Q&A with Henry Kinder
A conversation with filmmaker Henry Kinder on his short film, The Edge of the Light.
How did you first get into filmmaking?
My first taste of the glamour of a life in film came during the production of the ‘lost’ ‘cult’ ‘classic’ 'The Sad King.' The year was 2002 and I was 7. By the time our family troupe embarked on the much anticipated follow-up, 'The Sad King II’ – another stop-motion Playmobil masterpiece, there was no turning back… The Kinders continued to make films together throughout my childhood– your readers may be familiar with such revered titles as ’The Last Polaroid,’ (told from the perspective of a dying Spirit 600 polaroid camera) or ‘Devil’s Foodcake’ (a cherubic, cake-obsessed girl kills her brother's birthday party guests with a death stare).
Through my teen years, my focus had turned to music, but when I got to college, I began immersing myself in film studies courses and crewing on thesis films. It was incredibly exciting to rediscover a world of comprehensive creation that blended so many things that I had grown to love independently – rhythm, story, performance, photography – and returned me to a place rooted in familial play.
What was your creative process for this film?
I see the beginning spark for this film as happening on September 9th, 2020. I had plans to hike the John Muir Trail – a 200 mile route through the Sierras ending at Mt. Whitney – with my partner, but as we gathered our final provisions, CA and the entire Western US erupted in historic wildfires. We woke up on the 9th to a sky that grew darker as the sun rose– an experience that has been impossible to shake. On that unforgettable day in the Bay Area, the place where I grew up was unrecognizable to me. All of a sudden, the climate crisis was intensely personal. As a filmmaker, I felt compelled to document what I was seeing. So I started from this place of asking: what’s a story that can be set in this environment? What’s a situation where someone might have no choice to be outside in such dangerous air…
Many of the films that I was looking at for inspiration as I was writing have a documentary element to their approach; I was really excited to infuse the approach of this story with that similar ethos. We originally had a plan to shoot on days when the air quality in the Bay was actually impacted. For a number of reasons, we pivoted from this plan and found that we were able to create a convincing ’smoke’ look with a combination of overcast weather, optical filtration, light vfx and color grade. But the idea of trying to capture as much that was ‘real’ or ‘found’ as possible helped guide many of our decisions: we cast a real mom/son, shot in a house where two boys had been raised, and pulled much of the costumes and props from the personal world of the talent, etc.
The ‘found’ ethos was aesthetic, but it also complimented the secondary goal I had for the project which was to make a film with the smallest environmental impact or ‘lightest footprint’ that I could. To this end, we tracked all of our carbon emissions for the film, made reductions where we could, and wrote up our learnings in a sustainability toolkit for other indie filmmakers.
What projects are you working on next, and how can people who are interested best support or follow you.
I’m currently in production on a short documentary about an NGO in Thailand that helps stateless children and families, as well as a documentary portrait series that aims to shed a new perspective on individuals who have previously been involved with the criminal legal system.
Beyond that, I’m revising a feature screenplay – another Bay Area story that takes place in the same spiritual world of The Edge of the Light. If anyone’s interested in updates (or just to say hi!) give me a follow on ig: @hkinder, or send me a note at henrykinder@me.com. Thanks so much!!
