I think you can get great creative fulfilment out of it (YouTube) and I think there’s a lot you can do in the way of setting up larger projects through this kind of pipeline.”
Kane had hinted last year that he missed making YouTube videos so those of us who followed him already realized that he wanted to stay in this direction. But it also looks like he is open to doing more movies also if the time arises.
Over recent years a few film-makers who have had theatrical releases after starting out on YouTube. Standouts in the horror genre include Skinamarink by Kyle Edward Ball, Shelby Oaks by Chris Stuckmann, Iron Lung by Markiplier. These films and many others show that small-time directors and writers are out there in the YouTube space and in most cases bring a fresh and new spin on horror. With Backrooms being the next movie to come from this space and also being much more hyped than other movies from YouTube creators, we expect to see more YouTube and indie directors getting their shot on the big screen.
On the Backrooms and Nostalgia
“I feel like the Backrooms absolutely weaponizes that nostalgia and takes that veneer, fuzziness of the past and uses that visual to just compliment the general overall themes of living in the shadow of a past that is constant. The human brain can’t really store the past. It constantly changes with what’s being interpreted. It reconsolidates the memories over and over again. And I think feeling that wear and that loss of information visually is just at least a subconscious and heady way to look at it.”
When I first became a Backrooms fan I didn’t really pick up on the nostalgia side of it all, I was just intrigued with the concept. But as I delved more into it ‒ and in particularly into the liminal spaces side of it ‒ I too began to realize these feelings that such evoked. These spaces unlocked many mostly forgotten memories for me, and more profoundly the fact that liminal spaces have always been with me throughout my life, they’ve always been places that I have loved to explore and be in since I was a child. It’s amazing how decades later, something that technically came from a single image unlocked all of that.
I think Kane describes this exactly here ‒ talking about humans not being able to remember a lot of things in our lives and our perceptions changing. I grew up in the 80s, where technology was only in its infancy and my exposure to things like computers was almost inexistent as my family never owned a computer. We are now so connected digitally that we tend to forget what it was like at those times. And for generations like Kane ‒ Gen-Z ‒ these is an additional factor beyond the nostalgia of what they see. His generation have never experience d a world without technology. It can be seen as a more simpler time to them, a yearning for a place that they never got to see.
On that, the Q&A ended. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Kane speak on not just the movie, but also the Backrooms in general. As the movie comes closer to releasing we will surely see all manner of interviews with him from major media outlets and he’ll probably even appear on TV. We will gain even more insights into the thoughts and ideas of this not only very talented, but also a very knowledgeable young man. At only 20, he shows more insight into things than some much older than him. I couldn’t be more happier with the type of person who is taking Backrooms to the big screen!
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