Aaron Fradkin 
Victoria Fratz
MTH: I had watched Klown Skool before and didn’t make the connection. We watched most of your shorts over time and then we watched them all again to refresh and I was able to go back and pick up a few things. That’s the best part too! The replay value. You go back and watch it again, you’re going to pick up more.
Victoria: Do you guys have a favorite? Is there a particular short that gives you the scares the most?
MTH: I (Charlene) really loved The Ballerina but I also really love Devil’s Door and Bed Head. The idea of something being there that you can’t see for me is so creepy. If I’m in a dark room and there’s somewhere darker and I can’t see in there that’s a full no!
Aaron: You’re going to love our next one then! The next one we’re just going for full scares. There’s nothing really funny about it. You might chuckle at one point because you’re nervous.
MTH: That’s great! I think my favorite (Daniel) was Happy Halloween.
Victoria: Happy Halloween was such a love letter to Halloween. I love Happy Halloween. It was so much fun. It was the first time I talked in the shorts. It was such a fun, fun thing to create.
Aaron: And all those kids were our neighbors.
Victoria: And their parents are all standing around and we’re like, “We’re just going to borrow your kids. Is that alright?” and we bought them all costumes and gave them candy and money. It was just a lot of fun with the neighborhood kids that night.
Aaron: Convincing them to act in the film was difficult. All we offered was candy and money.
MTH: So tough! Well, kids hate candy and they can’t use the money for anything so. (laughs)
Victoria: It was a real chore for these kids.
MTH: That’s hilarious. I feel like there are so many shorts we’ve seen where there’s so much lead-up and then boogah! I feel like your films don’t do that which we appreciate. The lead-up is scary and then if something jumps out at you there’s a reason. It buttons it. Instead of, “Well, I didn’t have anything else so ahhh!”
Victoria: Sometimes it happens but we really try our best not to just do that because it’s not enough of a payoff.
MTH: Also, ASMR was successful and just creepy the whole way through.
Victoria: We’re glad you think so. Misha Reeves was such an inspiration because she was the one that started doing the ASMR movements and doing things and we were like, “Oh, that’s creepy!” The nails on the bristle brush. Okay, cool! Then that actually informed more of what happened in the script.
Aaron: We actually told her to bring some props and she used a lot of it.
Victoria: She’s great!
MTH: How much of your films are just going off the script versus there’s a lot that just kind of happens and you go this is great, “Happy accident!”?
Aaron: For these shorts, I would say that it’s 95% scripted. If not even more. It’s pretty well planned out. That’s actually also one of the big differences between comedy and horror. That’s something I do enjoy about comedy that you oftentimes want to shoot with more cameras because you want it to feel natural and you want it to flow. It’s good to give the actors room to improvise and try something new but with these horror shorts, we’re shooting with one camera. Every shot is very well planned out. So, there isn’t too much room for improvisation.
Victoria: ASMR is one of the few examples of we had to go back and redo a lot of it.
Aaron: We did! We had to reshoot it. I guess with ASMR that’s sort of an exception because all of Misha’s lines were captured with just one camera and one still taken. We could just keep the camera rolling and she could just try a million different things and then we just pluck the pieces that we like. But any time there’s an actual scene with dialog or something there isn’t much room for improv there. That’s really pretty planned out.
Victoria: Well, also because the scares are choreographed. You have to know where it’s going to land. I can’t think of any time we’ve come up with something better on the fly that was better than what we had already planned or were committed to.
Aaron: I think Slasher was one that we kind of reworked the ending while we were filming. I forget what the original ending was at this point but I do remember just thinking like, “This just doesn’t feel right.”
Victoria: It was something with the door where he was actually going to bust down the door and that’s how he was going to come in but instead he’s flickering in the hallway which I really loved and it was like, “Yeah, let’s do that! That’s great!”
