‘I Saw the TV Glow’ Director Jane Schoenbrun on Creating Cinematic Creepypasta

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Photo Source: Courtesy A24

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s second feature, “I Saw the TV Glow,” is very much in sync with their 2021 debut—“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” which follows a reclusive teenage girl who gets caught up in a sinister online challenge. Both films fall under the “creepypasta” heading—a horror genre defined by viral supernatural tales written by anonymous web users. But “I Saw the TV Glow,” out May 3, delves even deeper into the hold our obsessions can have on us.

Schoenbrun is interested in exploring the inner lives of teens and queer people, particularly the types of media they connect with. They crafted the narrative of “I Saw the TV Glow” around a fictional show called “The Pink Opaque.” They modeled it after both Joss Whedon’s groundbreaking 1997 WB show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and D.J. MacHale and Ned Kandel’s 1990 Nickelodeon anthology series “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” 

“I Saw the TV Glow” follows Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Owen (Justice Smith), two teens who share a love for “The Pink Opaque.” But before long, the line between reality and fiction begins to warp. 

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Schoenbrun had a very tiny budget to work with on “World’s Fair,” which was distributed by Utopia. But with A24’s support for their second film, they felt empowered to go bigger, especially when it came to creating the visuals. 

For “World’s Fair,” the director built the film’s imagery organically on the spot rather than planning it ahead of time, such as when Casey (Anna Cobb) dons glow-in-the-dark face paint. But the bigger budget they had to work with on “I Saw the TV Glow” allowed for a more deliberate creative process. 

“One of the gifts I was being given was the ability to paint and to create worlds that could be fully preplanned and done in collaboration,” Schoenbrun says. One of their key collaborators was artist and filmmaker Albert Birney (“Eyeballs in the Darkness,” “Strawberry Mansion”), who also plays Mr. Sprinkly in the movie. Together, they chose 25 images to research; Birney then drew them, which helped Schoenbrun get the aesthetic down to the exact shade of color they wanted to see onscreen. 

“I Saw the TV Glow”

A larger budget also gave the filmmaker more freedom to build out the TV show within the movie. “The Pink Opaque” is about two teen girls (played by Helena Howard and Snail Mail singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan) who use their psychic connection to fight monsters sent by the evil Mr. Melancholy (Emma Portner), who’s trying to control reality. 

Schoenbrun says that creating an entire television series and its mythology within their movie wasn’t as intimidating as it sounds. “I gravitate toward building big things, not small things,” they say. “One of the hardest challenges with ‘World’s Fair’ was knowing the limitations that I had, and also what I should bite off as a debut filmmaker. It’s my instinct to build out a universe when I make something. Both the creepypasta in ‘World’s Fair’ and the TV show in ‘TV Glow’ are these fun places to do a lot of creative work.” 

They also curated the film’s killer soundtrack, which will be released alongside the it, selecting artists they admire. Schoenbrun made sure there was a mix of genre and tone, describing the overall feel as “queer sad-girl music.” Schoenbrun is proud of the result, which they see as a vital extension of the movie itself. 

“There was something about the fact that this was existing in this teen-angst lineage,” they explain. “It’s just another way that the movie continues to linger in the culture and the individual hearts and minds of the people who dig it.” 

And linger it does; early screenings have already garnered praise from critics and earned the film a fanbase. What Schoenbrun has heard from viewers so far makes them realize they’ve achieved something they’ve always wanted to. 

“The thing that I am very humbled to have happen when I make something—which is something that was previously invisible or an experience that people have had that felt personal and unexplainable—[is when it] becomes something that there is now common language to discuss.”

This story originally appeared in the May 2 issue of Backstage Magazine.