Interview with Director Carolyn Knapp About Her New Film Cherry Bomb
Q: Tell me what inspired you to make cherry bomb?
I love directing more than anything else, and I’m motivated by creating my own short films. Cherry Bomb is the second short I’ve done in college, but I’ve been making them since I was 5 years old! Creating films is cathartic, it gives me the chance to explore my own thoughts in a physical realm. In 2019, I released Hives, a narrative that was rooted in my experiences of extreme bodily anxiety as a senior in high school. In the year that followed, I grew a ton as an artist and craved to create a new narrative which reflected my latest skills and ideas. In 2019 and 2020, I became more confident in my own sexuality than ever before as I was exposed to new people and communities in college, and creating Cherry Bomb was a chance to reflect on and explore my feelings of having to prove my sexuality to my high school peers after I came out.
Q: Is the story from personal experience?
I don’t have a sister. I have a little brother, but he and Violet could not be more different. Also, none of the characters are based on anyone I know. Instead, Violet and Georgie are based on parts of myself at different stages of my life. Georgie represents me as a senior in high school, wracked with insecurities and feeling like I needed to prove my identity to my peers. Violet, conversely, was inspired by my pre-high school self who read books, danced through convenience stores and didn’t care what anyone thought of her.
Q: What would you like people to get from film?
I want people to get what they need from this film. The intended audience of Cherry Bomb is my high school self, the one who was sure that she wasn’t straight, but didn’t know how to further explore her identity, not mention prove it to her peers. I hope that Violet is a reminder of all our younger selves before we became self conscious. Violet’s advice that Georgie can become confident in her identity by trusting her gut and relying on her loved ones is advice to every Cherry Bomb viewer.
Q: Why did you choose the film title?
My original working title was Sister, Sister, and I played around with sister titles a lot before I switched to the working title Cherry Bomb, which was inspired by the Runaways song. I listened to that song on repeat while writing the script because I knew that was the energy I needed to capture within Violet. From there, I realized that I liked the idea of naming the short after the ice cream that follows the sisters throughout their nighttime adventure. Their emotional arc starts when the pint is bought and ends when it is eaten! I thought about calling the short Cherry Garcia because I couldn’t use the Runaways song for legal reasons, but Ben and Jerry’s caught me there again with more copyright. And King Sheim saved the day with a queer opening anthem that harnesses the same irreverent energy as the Runaways.
Q: What directors inspired you?
The directors that inspire me most tend to be women and/or queer people, because I find that their perspective on the world allows them to subvert traditional tropes in a fresh and intriguing way and in a way that I relate to and see myself within. A few of my favorite inspirations are Skate Kitchen (2018) directed by Crystal Moselle, Born in Flames (1983) directed by Lizzie Borden, Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer (An Emotion Picture), and the short film Ella (2018) by Dan Chen.
Q: Are you working on any new projects?
At the moment I am taking a bit of a breather to focus on university work, but I do have a full length feature script in progress that explores similar themes as Cherry Bomb, along with themes of intersectional environmentalism and a critique of Southern California “liberal” bubbles. I also create visual content for °1824, a young adult team of Universal Music Group. I recently creative directed a series of videos for a Lenovo x Jonas Brothers campaign with °1824, and earlier in the summer I created animated music video visualizers for the musicians Fergie and Maya B.
To see more work by Carolyn Knapp check out her Instagram.