The following is the first installment of PASSION PROJECTS, a new feature spearheaded by the Media Club to spotlight student-led side projects or initiatives. To get your project featured, fill out this form.
For the first installment of PASSION PROJECTS, we will be interviewing Oren Herschander, a Yeshiva College senior who recently released his first original short film, “Fred Like Me.” Less than three days after his video was posted to YouTube, it received over 1,700 views and continues to gain more viewers each day. Below is the first exclusive interview with writer, director, producer, and actor, Oren.
Observer: Your film is clearly unique, how did this particular idea come about?
Oren Herschander: When I met Fred at the Webby Awards last year, he was honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He was genuinely happy and thankful that little old me had watched his popular show. So from there, I got to thinking, what would it be like if there was a dream world (with dream logic) where a highly exaggerated version of nice guy Fred Armisen helped bring meaningful and hilarious details out of my brain and into the real world? In nonsense, there is always an uncanny sense of something meaningful.
O: What drove the creation of this kind of project as your first?
OH: This film is what goes on inside my head. As a result of my particular brand of OCD, I’ve always had a lot of anxiety that I’ll end up being misunderstood. I worry that everything I say won’t live up to this specific form of perfection that my mind has created–and subsequently communicating tends to give me a lot physical and mental pain when I constantly fall short of my version of perfection or feeling “Just Right” in every situation. To stop the pain, I went to therapy and started taking medication, but most importantly I had to start thinking outside my own head, and convince myself that there’s more than one version of perfection. References and metaphors are loose and purposely left to be interpreted in various, different ways–which effectively kills the idea of perfection all together. So meaning turns into something more fluid and subjective while still remaining somewhat logical for the interpreter.
O: Can you give us a peek behind the scenes?
OH: There’s a whole part we cut out where I’m dressed as Ferris Bueller. I break the fourth wall and explain what everything means. But I think it’s way more fun to leave it open for interpretation.
Also, we didn’t have any lighting equipment so in the bedroom scene we had to improvise by using those weird shabbat lamps as directional lighting. And it worked wonderfully.
O: Many passion projects are halted by budget constraints. How did you fund your film?
OH: My co-director, Avishai, already had a camera and editing program–so that left everything else. In the end, I think the whole thing cost about $4.75 for the fries that we later ate.
O: Do you have any advice for those who see money as an obstruction to their vision?
OH: I wrote the script with the budget in mind, and found working within the restraints to be a really fun exercise in creativity. It was like, what do I have and how can I make this work–which created whole new ideas while providing a framework to help guide my creative process. The noisy cricket gun and the other clearly fake guns were the props we had lying around–and they ended up making for some hilariously random and cool moments.
O: Any reason why you decided to make this film now?
OH: Avishai and I had talked about making something silly like this for a while. Last summer, we made some promotional documentaries about project based learning so we already knew our dynamic. So when we finally had time to work, we decided to make something really fun. For us and the world.
O: Is there anything surprising that came from this whole process?
OH: How important having original music is. Georgia Mills [the film’s music composer] really did a wonderful job adding that extra level to the film. Also, even though I directed, wrote, and played all the parts, I learned a lot about the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Without Avishai’s excellent editing and cinematography this wouldn’t be nearly as awesome…or even exist.
O: How did you find Georgia? Or for that matter anyone who helps with your projects.
OH: Avishai found her. Also, cool people know cool people when they see them. Just be friendly, and as James Earl Jones says in Field of Dreams, “People will come.”
O: Are there any future projects in the works?
OH: Maybe something about Bill Hader or something else that’s equally oddly specific. I’d love to make something where Bill Hader wakes up and realizes he’s actually just a small, neurotic, and less successful Jewish twenty-one-year-old, but we’ll see. I like to make jokes that sometimes become eight-minute long jokes on jokes.
O: Do you have any advice for fellow creators?
OH: In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, my good friend that I’ve never met, describes one of his character’s short stories. ““Kilgore Trout,” Vonnegut writes, “Once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.” We have so much power to beautify the world around us–don’t forget to be awesome and don’t trick yourself into thinking you know everything. Another perspective can elevate yeast into champagne and so on. I know when I look outside the box–and myself–I feel downright bubbly.
Like Oren’s production company, Oddly Specific Pictures, on Facebook and follow him on Twitter to get updates about his film and future projects.
Navah Maynard is a Media Studies student at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University where she is President of the Media Club.