Welcome to Short and Sweet, our look at some of the short films screening at South by Southwest 2022. Today we talk with Katherine Propper, director of Austin-made hybrid drama “Birds” which is part of the Texas Shorts program.
Austin Chronicle: We talked a couple of years ago about your last short, “Street Flame,” which was another look at teen life through the lens of the death of one of their own. What’s the appeal for you about teenage stories?
Katherine Propper: My younger brother moved in with me my second year of film school when he was 16. He attended McCallum High, the arts high school near me, and I cast quite a few of the teens in “Birds” from asking his classmates at his school if they’d be interested in being in a film.
I also wanted to explore moments that felt higher in stakes as coming-of-age moments — like falling in love for the first time or being on an adventure in search of something. Some of the appeal of working with young people was also in my process. I wanted to spend time with the actors before writing the script, and it is easier to find young people who are available and interested after school or on weekends to hang out for film research.
AC: The other side of that is making the story feel authentic. How do you approach making a story about contemporary teens feel contemporary, and not an adult’s view of what being a teen is?
AC: “Street Flame” was given structure through the voiceover, but “Birds” is very loose, almost abstract, and built through juxtaposition of these narrative moments. Is that something you can script, or is it in the filming, or the discovery process of editing?
KP: Discovery happened for me at every stage of the process. The whole film was made in the process of me trying to figure out what kind of film I wanted to make. I knew I wanted to explore my process in the making of the film and I threw out the first more linear script I wrote in favor of trying something different that honestly is not to everyone’s taste.
I knew I wanted to create drama out of events that felt less contrived and the best way to capture that truth was me throwing out my preconceived ideas. Instead, I spent time with the cast and would interview them and rewrite the script based on what they shared with me.
Some of that discovery also happened in the filming of moments that were a little more doc-style. The reality of certain locations definitely informed the film, and there are certain people featured in the film who just happened to be in the setting when we were filming. Crafting all the moments together in a way that made sense was a huge part of the editing process — it was definitely a lot of discovery.
AC: For a 13 minute short, there’s a big cast, all of whom have to carry their own moments. What’s your casting process?
My casting process was varied but pretty similar to street casting. I found some of the cast on Instagram and directly messaged them. I found five of the actors from just picking up my brother at his school and asking some students if they’d be interested in being in a UT student film.
I also did a Q&A at Austin high school’s film class and found two of the actors from that class visit. It was a pretty organic process because I didn’t have a set definition of how many actors I needed or how many vignettes would be in the film. I just tried to ask people to be in the film who I found personally compelling or interesting, and they also had to be open and flexible to being in a hybrid-style film.
Birds
Texas Shorts, World PremiereTuesday, March 15, 3:15pm, Rollins
Online: Through March 21
This article appears in Guide to SXSW 2022.
