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Life & Work with McKenzi Vanderberg

Today we’d like to introduce you to McKenzi Vanderberg.

Hi McKenzi, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I fell in love with storytelling at the age of five, asking my mother for the hundredth time to invent a Green Knight tale to send me to sleep. I fell in love with film shortly thereafter, holding a weekly sacred ceremony of movie-watching and ice cream-eating with my father. Growing up, I was always attracted to the arts, participating in years of community theater and dance classes. It was in my sophomore year of undergraduate at Rollins College that a professor “dared” me to step outside my comfort zone and write/direct a short film. Always having a bit of a rebellious streak, I accepted the dare, and my first short film launched a glorious domino effect that has brought me to my filmmaking career in Los Angeles. After graduating undergrad, I worked at a nonprofit indie movie theater and film festival, helping to curate and support emerging filmmakers’ content.

After a few years, I realized I wanted to create as much as support others’ visions, and I applied to the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California to receive my MFA in Film & TV Production. At USC, while trying to find my voice in filmmaking, I fell into the abyss of the horror genre and therein found my community. I made multiple horror short films that went on to have successful festival runs – my thesis of which found online distribution with Gunpowder & Sky’s ALTER channel. I also wrote my first feature screenplay, which recently placed in the Top 50 of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. After graduating in Spring 2022, I find myself circling back to supporting other filmmakers in their creative endeavors, supporting the script development departments of companies like Blumhouse Productions, Fangoria, and K Period Media. In more immediate goals, I hope to direct my first feature film, as well as continue to write and creative produce. In the long term, I hope to form a production company with my creative partner and foster a cross-genre space to support female-centric stories.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As one can imagine, attending film school during a global pandemic that forced the world to go virtual was a bit of an obstacle. Of my six semesters over three years at USC, more than half of my education was spent online. That said, my cohort was incredibly resilient and beautifully collaborative, and we continued to make our art – just pivoting to new mediums. A team of us were able to make an entirely virtually-made thesis film over Zoom – a found-footage horror film that continues to play film festivals as a show of force behind our incredible team. Our team was also the first all-female production crew in USC’s history, something we will be forever proud of. Time and time again, I have been reminded that challenges are just opportunities for creativity and growth, so while I may sigh or cry in the shower in the moment, I am deeply thankful for the obstacles that have encouraged me to grow as a filmmaker, collaborator, and person.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a horror screenwriter and director with a specific focus on female-centric stories and nuance surrounding mental health. Filmmaking is a way to share my voice, my perspectives, and my opinions through art – a career I’ve always been passionate about, but even more so in the recent political climate. As a queer woman, my existence is political and thus I want my art to be political. I am passionate about telling female-centric stories and I prioritize diverse voices and representation throughout my creative outlets. My lifelong love of the horror genre and its ability to subvert expectations has translated to a passionate theme of social justice and social commentary within my creativity. The horror genre has the ability to externalize the internal and allow a playground to explore trauma in a way that can be both cathartic and exhilarating. I’m scared by the unknown, loss, and lack of control.

All of these are intangible thoughts and feelings, so I like to channel these into psychological horror, anxiety-inducing tension, and metaphorical monsters. Much of my storytelling is about confronting inner demons – monsters and darkness are only scary when they are unfamiliar and intangible. There are elements of being a woman that are inherently terrifying too, and I want to tap into that – not to remind us of that fear, but to subvert it, and use that fear to create power instead. That transference of fear into power has been one of my biggest lesson sin being a female filmmaker. Take that fear and challenge it, use it, take the risk, and put yourself out there.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Looking at the 2022 box office figures, the horror genre has continuously proven that there are audiences hungry for original content and willing to leave their streaming services behind to sit and enjoy the communal space of a movie theatre. I believe the success of 2022 films like Barbarian, Terrifier 2, Smile, X, Pearl, Bodies Bodies Bodies, etc. are going to launch a whole new wave of horror content cross-platforms. Horror is typically a reflection of current society and creatives often ask what is next or what is going to emerge in the next horror subgenre. However, I think the next five years will show on a broader scope that horror itself will be the next emergence. After the pandemic and political unrest, it won’t be a horror subgenre but rather the popularity of horror itself that will reflect current social standings. Why be overwhelmed by the horrors of reality when you can watch a 90-minute horror-scape that has a neat, survivable (at least for the audience) conclusion? Horror is a purge of fear and I think the audience for horror is continuing to grow as a result of channeling fear rather than living in constant anxiety. I’m a firm believer that horror heals!

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