The Strand reviewed How to Fix Radios when it first premiered at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival (KFCC) last March. The Strand had the privilege of sitting down with one of the co-directors, Casper Leonard, to discuss the film one year later.
Rion Levy: Looking back on the project, how has the reception been?
Casper Leonard: I think that we got a lot of really good feedback. I was really appreciative that a lot of people could sense the genuine interest and energy that we had towards the project. And that’s one thing I was worried about; I wasn’t necessarily worried [that] before it came out … we wouldn’t get good reviews or something, I didn’t really care. What I cared about is that I wanted people to see that we were doing this, out of the bottom of our souls, and that this really mattered to us. And it mattered to our community.
This was your first feature film, right? How was that experience?
It was really difficult. It was hard to keep our expectations at a certain level, because we’d have some days we’re working on [the film] and we’re like, this is the best thing ever. We’re going to get this put in Sundance or something. And then there would be days where you’d be working on it and be like, this is actual shit. Managing the expectations was hard. And then the process itself was really long, difficult. We did want some payoff; we wanted it to work out. And that could be a little stressful because once we started putting so much time and effort into it, it just kind of accumulated, and our expectations grew for what we needed it to look like. So there was a lot of time spent in the editing room tweaking things to the best of our abilities.
What was your experience working with co-director Emily Russel?
When we were working together on ideas and shots it was perfect, absolutely amazing. We worked really well together creatively. We were on the same level. We kind of built it from the ground up together. So there wasn’t really any part of it that was like one of us or the other, because it was just such a combined effort that we couldn’t separate it from either one of us. So, it felt like a genuine, almost co-parenting relationship for this movie.
Did you go into the COVID-19 summer knowing you would work on the film?
We started writing the script in January, and we finished it in March. And then the pandemic happened. And we basically forgot about it, or at least put it on the back burner […] what ended up happening is that we were like, oh, I don’t think we can do this just because of the pandemic—not being able to get access to equipment and stuff like that. But eventually, around the end of May, we were going down to the quarry [where] we filmed, and we were hanging around there, sort of seeing what it looked like now because that’s where we had wanted to shoot. And it kind of inspired us. So we decided on that day, fuck it, we’re doing it. And we sen[t] out our emails to the cast and crew and got everyone together.
Did you know everyone you wanted to work with right away?
I definitely had ideas in my head about casting and what would work best. And the people that we ended up casting were our top picks. It ended up working out great.
At the very end of the film, the words “if things don’t get better, at least they change” runs across the screen. Do you think this tragically optimistic tone to end on is a universal sentiment?
I think it’s something that probably continues throughout everyone’s lives past their teenage years. And it’s sort of something that I actually had realized while making the film. It wasn’t in the script. It was a last-minute decision that I didn’t even tell anyone about. I just wrote it in there because I thought it was important to put a bookend to my experience and how I felt about the film and my life in general, leading up to that point. Looking back on it, I think it still holds up to be true. As a queer youth, you’re told a lot, things are going to get better, which is true, but it also leads to some unrealistic expectations about how good your life is going to be past a certain point. In reality, it’s way more of a roller coaster of ups and downs. So, it’s not always getting better. It’s just changing.
Shifting gears slightly, are there any projects that you’re currently working on?
I’m at York. I’m just working on school projects and stuff like that. I have a short film I’m going to be shooting in a month, but it’s nothing that will be very public or anything like that.
How do you hope that How to Fix Radios will fit in with the rest of your career moving forward?
I hope that it sort of sets out the tone for what both [Emily and I] want our films to be, which is just real. Just completely raw from the bottom of our hearts. We’re not trying to impress anyone, we’re not trying to show off, we’re just trying to tell a story that is important to us. I think … that’s what I want to convey through the rest of any other films I make, or any other creative projects I work on … I just want to be raw and real.
How to Fix Radios is now available for free on YouTube.
