Horror Business: BRAID Director, Mitzi Peirone
Mitzi Peirone is a director who blew the minds of many with her spectacularly insane and beautifully executed first feature, Braid. Braid was incredibly intricate and sophisticated while being completely bonkers at times. The horror element of Braid worked both the gore front and the existential front which is a tough balance to pull off. All of this with a stunning signature aesthetic made this one of the most notable horror films in recent years.
This was Mitzi’s first movie, and she got it off of the ground entirely from scratch; no connections, no initial funding, nothing but her wits, creativity and incredible work ethic. Fascinatingly enough, Braid was funded through cryptocurrency. Mitzi and her executive producer created an equity-based crowdfunding campaign that relied on blockchain technology. This ensured that anyone who invested in the movie got their money back through the automated currency distribution that blockchain offers.
This was a first-of-its-kind funding technique and a serious innovation that Mitzi was able to pull off. Her story is incredibly inspiring and full of so many golden pieces of advice, my head nearly spun. Before we begin, here are key insights for aspiring directors from this conversation with Mitzi Peirone.
- DON’T kill your darlings. Despite the old Hemingway adage, it’s usually the seemingly extraneous details that don’t quite translate on paper, that make movies great and give directors their signature voice. Certain details that might not move the plot forward can enable more nuanced elements of your movie, such as tone and character development. Producers are always cutting scripts down to make the storytelling as seamless as possible. This is a good instinct but in the process can sometimes strip out the most distinguishing details of a movie. Always listen to the notes but acknowledge why the material is in the screenplay to begin with. Fight the good fight, but choose your battles wisely.
- Innovate. After realizing the limitations of crowdfunding as a non-celebrity (at the time), Mitzi knew she needed to find a better way to raise money. A chance encounter with a blockchain executive inspired her to come up with a more creative way to raise her funding which she did using cryptocurrency. It was a brilliant idea but was still a rough-road, plagued with multiple disagreements, legal complications, and endless website bugs, but once her blockchain-based crowdfunding platform launched, Mitzi raised over $1.5 million for Braid.
- Find executives ready to take risks. Mitzi was a first-time director and stated that if she had pitched a seasoned film executive with a notable track record, she probably would not have gotten a deal. She recommends finding producers who aren’t quite as established yet, so you can go the distance together. Someone less successful may not have the name and funding access but they have a much bigger incentive to make your movie a success because you are both in it together and both of your futures could be impacted by the project’s success.
- Study the humanities. Mitzi was a dedicated student of literature, philosophy, art and psychology, and as a result, brought an extremely sophisticated sensibility to Braid. The movie was psychologically potent, visually stunning, endlessly intriguing, all while still delivering the horror goods! This comes with being well read, and Mitzi recommends immersing yourself in the Greek tragedies, the humanities and Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.
- Get the right actors. In addition to adding realism and believability to your movie, the right actors can also give credibility to your film which attracts funding and producers. If you don’t have the money for great actors, make sure the script gives them great exposure or the opportunity to do something they’ve been wanting to do. A great casting director is also a must.
- Collaborate; enable your crew to feel as though they are working with you and not for you. Having a sense of mission on your set, makes the sleepless nights and grueling production schedules way more bearable for your crew and ultimately makes your movie better. Establishing this kind of morale is best accomplished by giving everyone on the crew a voice in the production. The spirit of collaboration is important to have on set because it makes everyone feel personally invested in the project, which in turn inspires them to work harder and more passionately. So on set, make it a village; enable, empower, listen, and make it a mission you are all on together.
Dread Central: Hey Mitzi, thank you for taking the time!
Mitzi Peirone: Yeah. My pleasure.
DC: So, I would love to dive into how you were able to get Braid off of the ground from the beginning.
MP: So, it all started between 2014 and 2015 is when I had the idea for the film. I really just wanted to make a statement on a philosophical quest that I was on, just trying to understand the difference between reality and dreams. And if there was such difference.
And in the end, the question that Braid is asking is: can we make a separation, can we draw a line in between what’s made-up and what’s real, if reality is just subjective? And so much of reality comes from a place of imagination, a place of invention. You repeat ideas in your head until you speak those ideas and act upon those words, and then you become that thing.
If you think about it, everything in reality is invented. Society is invented, names are invented, geographical borders, even time. What separates us from kids playing make believe? And why do we inherently just start playing it, and rehearsing it, life, from a very young age, when nobody tells us to. And then we somehow stop when we transition into real life.
It trickled from years of studying philosophy, and literature, and art… I knew that I wanted to keep it single-location for budgetary reasons. I feel like that’s the number one thing that a filmmaker should think about: can I set most of this in one place? Because it really is special to trap a bunch of people in one specific location, because there their characters come out the most. You really get a chance to overdramatize what they’re going through. Tales of entrapment, I would say, is an interesting way of looking at it. You save money, and also you get a lot out of your characters, and out of your actors.
DC: That’s interesting, because a lot of horror filmmakers start with single locations. And yeah, there’s the budgetary element, but I never considered the fact that it does kind of force the characters to purge their identities. Because they’re literally trapped. That’s interesting!
MP: For sure. And company moves are always the most expensive, and they shake the ecosystem of the film set, because all of a sudden you’re outside. The house in Braid was like our headquarters, it was perfect. And the second that we went outside, it was mayhem. It was like nobody knew where the bathrooms were, nobody knew where catering was. There were ticks in the field, apparently, that got into actresses’ hair.
DC: Oh, no!
MP: That’s nothing. Then the owner of the farm goes, “There’s snakes, and snap turtles. They take the geese.”
DC: Oh my gosh!
MP: And I was about to put my actresses in a hole, to do those opening shots of the girls sleeping in a grave.
DC: Where did you guys shoot?
MP: We shot in Yonkers.
DC: What was your writing process like?
MP: So to me, writing my first screenplay came really quite easily, because in the end, it is a universal language. Everybody can write a screenplay, in my opinion, because in the end, you don’t need any fluff. Once you learn the technique; interior, exterior, stage directions, action, it’s not that complicated.
I had those elements. I had the visual elements of adults playing make believe, and I wanted it to be about three women, and I wanted it to be taking place in one location. Once I had a first draft, in 2015 I shot a little teaser, a one-minute concept trailer. That was wild, and so fun. That was the first time I ever directed.
I was in it, and I couldn’t find a director, and so I was like, “I’m going to direct it.” And it just was a complete game-changer, because I went from feeling passive and restless and dissatisfied as an actor, to active in control, and just completely blissful and elevated. It was like, yeah, this is what I’m meant to be doing for the rest of my life. And it was amazing.
So, I had the script, and I had this one-minute video that was really cool, and it was just showing how the concept would have played on camera. And it’s funny, because the trailer for Braid now, it’s literally the same structure as that teaser.
DC: Oh, wow.
MP: That was 2015. I had those two things, but I still had no connections, no money to make a movie. And all I knew was Indiegogo and Kickstarter. And I was like, I can’t raise enough money for this through Indiegogo. I’m not Zach Braff. This is not going to work for me. At most, I’m going to get 10K, maybe… And I don’t think I even have that many friends. I also didn’t like the structure of this donation-based crowdfunding, crowdsourcing. Instead, I thought, we need to give an incentive. It can’t just be t-shirts and signed posters. Nobody is going to contribute.
That year, I met the CEO of a blockchain tech company who ended up being my executive producer. I was telling him about this movie, and he was telling me about the technology behind cryptocurrency, the idea of blockchain, that basically it’s like this peer-to-peer technology. It enables smart contracts. And smart contracts are great, because they’re if-then contracts- so, if you donate money to my movie, then you will automatically make money your money back the second that the movie earns anything, with an additional 50%. It took us a year to set up this whole new crowd sale that was completely untested. Nobody had ever done that before.
Trying to convince film people of cryptocurrency, and crypto people of film financing was tricky. Because both worlds are hard to navigate, and pretty obscure for the average person. So, it was this very interesting and limbo-like situation that I was in. The two parties didn’t trust each other. But, I believed in it.
[Cryptocurrency] was really able to help me maintain my artistic integrity, because I wasn’t dealing with normal executive producers. I wasn’t dealing with a studio. I wasn’t dealing with film investors. I was dealing with people that wanted their technology to be applied to a new form of investment, and a new project, that also had a clear vision of what the movie was going to be.
I made everything available, from the treatment, to the script, to the casting, to how I was going to shoot it. Horror movies have the highest ROIs of all genres, so, I just made it really clear, and I made it as much of a bare-bones, easy-to-digest form of investment possible. So, we had the equity crowd sale with cryptocurrency in June 2017. Then, I hired my producers, Arielle Elwes and Logan Steinhardt.
And, if you’re going to do a crowd sale, you need to create a crowd. You need press. You need to make sure that people know who you are, they can follow you, and invest their time and emotions in you, et cetera. Thus, I had to do a lot of press before the crowd sale popped, and my name and the name of the movie was out. If the sale hadn’t gone well, I would’ve been kaput. It would’ve been the end for me. It was terrifying.
Get a really good casting director, is my other piece of advice. The second that you have a good casting director, they’ll get you the actresses that you’ll need to get attention. If you’re making a low-budget movie, the story has to be really good. Because people aren’t working for a paycheck, they’re working because they love it and they want to help you bring it to life. As long as the story’s speaking to that person, the right actor will attach. The casting process can be really traumatic, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t get the people that you wanted. Your script will act as a tribe caller.
And once you have the actors, producers, casting director, production designer, and costume designer, you have your bulk of your creative tribe. You’re in a good place to start pre-production.
We started pre-production before the sale popped. So, of course, we didn’t have any money to pay our people, and it was stressful for the first two weeks. But, we did the sale and it raised 1.7 in two weeks, which still blows me away. It was crazy, because I was petrified. The night before, I didn’t sleep. I was like, “This is going to go one of two ways.”
So yeah, once we got into production, everything was great. It was flawless because we did a lot of work in pre-production. My DP and I mapped every single shot. I storyboarded the most iconic scenes in the movie. I had drawn them out myself.
And if you have a look book, this bible thing with artistic references, that you can make available to everybody, that’s also super helpful for storyboards. A lot of the shots were shaped after paintings and sculptures.
The more you make everybody feel involved, the better… Especially if you’re the director. You need to know everybody’s name. You need to say hello and good morning to everybody. Your vibe will determine how the day goes. If you show up on set and you’re upset, or stressed, everybody’s going to pick up on that. Then, everybody’s upset and stressed. You need to be everybody’s cheerleader, you need to be calm, and you need to be happy. If everybody feels like they’re working with you and not for you, then you have a dream set. It’s not work, it’s so much fun.
But yeah, pre-production, we definitely were on a no-sleeping schedule, but it’s worth it.
DC: That’s awesome. The movie looked unbelievable.
MP: Thank you.
DC: There obviously were a lot of different influences. You mentioned having a reference guide for your pre-production. How do you collect ideas that you like when you draw from philosophy, and you draw from novels, and you draw from music, and art, and sculpture, and just so many things. How do you keep track of all of these different things that influence you?
MP: I write every day. Even just little notes, little bits of poetry, how I feel in that given moment… I used to have a precious paper notebook, [I use the] notes app on my phone, like every two seconds. If I get an idea or question our perception of reality like in Braid.
DC: So what are you working on next?
MP: My next movie is going to be about device dependency, how technology has totally taken our hearts by storm, and our brains, and it’s kind of terrifying.
DC: It’s time somebody did a horror movie on that, because I see it all the time. Drives me nuts, I’ll go to a restaurant and see a couple sitting together staring at their phones when they should be staring at each other.
MP: I am going to write a good manners book. There should be a no-phone policy at the table for everybody.
DC: Definitely. Totally agree.
DC: Are you guys going to utilize that same cryptocurrency funding model that you did before? Is that something sustainable?
MP: It is sustainable. I think every first-time filmmaker who has no money should definitely do that. It’s a scary thing to do. And honestly, I had to stay in the headquarters as a ghost for six months. I was able to maintain myself because I was modeling, but everybody was doing their thing.
I remember the CEO was like, “Look. You can’t expect to show up in here and just sit and wait for someone to tell you what to do. This is an incubator: you only get as much attention as you demand.” And I was like, “Damn, these are like real life lessons. It’s true.” I just really had to hustle. And I would stay in that office until 4:00 in the morning.
DC: It sounds like it was a really transformative experience, to have made this movie.
MP: It was, yeah, absolutely. I think, I healed through this movie. So, I was born and raised in Italy. And thankfully, I was surrounded by beautiful art and beautiful literature, and culture, my whole life. I studied all of it, because I was enamored with it. I was spending more time on books, like philosophy books, than I was being outside, like a normal teenager.
But then I got to a place where I felt like I was filled with academia and no real-life experience. So, at the end of high school, I left, at 19, to move to New York City by myself. Amongst overall disapproval of everybody, from my parents and my professors, my friends. They were all like, “You’re going to come back, acting is not a sustainable career, what are you thinking?”
I studied the humanities this whole time. Studying theater as the next logical thing, to truly deepen my knowledge of what being a human being means. Like, what’s the human heart? After I got out of theater school, I was booking stuff that I didn’t really care about and seeing so many projects never come to life. That hurt me, profoundly.
I eventually booked a part that I was so in love with… I was 22 years old and was so young, so unprotected. I didn’t have an agent. Again, I was alone in New York City, trying to make this movie happen. And I helped the director turn it into a feature film, and got them with a production company. A good indie production company, that was ready to put money into this.
And then, two years go by, the director hits on me, and I’m like, “No thanks,” and he fires me.
DC: Oh, god.
MP: Yeah. And it wasn’t so much the sexual whatever of it. It was more the abuse of power that scarred me. And the fact that I wasted so much time and energy, and love, and passion, and then it got snatched away from me like that.
I was already not okay with being an actor and not being in control. But that was the last nail in the coffin. I was like, “This is never going to happen to me ever again.” And that’s when I started writing Braid.
Also, my modeling agency had lost my visa, so I couldn’t go home, even if I wanted to.
DC: Whoa!
MP: Yeah. So, I was an immigrant, I was unemployed, and I had stolen toilet paper in my backpack, and I was living out of a walk-in closet. So, it was a terrifying time in my life, but it was also the best.
It was the best because I had come to a place in which I realized I was my circumstances. I planted myself in that moment. So I needed the lights to go off, for me to blossom.
I think it’s important, whenever life throws stuff at you, take a minute to internalize. Take a minute to really think, what is going on, why you’re hurting. And in the end, we all go through the same things. We all wonder the same things: who we are, what are we doing here, is any of it real?
So, for me, in that moment, I looked at reality like a mirror. I was like, this is not separate from me. This is me, and this is good. And there’s a reason. And even when things aren’t going right, there’s something in there that can help you grow, and that can help you birth something. Especially, if pain goes to waste, it’s a waste. When something hurts, make something out of it.
And so, I wrote Braid. Again, the use of mirrors in the movie … We used them a lot for two reasons. First of all, just the idea of split personality, of who you are and who you want to be. When those two people recognize that they’re not the same, there’s this dichotomy, and you start getting paranoid, and you start getting anxieties, and you’re depressed, and you compare yourself to other people. And the idea of reality being an extension of your thoughts, and a mirror to your thoughts. So, reality does take the shape of what you think.
For me, it was really a cathartic process to make Braid. And although it’s marketed, I guess, as a horror movie, psychological thriller, gory… in the end, it wants to say, “Use your imagination because it is the key to the world, is the key to your existence. Just don’t die in your dreams.”
Because in the movie, the girls all start off with some kind of need or desire or expectation for their lives, but then they get caught up in this game of make believe. And by the time they try to get out, it’s too late.
DC: How’d you get the movie into the festivals?
MP: When we got into Tribeca, I was really depressed, because we didn’t get into Sundance, the movie wasn’t ready. I was arguing with my editor every day, crying in this very small editing room. It was winter, New York City.
And my producer texted me a screenshot of Tribeca Film Festival inviting Braid in their midnight section, praising the movie. I literally had to go into a coffee shop restroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I started crying, and then I go, “The farce continues. This crazy farce continues.”
DC: That’s a pretty amazing story. Did you have any sort spiritual or psychological practice, that enabled you to turn your thinking to a positive direction?
MP: Well, I started every morning with counting my blessings, as far as, “I’m alive, I’m still breathing. I have a roof over my head.” Just going through it. “I have a brain that’s enabling me to write a screenplay. I have a body that works.” So that, just starting the morning saying “thank you,” instead of “oh fuck,” really helped.
And then, I kept telling myself, “Everything that’s happening to you or that has happened to you is preparing you and has prepared you for this moment. You wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be having a chance at something this great if you weren’t cut for it.” And of course, there were many times when I was like, “I’m not, I can’t. I can’t do this.” Many, many times. But somehow … You can have as much negativity and darkness as you want, as long as it’s 49% dark, and 51% light … At the end of the day, your positivity has to win.
It’s a risky thing to do, but I do recommend not giving yourself a choice. If you have a fallback that’s too comfy, you won’t end up doing enough work to get your first film made. It’s because it’s an insane process, it’s really difficult, and it’s really trying, in every possible way, psychologically and emotionally, et cetera. And so, if you have a plan B, if you have another job that you’re working on, you’re likely not to give your film 100%.
DC: In retrospect, seeing the finished cut of Braid, what would you have invested more in, and what would you have invested less in? I don’t necessarily mean money, it could be time, effort, energy, etc.
MP: So, the one thing that every producer will tell you, because they think they’re being smart and precious, and they’re not, is: trim the fat, kill your darlings. They will tell you that the script is great, that they love you, and they want to make the movie with you. So, you hire them. And then, in the first meeting of these people being your producers, they’re like, “We’re going to have to cut the script.”
And I’m thinking, “Right, because I just wrote 20 extra pages because I felt like it. I mean, everything is in there for a reason. Like, don’t get a shoe that doesn’t fit you and then complain that you’re hurting.”
But, again, I was a first-timer, so I trusted my producers. And it’s true that when you’re starting out, you’re not going to get two months to shoot your first movie. I got 25 days. And the script, at the very beginning, was 123 pages. But, I got it down to 93, because I was given 25 days.
The sweet spot is four and a half pages a day. We would have had to shoot six, seven, or eight. I had to cut out a lot of pages that weren’t necessarily moving the plot forward, but they were important for character development. It was the little nuances, the little things. And those little things often get cut.
And if you can fight for those things to stay, do. Because in the end, it worked out for Braid because it has a manic pace, because the characters are crazy, the movie goes crazy. You’re living in this free association fever dream, poetic logic type of world. Sometimes there might be scenes that don’t necessarily need to be there, and they’re just expensive, and you’re wasting time. But trust yourself. If you’ve written it, there’s got to be a reason why it’s there. But take the notes, notes are great.
DC: That makes a lot of sense, because it’s those little details, those little nuances, are what make directors … It’s what gives directors a signature. It gives them their individual voice. And a lot of people want to cut those elements.
MP: And if the character isn’t well-rounded, then you don’t care about them. And if you don’t care about the characters, you’re lost.
DC: So, one thing that I read that a lot of your cast and crew had said was that, “I’ve never been so challenged, and I’ve never been so let free, in my life.” I thought that was super cool.
MP: I think that what happened was that I trusted every single person on my set. And I enabled every single person to have their moment to shine. Again, it’s the whole idea of: this is not your movie, it’s everybody’s movie. I think I really empowered my teammates, and I think that was beautiful. And I think that really came through.
DC: Yeah. On a low-budget set not everybody’s there for the money. But, if they do have a voice in the actual movie itself, if they do feel like they have a larger purpose. And if you allow them to do their job, and if you approach it as just one big collaboration, that motivates people in a huge way. I heard you can move mountains that way, on a film set. And it sounds like that’s exactly the dynamic that you created.
MP: The boom operator told me, “You have been the best director I’ve ever had.” And I’m like, “David, what are you talking about? Your career has been, what, 25 years?” And I’m like, “Shit.”
And he’s like, “No, you’ve been seriously the best director. You’ve been a captain to all of us, you treat everybody with respect. You have enabled everybody to speak up, and tell you what they thought, instead of just calling the shots and using us in your master plan.
That’s the other thing about being in one place. You can tell everything that’s going on with other people. And I think, especially for female filmmakers, and this is not just me, like, “enabling female filmmakers,” but women do have a special power. We read minds. Women have that sixth sense and can tell if someone’s upset without needing to look at them. I see it, I feel it.
So, to female filmmakers, seriously do use that sixth sense, because it’s important to be able to. You have to be stern, you have to stand your ground. And also be in disagreement a lot with people. I think the reason why there’s not as many female filmmakers as we wish, but it’s changing obviously. Thankfully, it’s changing. It’s because women are naturally drawn to agreeing. We want everybody to be happy, we’re nurturers. We don’t want the disagreement, or try to stay away from that. And unfortunately, as a director, you have to step on people’s feet. You can’t always be happy, kumbaya, that’s not going to happen.
You have to be able to really stand your ground and know that you’re going to be alone, and know that you’re going to be fighting battles that nobody else understands. Feelings are going to get hurt on set, for sure. And yeah, don’t dismiss the people, especially the PAs, especially the people that are not department heads and actors. They’re so important, they drive your people around. They make sure that you get food, etc. Even if you can grab them at the end of the day and be like, “Thank you so much, you did a great job.” That will go a long way.
DC: I’m always interested about how directors work with actors. And in your movie, your actresses went through such a spectrum of different emotions, and they were all very, very compelling. Obviously, they were very gifted actresses. But, could you talk about your overall process with working with the actors, and enabling them to tap those emotions? Because it’s very raw, and very believable in Braid.
MP: I made myself available for rehearsals a lot. I wanted to make sure that the girls knew this like a play, almost. I wanted them to know every single line so that they could not think about those lines anymore.
Imogen did that, she got on board pretty fast. She had three or four months to prep. In the moments of deepest emotional demand, I prepped her. I helped her prep on set that day, trying to ground those emotions as much as I could.
And Madeline doesn’t like to memorize lines until the very last minute. Pretty much the day before. And that really frightened me. I was like, “Oh, god, she’s not going to know her lines. What’s going to happen?” But I also, I was like, “If that’s your process, that’s totally fine.” And yeah, Maddie showed up every single day on set, obviously nailing her lines. And just being completely fine, without me having to ingrain every single word in her head.
I made sure to create that environment in which no question is stupid. But I was also super lucky. I got actresses that were extremely smart, and extremely kind, and deep, and ready to get cerebral.
DC: As far as your career is concerned, were there any resources or books that were particularly helpful for you?
MP: Yeah. The Hero’s Journey.
DC: Oh, Joseph Campbell?
MP: Fuck yeah. I unconsciously had that training by going to a crazy high school for humanities in Italy, where they drilled the Divine Comedy and The Odyssey, and Crime and Punishment, in our brains until we memorized it, knew it back and forth. And I was translating from original Greek tragedy, and Latin operas, for seven years when I was a teenager.
The cool thing about the hero’s journey is that it’s the writer’s journey. Meaning, the creator, the creative’s journey. Something happens to you.
You’re the flawed hero. You need something, you don’t know what it is, but you need something. And something happens to you, and you’re like, “Oh, no, I’m in a very sticky situation. What am I going to do?” So at first, you’re like, “I have a plan, I think.” And it can be just you and someone else. But you’re like, “I know what I have to do.” And then there’s the refusal to the call, you’re like, “I’m not going to do this, this is too scary. It’s crazy.”
But you’re about to embark upon the hero’s journey. You’re about to go into this underworld that is Alice in Wonderland, The Matrix. During this journey, you go through all kinds of trials and tribulations to get this thing.
Like the girls in Braid: they go into this underworld, because they have a problem, and they need money. But what they don’t know is that they were actually seeking emotional and psychological safety. They wanted a world that they could control, instead of being tossed to the wind to see their dreams shattered in the scary outside world.
So, the regular hero’s journey starts from point A into the underworld, and goes into getting that thing. Ego death, the character almost dies, then comes back to life. And then you return as the hero, finally … This whole transformational process was for you to become the hero …
And then, reading The Writer’s Journey really helped, by Joseph Campbell. And then I was like, “But life doesn’t work that way. You get stuck in your little trippy things that you do with your head. Your anxieties, your fears, your paranoias, your jealousy, and so on.”
So, the thing about Braid is that, there is this cycle, but it turns into a never-ending circle, this spirally braided rabbit hole that never ends. Because it’s like, “What if I can’t get out? What if I do embark upon this journey, and then it never ends? What if I am stuck in a nightmare? And then, that becomes my life.”
DC: Is that why it’s called Braid, because of the intertwining nature of your reality and fantasy?
MP: That, but also many things… It’s like braiding reality and dreams. And you really can’t undo it once you’ve started it. And the three girls, just having these intertwined character arcs.
And then, because of Dr. James Braid. He’s this doctor in the 1800s, I believe, that made a theory out of self-hypnosis. He is the father of self-hypnosis and the theory that you can cure yourself and your psychosis by using hypnosis.
So, that idea of creating fake images in your head to heal the body, and heal the mind, for real, was just interesting to me, and the way that we always kind of do that. We always trick ourselves into imagining things. Like, getting ready for something, it’s a form of a self-defense mechanism. And all these things we imagine do end up changing the chemistry in our brain.
DC: Whoa. Mitzi, this was so much fun. Thank you. Any parting wisdom for aspiring filmmakers?
MP: I would say the big one is: write about what scares you. Because as long as you feel like it’s coming from a true place of honesty for yourself, it will resonate with someone else.
Don’t write just because you know that people are into something. Don’t write based on what’s the latest trend. Just think about what you’re scared of, what keeps you up at night, and write about that.
DC: That’s great. Thank you so much, Mitzi.
MP: Thank you so much!
Want to hear the full conversation? Check out Mitzi Peirone on The Nick Taylor Horror Show podcast, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, & everywhere you listen.
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