S02:E21 | Hauntings IV with Shannon Joy Rodgers: The Convergence of Humor and Horror

Welcome to another horror-licious Creative Chat, featuring the inimitable Shannon Joy Rodgers, an Emmy-wining writer, performer, inline skater, director, editor — she kinda does it all. 

After seeing Shannon’s slyly comedic horror short, A Moment of Your Time — which is currently running the festival circuit before its wider release — I couldn’t wait to have her on the podcast to talk all kinds of things, including:

• the humor/horror Venn diagram;
• how her early years as a skater influenced her editing and storytelling;
• the value of diversity in media; 
• the beauty of artistic collaboration (she co-wrote and co-starred in AMOYT with her husband, Ross Bryant);
• and (of course) what horror movies she’s loving right now. 

Shannon is just so much fun to chat with; I’m sure you’ll love her insights, too. Enjoy, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.

Resources

• Shannon's links | Website: shannonjoyrodgers.com; Instagram: @shannonjoyrodgers & @amoyt_film 
• Media discussed | A Nightmare on Elm Street, feat. Freddy Krueger (film franchise, 1984-); Child's Play, feat. Chucky (film, 1988); Maximum Overdrive (film, 1986); Hellraiser (film franchise, 1987-); Candyman (film, 1992); Talk to Me (film, 2023); Scream VI (film, 2023); M3GAN(film, 2022); The Glass Cannon Network (RPG entertainment network, featuring Ross Bryant, aka Shannon's husband & A Moment of Your Time co-writer and co-star)

IG: @littleoracles

Transcript

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[Intro music]

Allison Arth: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth. I want to welcome you all to another creative chat, one of our special Hauntings micro series episodes, and I'm so looking forward to today's conversation, because joining me is someone whose work runs the gamut from humor to horror. And so I want to welcome to the show Emmy-winning writer and performer, Shannon Joy Rogers. Shannon, thank you so much for sitting down with me today; it's nice to see you!

Shannon Joy Rodgers: Thank you for having me. What a fun intro. You know, what's funny is we just saw each other in Seattle.

AA: Yes, we did.

SJR: And the venue is called the Third Door?

AA: Triple Door.

SJR: Yeah; Triple Door. And the whole week I knew that you and John were going to be there, and I was excited because I– my best friend, Megan, lives there with her husband. And I was like, “Oh, great. Like, the five of us will get to meet and hang out or whatever.” So when you came around the corner and your face was so, like, in shock, I was like, “Whoa, Allison is so stoked to see me!”

AA: Well, I was! [laughs]

SJR: Then John said that you were surprised; you had no idea where you were going.

AA: I was shocked. I was shocked to see you, I was shocked to see Ross. Yeah, I didn't know where we were going. It was just such a wonderful surprise.

SJR: That is so funny. [laughs]

AA: It was great. It was a wonderful show too.

SJR: Mm-hmm!

AA: So something that I love to do to kick off Creative Chats is just getting to know, like, a creator's backstory. So have you always been making things in your life? You know, how did you get to where you are now and what drew you to a life and a career as a creative person?

SJR: Yeah; to an extent I always have. I contributed basically all of my creative endeavors to skating. I used to skateboard when I was really young, and I started rollerblading maybe when I was 13 or 14 — this is, like, the late ‘90s. That was the thing that I was like, “I'm getting good at it. I'm competing. I'm getting, like, float skates or wheels or whatever.” And my best friend's mom, she owned a skate park, so that was, like, our hangout after school.

AA: Oh, wow.

SJR: And with skating back then, it was just kind of like, a couple people maybe had, like, an inexpensive Sony video camera, like a Super Hi8, or like the digital– like the one-chip cameras with the tiny little tapes. And I was heavily influenced by these guerrilla-style skate videos: the music, the filming, uh, you know, the B-roll in between. And that was, like, my first introduction of just kind of, like, going out on a Saturday; you go skate downtown (I'm originally from Austin, Texas); skating downtown Austin, watching the footage, and then, like, eventually putting out, uh, A DVD, you know. I would be skating in it at that point. Later down the line, I did have a camera and that is how I learned how to film. That's how I learned how to edit and move quickly. And, like, watching just 10,000 hours of skate videos, you already know how to, like, frame a shot, or how to keep someone in frame, you know, head-to-skates, and the trick, and whatever they're skating on — a rail or ledge. So really, like, that kind of style, it kind of trained my eye as a director when I step into that role. And the editing also, ’cause the editing can be very clever and fun with skate videos. So that's kind of where my introduction started to, like, the creative life that I have.

AA: Yeah. And so how did that kind of dovetail into your work as a writer and your work as a performer?

SJR: I think that the performer side came first, and then it was like: damn it, I also have to write because everybody's writing. [laughs]

AA: [laughs]

SJR: You know, I– when I moved to L.A., I really love sketch comedy, and that, also, it goes back to skate video vibes, because the videos are fun. There's, like, sketches and videos. Jackass comes from skate videos, you know?

AA: Oh!

SJR: BAM started CKY2K, and that was, like, a skate video first, but also, like, it was more of a consolidation of all the, like, shenanigans your skate crew gets in, and the fun and joy from that, those sessions, getting put into a video. So that kind of influenced liking sketches and liking comedy in that regard. And obviously, like, SNL and stuff like that. I graduated college with a computer science and math degree. And I worked for five years at an energy company as a pricing analyst and a settlement analyst. And then I was just like: I'm not happy. I want to go to L.A. and I'm going to act. And I left and came to L.A. and I literally, like the day I drove in, we got in at midnight and that morning I had, like, my first UCB class with Eugene Cordero as my teacher. And I was like, I'm doing it!

AA: Wow!

SJR: Like, it was really sick. So I started doing a lot of stuff there, and going to shows, and a lot of the people I met in that first year are still my really good friends. And I started to perform in a lot– I was mostly focused on sketch, not as much improv. I wanted to focus on improv, too, but it's– improv bros are kind of intense, you know?

AA: [laughs]

SJR: Just like, one: young, like, 20-something dudes in L.A. are already intense, and then you add, like– I don't know; it just is– is a lot, you know, and it's kind of at a time when UCB really didn't have it– it was, you know, one female to every 15 dudes, and then add on top of that, you could count the Black women on one hand, you know. So it was like a– it was a different time. [chuckles] But I– I started to also get cast in a lot of, like, Funny or Die and College Humor sketch videos. So that was always really fun just being on those sets. And– and then I kind of just fell into– people just need an editor, and I already knew how to edit. So I was like– at first, like making people's reels and stuff, and then editing sketches, and started freelancing that way. And that became my, like, stable thing throughout, like, trying to go to auditions and pursue acting, which it still is. Also, I edit podcasts, I edit sketches, a lot of digital space– I worked at Buzzfeed for like five or six years on and off. And that's kind of like the– the medium that's constant throughout all of this, too. But yeah, it all comes from learning how to edit and learning how to film via skating, and then coming into the comedic element of it at a time when Funny or Die and College Humor are sort of, you know, just past their growing pains, and into, like, a really good stride. That– all of that was really fun.

AA: Yeah. I love this– this line that you're drawing between skating and, like, the speed inherent in skating, and how that kind of translates to the editing. And then you're involved in the kind of comedy that is really ultimately very, very fast — you know, sketch comedy is: you're in and you're out, right?

SJR: Yeah.

AA: And do you feel like that's kind of where you sit as a creative? Like, you really like the kind of the short, the really tight, the really focused stuff?

SJR: That's interesting that you say that. And this is, like, the first time I've ever had this thought: I think that it is the way I was trained and that I can do it very efficiently. Like, the rooms that I've been in are rooms where it's like, “The show's today; the show's tomorrow; the show's at 3 p.m.: you need a sketch,” you know.

AA: [laughs]

SJR: Like, um, I would say though, my editing and acting is stronger than my writing, which is ironic because that's what I have an Emmy in.

AA: [chuckles] Right.

SJR: ’Cause when I would pitch stuff on Ellen, I would bring them a video.

AA: Oh!

SJR: So I'd be like, “Hey, I shot this video on my iPhone. Here's a concept.” There was one– like, if you look on my Instagram, I had this recurring segment called “Shannon on the Beat.” And then I would take quirky news stories and make a rap video, essentially, in front of a green screen. I filmed that literally in front of this closet. I just took a random story and found a song to use as instrumental, and then I just, like, rapped. It's like 60 seconds, 90 seconds. And I played that during our pitch meeting instead of coming in and being like, “Hey, I have an idea to, like, rap quirky news stories” for them to say, “No, we don't need that.” I'm like– ’cause I just know that showing is stronger, but also it's more effortless for me to just, like, throw it together and then show it to them than it is for me to try to find a clever way to write it down. I just don't feel like I'm as compelling in that regard. One of the first main sketches I got on that show was a Doug Imhoff rap. [chuckles] It was when Kamala became Vice President, and he was going to be the first Second Gentleman. And just saying “first Second Gentleman” is really funny, so I made this rap that Tiffany Haddish ended up rapping to.

AA: Oh wow.

SJR: And I did the scratch track, and I made it out of, like, Getty Images. And I just, like, had little pop-ups of stuff, like putting sunglasses on him and like, uh, saying that he was her plus-one to the White House, and stuff like that, and he'd carry her hoops.

AA: [chuckles] Right.

SJR: [chuckles] It was really silly, but they really liked it. And I have to– I would have to basically rap it out to have the lyrics done.

AA: Right.

SJR: Like it's all getting done almost at the same time. It's not– I'm not, like, going through, like, drafts and drafts. It was nice because it does kind of keep me in control, low-key, because there's not too many notes you can do to something so complete. But, when they did add notes — like, the head writer at the time asked if I could add something about him being Jewish and Tiffany Haddish being Jewish. And so it was just like two bars, like, you know, easy– easy, like, adjustment, you know? So I– I like showing the thing more than I like …

AA: … describing the thing.

SJR: Yeah, exactly. And I– and I think that that's maybe something that writers get hung up on, is, like, writing the thing to death, or outlining it to death. It's like, if you just put it out there in a certain way. I was talking to a friend of mine; I had an idea for a UCB show and I was like, “I don't really know where it's all gonna go, but I have, like, a couple of sketches that I think are fun,” and that's where I started. And so when I wrote, like, one or two sketches and then I, um, kept writing, kept writing, I'm like, “Oh, this one informs that one; this one is actually the first thing that I want to talk about. And this is like…” — you know, if I– if I just wrote them in as individual, fun things, instead of trying to, like, get it so right before even executing it, I've learned that that's kind of the better way for me. Now, does that work in a setting that's not variety or not something that you have complete control over? Maybe not a lot of leeway like that. Um, this– this is specifically lending itself to the variety space of daytime and late night, and online digital, or live.

AA: Yeah; yeah. I've never really come into contact with a pitch being like, “And here it is; here's the idea, so you can see it.” But I can see how, you know, in that writer's room, if you can say, “This is the thing I'm imagining,” and you have something that is really close to being done, people are a lot more inclined to say yes, right? Is that– has that been your experience, where you bring it in and you get more traction?

SJR: I feel like, yeah, the blessing is that I have, like I said, like, the 10,000 hours of editing–

AA: Right; yeah, yeah, yeah.

SJR: –and filming, and I can take 30 images and make a song and it's– i's going to take me, like, an hour and a half. The hardest part is just, like, Premiere crashing, you know what I mean? [laughs]

AA: [laughs]

SJR: Or, like, media encoder stalling, or something, like, annoying that I have to, like, budget time for. But it's– it's fun and easy for me because I was making these little things already, that I know how to troubleshoot my way through it. And that informs my writing moreso than vice-versa.

AA: Right: you have an understanding of, kind of, the cadence of how you want something to come across.

SJR: Yeah.

AA: That's really interesting. That actually kind of takes me into something that I wanted to talk with you about, which is, you know, I mentioned in the intro, we're doing this special month long micro series here on the podcast; it's called Hauntings, and one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because you have a really interesting relationship to horror. You have directed and co-written and co-starred in a wonderful horror short film called A Moment of Your Time, but like you said, you also write humor and you know, you're– you're interested in sketch comedy, and you know, you have the kind of exciting punctuation of things like skating in your– in your background as well. So I just– I'd love to know, like, what drew you to horror after having a career in humor?

SJR: Well, I– since I was really young– my mom used to work for the cable company back in the day. And so we had, like, all the channels I was telling my husband, I'm like,
“Yeah, we were like the family that like, we lived Mike Tyson,” you know? [chuckles] So when, like, a Tyson fight was on, like, all the friends and everybody was– they were at our house, because we got it for free. But we would also get all of the, like, movies that were premiered, like Misery. My mom is really into Stephen King, like that kind of thing. You know, my favorite movie is Maximum Overdrive, which is the only movie that Stephen King ever directed; he says he was blissed out of his mind when he did it.

AA: [laughs]

SJR: I love it so much. It's always nostalgic to me. I try to watch it every year on my birthday. And yeah, my mom's like– would let me watch that like as a child, like maybe, like, five years old, even.

AA: [chuckles] That's a lot.

SJR: She's like, “Yeah, well, it's just trucks,” you know? Genuinely, that was her logic behind it; was– that it's not real. But yeah, um, I could watch, like, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th; like, I knew who Freddy was as a little, little kid.

AA: So you just grew up in that. And was it ever scary to you? Or was it, like– what was your relationship to it?

SJR: I thought Freddy was funny, and I thought Chucky was funny. So my stepdad, who became my stepdad when I was, like, nine or so, one of the first times we ever hung out, he took me to Blockbuster and I got Child's Play, and I'm pretty sure I either had seen it already, or, like, I knew who Chucky was, or something like that. And he was like, [gruff voice] “Your mother's gonna let you watch this?” And I was like, “Yeah!” I don't think he read the box. I don't think he saw anything about the box. [chuckles]

AA: It's about dolls! [laughs]

SJR: [laughs] Yeah, I don't think he looked at the rating. He just checked out and I got Child's Play. And I've always had a love for horror. And I just love– like, one of my main goals in life, if anyone's listening that wants to just, like, throw me on the big screen and have an epic death, just lots of blood; just slit my throat; slit me like a– like a carcass that you're trying to like clean out; like, oh, yes. Hashtag goals. Put it in the universe, you know?

AA: [laughs] Well, it's so interesting that you say that you found these characters funny, right? Because, you know, there's so much conventional wisdom that tells us horror is heavy and comedy is light.

SJR: Yeah.

AA: But you're kind of finding this intersection and this overlap between those even in spaces, I might say, that you're not necessarily supposed to find it, right? Like, it's not a Scream movie; it's not a horror comedy. But do you find a lot of value in blending genres in the work that you do because you have had this experience with horror in that way?

SJR: Yeah, I think that, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure the story behind, like, Freddy having a personality was, like, the third choice of what to do with that character. I think he was supposed to be, like, a Jason character, where he walks around very stoic.

AA: Interesting.

SJR: And Robert Englund kind of brought that to life, and look how well it worked: it's still relevant–

AA: Yeah; yeah.

SJR: –to this day, you know? And I do think that there– there's obviously horror movies that try to have that X factor that have failed. But I think there's a lot of symbiosis between comedy and horror, especially just, like, structurally. And I know, like, people who hire horror writers are like: if you have comedy, that's basically horror. Comedy and horror really, like, are simpatico in that way. What's funny about our short– my husband and I co-wrote a short, like, late 2020, called A Moment of Your Time. It's about a pushy Bible salesman trying to solicit a 1950s housewife (me), and it's one location, it's very simple. We wrote it with the intention of having, like, a simple premise and a simple idea; literally just wrote it on the couch, maybe in like two or three nights. And I went to a friend's house, maybe a year later, like when we were starting to go back out, you know, 2021, ’cause I had missed his birthday, and I was like, “Oh, I'll just come over and bring you some food.” And when I came to his place — he lives in a back house in Eagle Rock — and it was the house that we used. I was like: oh my god, this is– has been untouched. There was nothing modern about it. And I was like, “Oh my god, Eli, can we please use your house?” And so that was the location. I think we pretty much filmed it, like, three weeks after that. I talked to my brother-in-law's friend, he’s a DP, and I was like: list me everything you would need to shoot this. But I did everything, like, on my own.

AA: That's incredible.

SJR: I edited it; I ended up having to do the color and sound and everything. And I was the writer — co-writer — uh, co-acted (didn't have to pay the actor, you know, myself, and Ross), and then didn't have to pay my post, which is like: damn, if people have to pay for post to get things done? Oh my god. So the festival love that it's received, I've been very grateful for, because I just didn't– I just didn't know. So it premiered at Seattle International Film Fest. So Seattle's block was an all-horror block — I think we were kind of in the middle of nine other horror shorts — and watching it against other horrors that were really like, you know, “horror,” and then you got to us. ’Cause the– the top is, he's just a pushy Bible salesman that I'm trying to be like, “Dude, what are you doing?” You know? And it's comedy, that first half. And people were missing the jokes because they were laughing so much.

AA: Wow.

SJR: So after I saw it at Seattle with the full crowd and full theater, I was like, “Wait, they're laughing way too early; wait, they're laughing at that; okay, hold on.” And when I came back home, I added about 35 seconds to the film by just letting air out — or adding air in, I should say — so it wasn't so snappy. And I think that that was also a good lesson in my editing, because I do edit a lot of, like, fast-paced digital sketch-style stuff, but when doing it in this other genre, it needed to slow down and breathe so that people could keep up.

AA: Yeah.

SJR: And, um, yeah, it's been really great to see. And so the second fest that we went to and I watched it, I was like, “Excellent.” The new edit was perfect. It was finally done.

AA: I love hearing your perspective on this, and especially about the audience reception at SIFF is really interesting to hear, because when I saw A Moment of Your Time, I immediately thought of this as a subversive horror short, because, you know, it has the classic horror elements, the social horror elements, but it definitely– it's challenging those tropes and it's challenging those– those archetypes. Is that how you see it? Or do you see it as this– as this hybrid of horror and comedy?

SJR: I think that even when I do write something that's super horrific and gruesome, there's always going to be a comedic element to it because of the nature of how I write dialogue, I think, or how I write moods.

AA: Oh, tell me about that.

SJR: It's not really intentional as much as it's, like: this is what I find most interesting and this– this is these characters’ true personality coming through.

AA: Yeah. You know, I want to kind of go back to something that you said earlier about how horror and humor share similar structures. I'd love to hear your thoughts about that, because I see similarities with the tension and the release, right? Because telling a joke has a tension and a release and the tropes of horror have tension and release, kind of, inbuilt into them. But what do you see as the similarity in structure between those– those things?

SJR: I guess my eye is drawn towards just the pace. I think they're just more closely related than many other genre. Just the pacing of them, um, and how that grabs your attention as a viewer, and as an audience member. And yeah, how the setups and payoffs work. They're pretty in alignment. And then there's some that are just, like– I mean, Cabin in the Woods is a comedy.

AA: Yeah!

SJR: You know what I mean? Like, you look at something like that, it's like: god damn, that's funny. That's funnier than most of the comedies that came out that year.

AA: Yeah, I would agree with that.

SJR: Oh yeah, you were saying that, uh, I find the humor; like, as a kid, I didn't get scared. I didn't like Hellraiser.

AA: Oh, okay.

SJR: Pinhead still to this day: it just made me feel dirty. And I would also say my uncle — Uncle Bernard, putting him on blast real quick. [laughs]

AA: [laughs]

SJR: Uh, he let all the cousins watch Candyman.

AA: Oh.

SJR: When Candyman, I guess, hit DVD. But we watched Candyman and, like, then we all went to the bathroom.

AA: Of course you did. [chuckles]

SJR: “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman.” [laughs] It was, like, stupid. But, uh, no, Candyman was scary.

AA: Yeah; what do you think it is about those that scared you, versus Chucky and Freddy?

SJR: Yeah. It's something about like, “Oh, this feels dirty and dark,” you know? Chucky's an idiot.

AA: [laughs]

SJR: It's– his voice is funny; he's a funny dude. Like, it's not intimidating, maybe. I'm like, “Oh, Candyman could snatch my ass up,” you know?

AA: It's that human element of the supernatural, right?

SJR: Yeah.

AA: Freddy is obviously very, uh– he does feel very outsize in the way that he acts. He's kind of over-the-top in the same way that Chucky is. But yeah, Candyman: I don't know if Candyman has quite that same over-the-topness.

SJR: No, it was just scary. And she's, like, crawling through the Cabrini Greens projects, and it's just like: oh, everything's disgusting. You know, it was really visceral.

AA: [chuckles] So when you– when you sat down on that couch in 2020 with Ross, and you said, “Hey, let's write a short film,” did you have any idea, like, what it was going to be? Did you have a sense that it was going to be horror or comedy or whatever hybrid it is?

SJR: It's funny, because I am surprised at the reception that it's getting, so I, like– some of these things are just, like, “Oh, yeah; we were just living our life.” And, like, you know, we both do a lot of comedy, and we both love horror, and we wanted to make something, one, that we were in; and, two, that, like, I could direct, and then I think another added element was the periodness of it. It's like: what can we play? What can the two of us play? And I think that that really worked because of our dynamic: the salesman and the housewife, you know?

AA: Yeah.

SJR: It mostly was just like: we don't know what's going on in life, you know? Auditions stopped, and no one really knew, like, when kids are going back to school. Like, it was just, like, a weird time.

AA: Yeah.

SJR: So it was something to do, just the two of us. Also, side note, we moved in together ten days before lockdown.

AA: Right! [chuckles]

SJR: Ten days! Like, it's– so that was a test. That's why we're married now, because that was a test. And yeah; so we– we definitely work well together. I love, also, how trusting he is in me as a director and as an editor and, you know, a creative in general. So that's– that's a blessing to have. His trust in me. So it was just like, you know, kind of a perfect puzzle piece put together.

[Music break]

AA: So, we always love to, you know, get the juice on what creators are excited about. And so I– I would love to hear, like, what is inspiring you right now? Maybe what horror movies are inspiring you, what you’re really getting into, and, uh, you know, what's good and what's great and what's exciting.

SJR: I just saw Talk To Me and I– I thought it was a great, easy, simple premise. The directors, they kind of got their start on YouTube, which I really respect.

AA: Oh!

SJR: One of their most popular videos — I think it's called Epic Nerf War — and it's like Nerf guns turning into real guns, and, like, the mom gets involved, and they use special effects and stuff like that. They're really clever dudes. But Talk to Me is essentially: what if possession was, like, a hot drug that teens do. And so they have, like, a hand from a mummified, like, demon-esque — possessed, maybe? — person that these kids bring to a basement. You hold the hand, you say “talk to me,” and for 90 seconds, something possesses you, and that's like you're on the drug.

AA: Whoa.

SJR: And I thought that was a great premise ’cause kids do sit around like, “Yeah, I'll try that drug; yeah, I'll try it.” That's just like a normal adolescence everybody can relate to. And so doing it with the possession thing — yeah, I thought that was a fantastic movie. I actually really liked the last Scream that came out. And I love Scream. Scream is like– Scream 1 was like– came out maybe, like, my freshman or sophomore year in high school, and I really, like, just loved it so much, so much so that my mom and I were at Blockbuster — um, I'm really dating myself with Blockbuster. [chuckles]

AA: [laughs]

SJR: I don't care; Black don't crack, you know what I'm saying? Like, we all aging out here. [laughs] My mom asked the Blockbuster guy, like, how much it would be to just buy the DVD. Like, we rented it so much, and he said it would be, like, 180 dollars because it wasn't out yet. And I was like, “Oh, okay; I got it; okay; got it: I don't need it that bad,” you know. But I really liked Scream VI. I thought it was a fun– fun little thing. It does seem to have two different directors.

AA: [laughs]

SJR: Like, one person when the shit gets real, and one person for, like, the daytime scenes. And they do clash a little bit. ’Cause I feel like they spent a lot of money on the locations, and time on the scenes where, like, the killer shows up. And then the– the rest of the exposition is like a– kind of like a– a Hallmark movie a little bit. It's like, what is, what is happening here? It was– it was a little– directed a little differently, but, um — I'm looking at my AMC app because I'm an AMC Stubs member and stockholder.

AA: [chuckles]

SJR: M3GAN, I thought was really clever and really fun. And I'm sure on the back end of it that Allison Williams was, like, already attached, and that's why I got funding and was made in the first place. But I will say that it was written by a Black woman and there's nothing in this story where Allison Williams’ character or the doll couldn't have been Black. She was, like, an engineer, and M3GAN was, like, this new, like, companion doll that she was making at the company that she worked at. And I'm like: there's no part of this story where it couldn't be a Black doll and a Black woman that's an engineer at a tech company like this. So, sometimes I see movies like that and I'm like: yeah, why couldn't this just be a Black family? Why– why not?

AA: Mm-hmm.

SJR: It doesn't always have to be, like, 12 Years a Slave.

AA: Right.

SJR: It can be these other stories that are just like: oh yeah, well there's women working in tech right now, there's Black dolls in the store; you know, it can just be like an easy– an easy thing like that. And, it was very fun, I'm not discounting; like, it's hard enough to get stuff made, so I'm sure she had to jump through some hoops. And I actually think she is making a horror movie about somewhere she's from, either Memphis? Yes, it's somewhere in Memphis; Tennessee; somewhere like that. So I think it was kind of like a “one for them, one for me.” So I do think that something like that is coming for us in a good way.

AA: Do you find that that kind of representation is super lacking in the horror space?

SJR: Absolutely. There's like a behind the scenes of. Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4. Well, I think it's all of them. It's actually like a five hour DVD. Uh, where Wes Craven talks about each one in-depth. And Kincaid is one of the first Black characters to survive a horror movie in, like, the ’80s. He was in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and then he is also in Nightmare on Elm Street 4, where he dies. I mean, that's just a normal character arc.

AA: You can't, uh, you can't make it all the way through. [laughs]

SJR: [laughs] Yeah, who are you? Superman? Come on. You gotta die at some point. But yeah, he talks about how he was like– what– it was the first time, like, one of the first times that, you know, a Black character survived. You know, that's why the Blackening is a thing.

AA: Mm-hmm; mm-hmm.

SJR: It's like, we can't all die first.

AA: Right!

SJR: It's just a joke, like, you know, but yeah, I do think that, especially as people of color, women, diversity gets into these upper levels of who's purchasing rights to stuff in movies, who's– who's the distributors, et cetera, et cetera, like: that it's less of a like, “Well, is this going to sell? Well, how's this– is this what people want?” Like, I think it's just becoming more and more: oh yeah; if you actually look at the world around you, like, you don't have to be, like, spoon-fed diversity; your neighbors are diverse. We're not all one thing. We're all living amongst each other, having a similar experiences with our own unique background brought to it. And it's a beautiful thing. But yeah, how something like Megan– it doesn't have to be a “Black story,” but why not it be a different race?

AA: Right.

SJR: You know, and it's not like stunt casting, like we're– “we did it Black just to do it Black.” It's like: that doesn't work either. You know, it's still got to be genuine and real and grounded in reality. But I think that part– that part of Hollywood is changing, and for the better.

AA: There's just so much homogeny in those positions of power that are, like, holding the purse strings and making those decisions. So I'm glad to hear that it's getting better.

SJR: It's definitely a thing that's changing. And it's also like, just in general, it's amazing that anything gets made in this city. If you really knew– purchasing a script to finishing it, that could be years. And then get a new head of a studio, and that thing's scrapped and, like, it's so fickle and finicky. Like, it does become like analytics more so than it becomes, like, about a human story or, you know– it’s just– you're an analyst at that point. It's like, “What's sold now? What's selling? What are our demographics? What are the kids’ age, whatever.” I think any kind of, like, straying off the path, taking those risks, like, it's harder and harder to get those risks financed. And unfortunately, making the Allison Williams character or, like, the doll in M3GAN Black is a risk. And I get the decisions behind that. I get it. I'm not, like, mad at it. It's just, like, unfortunately, that's where our society is at right now. But I do think that we're moving in the right direction, which is great.

AA: And we have indie filmmakers like you stepping up and doing the whole thing.

SJR: Oh, give me money! [chuckles] I– I actually– I had a, uh, coach of mine actually tell me like, “Well, what you're actually proving right now is that you can get a lot done for a little.” But that's– that goes back to that skater mentality that goes back to like, you know–

AA: Scrappy and grassroots and stuff, yeah!

SJR: –yeah, a lot with a little, and it's not something that's like– I– I'm probably really lucky that I didn't go to film school or anything like that. I– I've taken classes and, like, learned about the craft obviously, but my– my own intuition and my own instincts are coming out as I'm getting older and getting in these positions of, instead of me just being, like, a cookie-cutter writer, cookie-cutter editor, cookie-cutter whatever; like, whatever flair or whatever, like, part of me is coming out into these things that's getting received in a positive way — I'm getting positive reinforcement — um, I'm glad it didn't get killed when I was, like, 19. And, yeah, I just want to bring fun stories to light. Like, A Moment of Your Time is a fun story, and it also looks cool cause it's a cool period piece, and there's a fun twist. And I don't think most people will see the twist coming.

AA: I didn't.

SJR: No one has. And it's– and it's the brilliance, also, of my husband, who I got to write it with. Like, he does a lot of gaming, and, like, Glass Cannon and all that stuff — what do you call them?

AA: Roleplaying games. [chuckles]

SJR: [chuckles] Roleplaying. Okay. Yeah. See, I'm– the most that I'm involved is that, like, people will comment my name or something, because I walk in the background — our desks are right next to each other — like I walk in the background during a stream. That's about how much I contribute. [laughs] So I don't know much, but he's, you know– really those things kind of, they encourage your intuition to come out like these stories, but also with aligning with rules of, like, these ghouls and goblins and vampires and whatever, the demons and stuff. So he really knows that language better than I do. And I think that collaboration is just like– it's beautiful, you know?

AA: Yeah, I agree. I get so excited when I have a chance to collaborate with another creative. And especially when there's that natural kind of, like you said, interlocking set of skills like you and Ross have, right, where you can meld those skills together and make this beautiful thing.

SJR: It's like I'm writing like how it's visually gonna look, and the dialogue of the female character, and he's like, “Here's the rules of the horror element and how we can make them our own.” You know what I mean? Know the rules before you break them kind of thing.

AA: Yeah! So Shannon, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure. But before we go, is there anything you want to hype up or shout out, and also, where can we find you online?

SJR: Um, well you can find me on Instagram at shannonjoyrodgers. Uh, Rogers is with a D, R-O-D-G-E-R-S. And yeah, I pretty much will post new sketches that I am in. You know, we're still in the SAG strike, so I haven't– it's been a while since I've done any kind of, like, SAG-related on late night or anything like that. But once that comes back around, hopefully I'll be out there more. And this film that we're doing, A Moment of Your Time, is still going out to some festivals and hopefully, uh, a couple more by the end of the year. A lot of them are in the spring, so I haven't gotten notifications yet since I– it's so new still; but yeah, so I'm really– I'm really proud of it, and meeting with other filmmakers that are, you know, we're all, especially at that level, we're all just trying to figure out, like, how to have our little piece of the sandbox, you know, and where to be creatively fulfilled. I'm really in a blessed position that I'm able to make it as well as I could with the limited resources that I had. So yeah, I just want to keep doing it, and hopefully those resources will grow. [chuckles]

AA: Yeah! [laughs] Oh my goodness. Thank you again. It's been great. Uh, you can follow Little Oracles at littleoracles on Instagram and little oracles dot com for more big book energy and creativity content. Share an episode with somebody, and leave us a rating or a review wherever you listen, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.

[Outro music]
[Secret outtake]

SJR: He says he likes horror movies, but he's very scared at, like, jump-scare type stuff. 

AA: Oh, me too. 

SJR: My nephew came to visit; we all went to go see one of the Annabelles, but it was like, me just having fun and then, like, him and Ross, like, they're like, “Man, you know what? I think I'm going to go get some popcorn. You want some popcorn, Ross? Yeah, I'm going to go get some popcorn. We're going to get some popcorn. We'll be right back.”

AA: [laughs]