Kane Parsons, the creator of the viral 'Backrooms' web series, has become A24's youngest ever director at just 20 years old. Born in 2005, the same year YouTube launched, Parsons says he has 'always taken that for granted' having the platform at his disposal. 'YouTube, really more than just being a cultural reference for me, has been how I know how to do any of the stuff I do,' he explained, calling his debut a 'weird dream come true.'
Parsons, also known as Kane Pixels, was 16 when he created 'The Backrooms: Found Footage' in 2022, inspired by a 2019 creepypasta photo on 4chan depicting endless vacant office space. His well-produced found footage series focused on the fictional Async Research Institute's study of the Backrooms amid rising missing persons cases. A24 soon approached him for a feature adaptation, which began development and filmed last summer in Vancouver, starring Oscar nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renata Reinsve.
Parsons, part of a new generation of directors who started on YouTube, says he hasn't faced any stigma from that background. 'I'm only really here for the work that I do, and I am kind of oblivious to some of what goes outside of that, by choice,' he said. 'I'm just doing, in my mind, the same thing I've been doing on YouTube, but somehow this snowballed in such a way that I have been given the ability to be a part of and work with such a large group of people on what is essentially just a very long video.'
For the film, Parsons and his VFX team used Blender, the same free CGI tool he learned on 'a fairly crummy laptop' in middle school with help from YouTube tutorials. 'It's feasible, and even on a pretty shitty machine, you can still get the ball rolling,' he advised aspiring creators. Scaling his vision for the big screen over four years has been 'a very bizarre dream that it's also been as seamless as it has been,' noting few barriers to creative control with A24.
The horror film premieres on May 29 in theatres. Parsons, who is 'very satisfied with what we did,' added: 'If there's anything to be taken from this, I think the brain is the main thing you need to find a way to create. I would just encourage optimism around that.'
