The Influencer Film Interview: Experimental Horror w/ Lael Rogers & Megan Leonard

Embedding Social Media Perspectives into a Short Film

“One of our big focuses in the movie was how can we depict social media in the way that we consume it,” says Leonard, in reference to the film’s editing style and camera work. “There’s no real coherent scenes, because that’s not how social media works. [Social media is] really fractured and isn’t very interested in showing you the full lives of anyone, so we didn’t [either].”

Experimentation was a core part of the film’s inception, and it is much of what attracted Rogers to write the story in the first place. For instance, The Influencer plays with aspect ratios — at times presenting visuals in a dynamic format that divides the screen into three vertical panels, as if three vertical social media video were placed side-by-side. Each vertical panel highlights a different aspect of the influencer’s daily routine, and a new panel appears every time a moment unfolds. The scrolling effect is reminiscent of social media feeds and draws viewers firsthand into the influencer’s world.

Rogers originally conceptualized The Influencer in 2019, and she wanted to write a story that wasn’t bound by any rules. Embracing the “weirdness” of the story’s subject matter, Rogers was inspired to venture deep into experimental horror territory.

“I just [had] never done a lot of this stuff before; I had never worked with found footage,” Rogers explains, of the film’s experimentation. “It’s a very non-traditional film structure, both in the storytelling and the technology of it… that was scary but also exciting… I didn’t know if it would work.”

But it did work, in large part due to the film’s editing. Montage scenes burst in a kaleidoscope of colors and swift cuts to present a whirlwind of vivid, fragmented moments. Each sequence seamlessly blends into the next with a rapid-fire pace that imbues the film with a distinctive energy — where every swipe captures fleeting glimpses into life’s transient emotions.

“It was a very chaotic shoot because we were doing it so non-traditionally…” Rogers explains. “We didn’t have a lot of the traditional crew positions, and we [we]re slotting people into new roles that we were creating, just to have a production that was based around social media.”

Using Music as the Backbone for Filmmaking

Rogers and Leonard knew early on that they wanted to create the film score before the film itself – and that the score would then establish the tone and energy of the entire piece. They reached out to Seattle musician Celene Ramadan – who releases music under the monikers Leeni and Prom Queen – and asked Ramadan to compose music for the film months before they even began shooting. The Influencer‘s high-tempo score energizes the intensity of the different montages; its pulsing syncopated beats drive the pace forward and mirrors the incessant flow of social media updates.

“This whole process was extremely unsettling in a great way, but [the soundtrack] was one of those things where I was like, ‘I gotta have this nailed down because this is not something that we want to be figuring out in post,” explains Rogers, who stresses that the filmmakers wanted to record the short film like a music video. “Essentially, you know your beats, you know your tone, you know what you’re filming for, [and the score] really dictates the style of the shots.”

Rogers and Leonard discussed the core themes of the story with Ramadan and gave her a monologue, which would thematically serve to help with music assembly. This resulted in Ramadan composing a series of hit songs that gave the film a feel of flipping through a Top 40s radio station.

“She made a series of music along the instructions of, ‘We want this to be a score, but we also want it to sound like it could be a pop song on the radio,’ which are not the same thing,” comments Rogers. “And she did it.”

In one particular standout chorus, Ramadan sang, “I want to be a God” – and the filmmakers latched onto the hook right away. The line became a central theme of the film and helped expand the story’s concept where a social media influencer is practically deified.

The vast amount of music that Ramadan composed gave the filmmakers variety which helped them shift shifting tones abruptly and sharply throughout The Influencer‘s 10-minute runtime. Bubblegum pop music was set alongside industrial sounds, for instance – and Rogers and Leonard felt that this contrast was essential in capturing the different sides of the social media landscape that they wanted to depict.

Behind-the-scenes photos from The Influencer

Training Actors to Become Crew Members

Another compelling experimental component of The Influencer is the way that actors were assigned dual responsibilities for filming. For the actors to act as social media influencers themselves, they often also became camera operators. Leonard and Rogers expressed that this aspect of social media savviness was something they were looking for when casting for the film. The practice adds a heightened sense of reality before the film ventures into full-on horror territory.

“We didn’t have a camera person moving the phones around, choreographing each of those movements. [We had] Lael, teaching [the actors] how to properly wipe frames,” explains Leonard. “They’re not only having to learn these performance beats, but they’re also having to direct the camera with themselves at the same time, which is just completely new for an actor.”

“It’s such a double-edged sword shooting with phones, as no one knows when you’re rolling,” Rogers adds. “With traditional film sets, it’s very clear when you’re rolling… with phones, it’s like, ‘Where’s the camera? Where’s the DP? Where’s the monitor?’ And we’re hidden in another room with an iPad, and because the phone has such 360-degree capabilities, we would just have to, as a crew, be somewhere completely different.”

Leonard was also producer on Dream Creep – a local short film by Carlos A.F. Lopez that premiered at Sundance — where Rogers offered special effects. With such successes under their belt, both Leonard and Rogers are determined to elevate Seattle’s filmmaking scene and prove that Seattle is a creative goldmine on the same level as New York and Los Angeles.

To do so, Rogers hopes to transition soon to creating feature films, and Leonard hopes to continue lending a helping hand and being a resource to other local filmmakers through her production company, Lenny Pictures.

“With this run – both with The Influencer and with Dream Creep – it has been [about] finding our people – not only from like a Seattle and crew and collaboration experience but also on a more national, international scale of finding our audience,” Rogers reflects. “Going to huge genre festivals and having people scream at kills like it’s a concert is a wild theater experience that I’d never had before.”

Watch The Influencer

Photo Credits (Top to Bottom)

• Deisy Patiño and Peter McNally in The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
• Deisy Patiño in The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
• MacKenzie Wynn, Laura Hetherington, and Deisy Patiño on the set of The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
• Peter McNally and Laura Hetherington on the set of The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
• Brianna Murphy and Peter McNally on the set of The Influencer. Courtesy of Lenny Pictures.
• Laura Hetherington, Peter McNally, Lael Rogers, MacKenzie Wynn, and Deisy Patiño on the set of The Influencer. Courtesy of Lenny Pictures.
• Director of Photography Jonathan Houser and Lael Rogers on the set of The Influencer. Courtesy of Lenny Pictures.
• Bria Condon in The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
  9. Laura Hetherington, Bria Condon, Deisy Patiño, and MacKenzie Wynn in The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.
• Bria Condon in The Influencer. Courtesy of All is Well.

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