In this episode, Jessie and Chris met with PMA Senior Katherine Lynn-Rose to discuss her thesis film Top of My School, what inspired the film, her role as both director and actor in this project, the upcoming screening and her future plans post-graduation.
Click HERE to see more episodes.
Transcript
00:00 Music.
Chris Christensen 00:11
Hello and welcome to episode 68 of the PMA podcast. In this episode, Jessie and I met with Cornell senior, Katherine Lynn-Rose to discuss her thesis film Top of My School, what inspired the film, her role as both director and actor in this project, the upcoming screening and her future plans post-graduation. So welcome to the podcast studio, Katherine.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 00:33
Thank you.
Chris Christensen 00:34
Yeah, absolutely. Jessie, welcome back. Both of you, welcome back from spring break.
Jessie Jia 00:39
Yeah.
Chris Christensen 00:41
Where did you go?
Jessie Jia 00:42
Stay home.
Chris Christensen 00:43
Nice. How was that?
Jessie Jia 00:45
It was great. I slept like 12 hours per, per day.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 00:50
Much needed sleep. Yeah.
Chris Christensen 00:52
I took a day off on last Friday, and I got some sleep in. And that was nice.
Jessie Jia 00:57
That was awesome.
Chris Christensen 00:58
Yeah, I think staying home is like the way to do it.
Jessie Jia 01:00
Yeah, me and Katherine were on set for weekends, for like a month.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 01:04
Yeah, we have not had a free weekend in so long.
Chris Christensen 01:07
You were, you've been on set for a month?
Jessie Jia 01:09
Yeah.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 01:10
Pretty much, yeah.
Chris Christensen 01:11
Yeah. Well, that we're going to talk all about that. So tell us a little bit about your film thesis.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 01:19
Yeah so, my name is Katherine, and I am a senior in PMA, and my thesis is titled Top of My School, and it's this 20 minute long rom-com turned horror musical short film. It's kind of a lot, but it follows this girl named Bree who's the top of her school, as the title suggests, and her sort of quest to become student council president until somebody unexpectedly decides to run against her, and everything kind of derails. And it's this sort of contesting the model minority stereotype within this crazy genre-bending musical.
Chris Christensen 01:59
Okay, thank you.
Jessie Jia 02:00
Wow, what I know, like, you wrote the song in high school. So, like, what was the process of, like, actually making a film out of the song?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 02:08
Yeah, so this has been an idea I've had since junior year of high school. And I originally wrote this character for this character design assignment in my comm-tech class. And it's kind of this, I call her a self insert turned anti hero. She's kind of all the traits that I don't like about myself amplified. And I wrote a song about it, also for the same class, and I posted it on the socials and everything. It kind of blew up. And I always knew that I wanted to have this character as a sort of cautionary tale. And so many people online were like, "Oh my God, that's so me." I'm like, that's not good, guys, that's not good, that's not good. Don't put all your self worth into your academic achievements. I speaking from myself who did burn out in freshman year. Not fun. Don't do it. So I've already had this like, idea of the story in my head since high school, and then coming into Cornell when I decided to switch majors, I was a math major in freshman year, and that's why I burnt out. Anyways, when I decided to switch majors, I knew I wanted to do PMA and I knew I wanted to tell stories, and I knew my thesis or what I wanted my big project to be. I wanted it to be this. I wanted it to be Bree, Top of My School. And so with throughout film one and film two, and like my journey with the PMA major, everything I've done was trying to set up, set myself up to be able to tell the story. So in film one, I did a rom-com turned horror musical called Class Crush. And then in film two, I did a more drama musical focusing on my relationship with my mom and sort of that experience with, not with, like my, you know, Asian immigrant mom, and the language barrier, and all of that comes with and having a bilingual film. And then I've kind of meshed those two- meshed those two films together to create Top of My School.
Chris Christensen 03:53
I want to hear more about the song.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 03:55
Yeah.
Chris Christensen 03:55
Tell me about the song.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 03:56
The song, it was, like one of my first songs that I wrote. I would say, I'd say, I'd say it's like the first song I actually tried. All the songs I've written before were, like, raps to memorize history stuff and, like biology.
Chris Christensen 04:08
Great mnemonic advice.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 04:09
Yeah. So Top of My School was, like my first song, and I wrote it during COVID, right when lockdown happened. And our prof- like, our teacher in high school was like, if you guys want to do a final project, do one, but if you don't, it's okay. And I was like, I want to be a try hard and write a song and make a music video about it. So I wrote the song based on the character from the previous assignment. And I don't play any instruments, so it was just me placing individual notes in like MIDI on back then I used Garage Band. And I recorded this demo in my room with my little blue Yeti mic, and then I posted it online, and I won a couple contests. And one of the contests allowed me to record the song in like, one of the top Toronto recording studios. And so I recorded there, and I brought it back home, I did all the orchestrations, and then I sent it off to my friend Joshua Turchin, who's an incredible musician and did the piano. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you like, transformed this piece. It's like, not a demo anymore. It's like, this real. It feels like a musical theater piece. And I was like, yay! And then I posted it on Spotify, Apple Music, all those things, and then also on Tiktok. And a lot of people resonated with the material, especially in the Philippines. It was like, went viral. It was like, top 100 in the Philippines or something.
Chris Christensen 04:37
Okay. Wow, that's amazing.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 05:26
Yeah, it was great. But it just made me realize how much like, how universal this theme was. Because originally me writing this song was COVID happened. All my extracurriculars were gone. I couldn't do theater anymore. I'm a huge theater kid, if you could not tell. And I have never gotten a lead. I've always like played, played background roles. And my dad actually told me you shouldn't do the arts, because what are you going to do? You're going to play Mulan, and that's it. You're going to have no career after that. And I was like, okay, I guess you're right. And then during COVID, I was like, well, I'm not performing anything anyways. Might as well write my own roles. And then so I wrote my own role. And then turns out a lot of people also resonated with that and felt that there was this empty space in the industry for this kind of story, and that's why I am drawn to tell it further.
Chris Christensen 06:10
Wow. That's incredible. The things that happen when you least expect them. Where can people, if people wanted to listen to that song, where could you find it?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 06:14
Yeah. Yeah, it's just under my name, Katherine Lynn-Rose. It's on pretty much everything I'd say, like Spotify, Apple Music, I think it's on Amazon. It's definitely on YouTube, yeah, and then all of my silly little TikToks and Instagram reels are also under my name, Kathryn Lynn-Rose. That's a huge part of what I think allowed me to be where I am today social media, because there's such a barrier to entry with any entertainment industry, really, music, theater, film, and then with social media, you kind of there's like, a bit of like, it kind of strips down that barrier for us, because anyone can post on social media and anyone can create an audience through that. It doesn't have to be through, like, oh, a manager, and then, like, okay, now I can try and find a producer and, like, write my songs, you can just do it all yourself and post it and hope that people find you.
Chris Christensen 07:06
Yeah.
Jessie Jia 07:07
Yeah. Sounds awesome. So when you're bringing it to production this year, did you find like you're changing any bit of the song, like re-orchestrating, or, how do you feel like actually making a movie out of the song?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 07:19
Yeah. So I was able to work with a bunch of incredible collaborators and musicians to create Top of My School. So Top of My School, the film, has three songs. The first one is the same song, and the entire for- the entire film is going to be scored by my incredible friend, Lilianne Coeverden, who is a film scoring major at Berkeley. She is so talented. She's been with me, I'd say, also since COVID. She found me through the interwebs as well, and was like, I can help orchestrate your songs. And I was like, that'd be great. I'm individually placing notes with my mouse, so that'd be great. And she's super talented, and so she's been really shaping the film and the sound and it's it's really awesome. Bree is kind of represented with these, like orchestral instruments, piano and strings, and then Avery, her rival, is represented with, like, more electronic acoustic guitar sounds. And so it's been really cool to help shape that. I've also co-written the two other songs with some collaborators also met through the internet. It's Not About You is co-written with Joshua Turchin, again, the pianist. He's also an incredible writer. It's been so fun to be able to co-write something. Again, we haven't done that since COVID. And then the third song See Me, is co-written with Amanda Ribnick, who, if you are on TikTok, she like, made this Gilmore Girls musical, and it's so awesome. But yeah, it's it's been a process of being able to reach out and be like, hey, I need help with something. Because I was stuck on these two songs for a really long time, and then as soon as I brought in collaborators, we got them done in like, two days. And I was like, wow-
Chris Christensen 08:57
Amazing.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 08:58
Should have called you guys earlier.
Chris Christensen 09:00
You didn't know what you didn't know.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 09:01
Yeah.
Chris Christensen 09:03
Have you taken up any instruments since then?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 09:06
Haha no.
Chris Christensen 09:07
Okay.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 09:08
I probably should learn piano. Like, I know where the notes are. I just I'm not coordinated enough to do it, so it's just faster, honestly, for me to like place the notes then to have to, like, play everything.
Chris Christensen 09:17
Totally get it.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 09:18
But yeah, now that I have collaborators, it's like, hey, it's gonna be like, five minutes for you to do this, whereas five hours if I want to do this. So let me just like, send this to you. Being able to ask for help has been something that I've been like, learning to do and find is very helpful. Within the past, like five years, I'd say. I used to be like, I need to do everything myself. And I'm like, no, it's okay to ask for help.
Chris Christensen 09:41
Are you singing all the parts yourself? No.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 09:44
So I, I do this thing. Like Lin Manuel Miranda, where I like to write my own rules and cast myself as the lead. And so I do play the lead role, and I sing all of her songs. But there is another character, Avery, played by the amazing Zoe Buddie, and we have lots of duets. And it's very fun. When I send out the demo tracks for all, like the ensemble and stuff, it's all kind of me, but then replace all the vocals with like the actual actors. Yeah.
Chris Christensen 10:12
Yeah. Very creative.
Jessie Jia 10:13
How does it feel like being both the director and actor in your film?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 10:17
It's, it's kind of a lot. It is, you really have to have a really solid creative team and camera team that you trust to be able to do both, I'd say, because a lot of the times you're like, running against the clock, and I want to watch the take that we just did, but I was in it, so I couldn't watch it. So we have to replay it, and that's like, doubling the amount of time. But sometimes I can just be like, Hey, Justin, was that good? He was like, Yeah, I'm like, okay, let's move on. I trust you, Justin, so it, it is definitely a lot. I don't know if I would, I don't know if we'll do it again for a hot minute, but it is very fun, and I'd say it's very fulfilling in the end, to be able to, like, see yourself on screen and also tell the story that you want to tell. That's one thing that I I've always started with acting, but I always felt like I was telling someone else's story, not my own. And so that's what got me into writing and directing. And so it's like, very full circle that, like, I'm not only writing and directing, but I'm also literally in it. Yeah.
Chris Christensen 11:18
What's the filming process at now? Are we filming completed?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 11:22
Yeah, we've wrapped. I am now in I'm in the trenches. I'm editing. I have a rough cut done, and I'm just like tweaking and making sure it's all good and locked before I send it off to Lilianne to really fully score. But yeah, the shoot itself went great. We didn't have any huge mishaps, a couple mishaps, but all stuff that's workable. And everyone had a great time on set. And it was just really fun to finally see it come together.
Chris Christensen 11:52
And how long was that process? And, and Jessie, please feel free to chime in, because you were both working on it together yeah?
Jessie Jia 11:58
Yeah. It was three weekends ish. We went to, like Syracuse, American high. We shot something at Lincoln, here at Cornell, and some Airbnb at downtown Ithaca. It was really fun.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:10
Yeah, a lot of different locations. American high was really fun because it's like a real film set that we got to film at, and it's like a whole high school. It's really awesome.
Chris Christensen 12:22
Wait, you said that was in Syracuse?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:24
Yeah.
Chris Christensen 12:24
And it's a, it's a space that is specifically for filming?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:27
Yeah so, like, these two guys were just like, there's this abandoned High School. Let's buy it and turn it into a film set. And so I think they have this deal with Hulu right now where all of Hulu's High School films are shot there.
Chris Christensen 12:37
Wow. I had no clue.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:38
Yeah, it's awesome. It's really cool.
Chris Christensen 12:40
Oh, that's amazing.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:40
It's an awesome space. And I was like, Hey, can I shoot my thesis here? And they're like, sure. And so we got it for a whole day, and we shot all of the classroom and, like, locker hallway scenes there. It was really fun.
Chris Christensen 12:53
Wow. So you just reached out to them directly out of the blue, and that is it?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 12:57
Yeah, well, so I kind of had an in because my management company merged with American high to become Rebel Creative Group, and so I already had their emails.
Chris Christensen 13:09
All right, all right.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 13:10
Hey, Jeremy, hey, Will. Can I check out American High? They're really sweet.
Chris Christensen 13:16
Interesting. What are some other TV shows or films that have been filmed there?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 13:20
The one that I have seen and know is like Crush on Hulu. It's with Auli'i Cravalho and uh I can't remember the other actors names, but it's, you know, classic High School rom-com.
Chris Christensen 13:31
Okay.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 13:32
Very fun stuff.
Chris Christensen 13:33
Very nice. You said there were some mishaps.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 13:35
Mishaps I didn't have sound for one day. And then, actually two days. For two of the shoot days, our sound, something happened. One of the days was, like, the battery wasn't in the pack or something. And then one of the days was, I don't really know what happened, but we were I pulled all the audio into the editing, like, into Premiere, and I was like, Why is there nothing here? Yeah, but it's okay. It was a out of all the days, I think that was one of the days where having no sound was easy, most easily fixed because there wasn't too much dialog. So I just had my actor, ADR, and I actually was just doing that yesterday, I was like fixing everything and very much crafting the sound from scratch. Any other mishaps? Um, well, American high day. Some people we had to wake up at like, 5am some people forgot to wake up. And we were like, we're like, banging on Zoe's door at 5am we're like, Wake up please, because she was driving too. And we're like, please. She had to wake up. We got we all got there in time. Everything's okay.
Chris Christensen 14:39
So you were traveling from here in Ithaca up to Syracuse?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 14:42
Yeah, it was like, because I don't have money for-
Chris Christensen 14:45
For sure, of course. Katherine Lynn-Rose 14:46 For all those people. So it was like-
Chris Christensen 14:48
They don't put you up. They don't put you up at the The place doesn't have, like, you know, a setting inside where you can just, you know, have-
Katherine Lynn-Rose 14:55
They have green rooms and stuff, but you think I'd have to pay for an extra day to be able to be there. But yeah, we woke up at like 5am to drive there, and then it was, like a full day. Shoot from what was it, 8am to 8pm or something, and then we had to drive back. Wow. So a very long day.
Chris Christensen 15:11
Long day.
Jessie Jia 15:12
Yeah, it was long. I remember we had like six or seven cars, so five on driving there was really fun. Yeah, it's like, kind of like a spring getaway, almost like we drove there, and like, we started honking for like, celebration, and then Jeremy came in and say, oh, people live around here, you're not supposed to honk. But like, by the end of the day, it's like snowing that day, and then it was like white out, and we had to drove back. It was, it was really fun.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 15:42
It was like snowstorming. We're like, what is going on? Yeah, us in all of our cars and a little like train going back to Ithaca. It was cute.
Chris Christensen 15:50
And what fun
Jessie Jia 15:52
Are there, like any other days or memories that you want to share as well?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 15:56
Honestly, it was such a blur. Let me think, ooo getting to work with Michael and Yen was really awesome. So there are these two actors from New York City that play my parents in the film, and they are so good. It was really incredible to get to work with them. Michael so scary. I was, I flinch in the movie because, like, he slams his chopsticks at some point, that was a real flinch that wasn't acting. Oh my god. And I remember asking Liv, because I realized so much of our crew doesn't speak Mandarin. And I was like, Liv, is this reading? Like, can you tell what is happening in the scene without even understanding the language? She's like, yeah, I'm terrified. Yeah, everything's reading. I was like, okay, this is great, awesome. Yeah, they're like, they're professional actors, so they're like, every other day they're going to a different set. And so I was, like, very grateful that they made time in their schedule to do this. And Yen I've worked with before, and she's the sweetest person ever, so just really happy to get to work with her again. Yeah, they told some funny on set stories. That's great. How did you find them? Um, okay, so Yen, I needed to find for my last film Silence, because I needed someone to play my mom. And so I went through film festival. So I went through, like, Asian American International Film Festival, specifically Asian American film festivals, and I looked at their previous films, and I tried to see which ones looked like they were Chinese films and which ones had Chinese moms. And then I like, went and found the actors. And so for her, I found her through a film that was in the Asian American International Film Festival. Was like, this looks like it's a Chinese film, probably. And then I was like, Yeah, her name is Yen Wen Chen. That's a Chinese name. And then I found her on Backstage, which is this, like website for a lot of actors to submit onto, like, I feel like it's mostly like indie projects. And so I found her, and I was like, hi, so I'm making this musical film, and I would like you to be my mom. And she was like, okay, cool. And so she sent an audition, and then everything happened, and she was like, Yeah, this is she really resonated with the story, because it felt very similar to what happened with her and her mom as, like, someone who wanted to pursue the arts, and her mom wasn't as supportive, and so she was very, like, drawn to the story, and so I got to work with her. She's incredible. And Michael, I was making jokes about, like, I don't want to be Googling Asian dads in my area, that's not something I want to be searching up. So I tried to do the same thing. I was like, going on backstage. I was like, filtering through, like, okay, speaks Chinese, like, this age range. Man. And I found him, actually, I found a few people, and I reached out to them. Didn't hear back. But then I realized, wait, I have connections now, because my first film class crash actually got into the Asian American International Film Festival, which,
Chris Christensen 18:53
Congratulations.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 18:54
very full circle, because I was like, wait, I was like, looking at this film festival to find my other actor. And so at that Film Festival, I met two other Chinese American filmmakers, and we're like, we're homies now. They're great. I love getting to chat with them after the festival. One of them Christo. He is so cool. He produces his own films, and they look so professional. They're awesome. And I just DM'd him and I was like, hey, any chance you know any Chinese dads that are, like, really good? And he was like, actually, this is like, the best actor I've ever worked with. Here you go. Here's his info. And I was like, what? And then I checked his reel, and I was like, yeah, this is, that's dad.
Chris Christensen 19:36
That worked out well.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 19:37
It was awesome.
Chris Christensen 19:38
Nice.
Jessie Jia 19:39
Yeah. I'm curious to learn more about like you mentioned, like social media, backstage. It's like something that's new happening recently. So what's your experience like finding and networking through these online platforms?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 19:50
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. You know, when I'm meeting everyone in person, there's kind of like a tiny part of my brain that is like my mom when I was young, and she's like, um, are these people real? Are you gonna go get murdered? But it's never happened to me. So, yeah, getting to share your work online and, like, have your personality out there, and then following other people and interacting with other people other people's content is, like, a huge way that I've built a lot of my collaborators and like, community right now. Yeah, just like, engaging with people's posts and being like, wow, this is really cool, and letting them know that you think it's really cool. And then you follow them, and then they may follow you back, and then you start to chat, and then you start to exchange numbers, and, like, actually start to collaborate and meet each other in person and do shows. And it's really awesome. Yeah.
Jessie Jia 20:37
Wow, it's amazing.
Chris Christensen 20:39
So you're reaching the end of your time here at Cornell, tapering off to the the end of your senior year. How has your experience been here at Cornell, here in Performing and Media Arts, and how has that influenced you, both as a director and an actor?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 20:54
Yeah, great question. So my time at Cornell, lots of roller coaster emotions. Again. First year I was a math major, not the move, don't? I mean, don't? I don't want to say, don't major major in math. Don't major in something that you don't truly have interest in and are only doing for the approval of others. Yeah. So first year, kind of a train wreck. I wrote like a whole song about it, learning to find value in yourself, and not through your achievements and your grades and not trying to gain the approval of other people and truly being able to live for yourself. And so when I switched majors, sophomore year, junior year, senior year, I'm a PMA major now, and best decision I've made, to switch to PMA. Yeah, everything. I always say that I'm super busy, but it's all fun work. So I think, I think that, like, speaks for itself, and that I picked the right thing. Yeah, would love, I mean, okay, biggest thing that I'm Whoa, biggest thing, the thing that I'm most grateful for, I'd say throughout my PMA career, and choosing film in particular, because that wasn't the path that I had in mind for myself after freshman year. I was like, let me just like, do performing arts, like something vaguely related to the entertainment industry. I don't know what exactly yet. And then decided to take film one with Jeff. And then as soon as I took Film one, I was like, this is it. This is this is what I want to do. And then throughout that process. Jeff has been really a great mentor to me and trying to help me throughout this film journey. Just got into Columbia for their film MFA program.
Chris Christensen 22:28
Nice.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 22:29
So I'll keep doing this. Jeff was like, Katherine, if you make another rom com horror... So I was like, okay, okay, Jeff, I won't make another one. You'll be watching me. Yeah, really, I felt, I felt really supported throughout that process and trying to really explore this new side of entertainment that I hadn't done before. Again, Class Crush was my first ever film. I hadn't done any filmmaking before that, and so I really loved the opportunity to be able to finally tell my own story through, like, a class, through an intro class, and it was really awesome. And then, I mean, let me think, what other courses? There's been a ton of really interesting courses I've taken at PMA that, you know, when I tell my parents the courses that I'm taking, they're like. What do you mean you're taking an ethics in race and representation in, like, media class? And I'm like, no, it's so cool. It's so interesting. This is exactly what I want to be like thinking about in the future. Yeah, it's just, it's been great.
Jessie Jia 23:30
Do you remember like, the feeling when you first entered film one?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 23:33
I was like, Okay, how many of us were there? It was a pretty big film one class. And I was like, kind of scared. I was like, this is the first small ish class that I've been in, because before there was all, like, big math lectures, and everyone actually had to, like, participate and think about stuff. But everyone was also super interested in film. And so we all, I think, opened up to each other pretty quickly. And now me and Justin are like, this. Apparently Justin was afraid of me in Film One. He was, you, like, knew all the answers. And I was like, I just did photography so I know, like, ISO and stuff. And he was like, now I know you're just a silly, goofy guy. I'm like, okay, okay, Justin. But yeah, again, a huge thing that I'm very grateful to PMA for is like this community of collaborators that I've gotten to know, Liv and Justin and Zoe and like all these incredible people in PMA, I wouldn't have gotten to know them if I wasn't in PMA. And we're all super tight. Love them so much. We're gonna change the world. Chris Christensen 24:38 These are people you can reach out to, of course, as you do your work outside of here as well, all those connections that are made, and yeah, it's really been impressive to watch all of that unfold over the last couple of years.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 24:49
Yeah, I just asked Liv I was like, hey, do you want to produce my solo show in New York? And she's like, yes. Like, okay, yay.
Chris Christensen 24:58
So speaking along those lines. Got plans for the summer? We talked about Family Copoli just briefly earlier. What's that looking like right now?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 25:08
Yeah, so Family Copoli is gonna be super fun. I think my plans are still up in the air right now because of border things and scary, but I am currently working on social media, specifically the Tiktok, which is kind of my thing. I don't know, I love Tiktok, and so I'll be creating a lot of like behind the scenes content, and trying to make us go viral, because it's a really great show. And we're all going to the Edinburgh Fringe Fest, and they're performing there for like, a whole month. It's gonna be awesome, a really, really cool experience. Hopefully we're gonna be on to bigger things soon.
Jessie Jia 25:46
This was awesome. Any other plans other than Family Copoli?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 25:50
So I want to try and move to New York, which has been on my like, I have a manifest list. It's like, star in my own movie check, and then move to New York solo show. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a bunch of things. And so the next thing on my list is move to New York. I don't know when exactly yet, but sometime in the summer, and I want to live out my New York girly dreams before I begin like Columbia time. Chris Christensen 26:14 And so classes start in the fall. Yep. Any aspirations there? Any ideas of what things are gonna look like for you?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 26:21
I talked to a current student, and he was like, first year is kind of a lot. Don't sign up for too much. I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm prepared to be very much neck deep in work. I was like, okay, so are weekends free? No, so weekends are shoot days. I'm like, oh, okay, um, are evenings free? No, so evenings that we have classes? Oh, is, do we have any free time? Oh, um, well, professors don't tend to put evening classes on Fridays, so I think Friday evenings are free. I'm like, okay, so that's yay, cool. But again, he also said, but it's all fun work. I'm like, wait, that's what I always say. So I'm really excited for that.
Jessie Jia 27:06
Yeah, going back to the kind of Top of My School, do you have, uh, when and where would the screening be taking place?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:12
I should know this. I think it's May 3. May 3, 5pm question mark?
Chris Christensen 27:17
We have May 8 at 5pm.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:18
May 8, okay then May 3 is probably PMA Studios. Too many dates in my brain. Yeah, we'll be in the Kiplinger theater, along with the incredibleGiancarlo's thesis film as well. I forgot what the name is called. It's about manatees. Manatee Blues.
Chris Christensen 27:19
Okay.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:34
Yes, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be a fun time.
Chris Christensen 27:39
Is milkshake kiss... taking place?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:40
I think that's a different day.
Chris Christensen 27:41
A diferent day okay.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:42
I think that's the May 3 one.
Chris Christensen 27:43
Gotcha.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:44
Yeah, a lot of films, a lot of films happening in PMA this year. Very exciting stuff. And, yeah, it'll be great. Come see the premiere.
Chris Christensen 27:51
And that's free and open to the public.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:52
It is free.
Chris Christensen 27:53
There's a talk back afterwards.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 27:56
Come ask me all your random questions.
Jessie Jia 27:59
Yeah, are you planning on, like, bringing it further after this premiere?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 28:05
Yeah. So after the premiere, I'm going to be submitting it to a bunch of film festivals, hopefully it gets into some cool ones. I have a whole list, yeah. And then after the festival run, I'll be hopefully posting it on my YouTube. So same thing as what I did with class crush, because my followers are like, they're like, what do you mean we have to wait a year?I'm like, sorry, guys, I want to win awards. But yeah, it'll be available to public eventually, but you get the first look if you come to the screening.
Chris Christensen 28:34
All right. How much longer will you be in Ithaca after graduation, before you head down to New York?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 28:41
That's a great question. And I'm not sure yet my lease ends, like, until end of June or something, but I'm not sure if I'll be here, kind of figuring that out.
Chris Christensen 28:50
Yeah, are there places around the area that you've wanted to see that you haven't yet in your-
Katherine Lynn-Rose 28:58
I have like, okay, I'm a bad Cornell student. Guys, I haven't gone down to the gorges.
Chris Christensen 29:03
Okay?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 29:03
I haven't done a lot of things. So I think in like that graduation week, I'm gonna try and do all those things and enjoy Ithaca and not be stressed about school for once.
Chris Christensen 29:13
There you go. Yeah, you have a little bit of time between the time when you depart, if you wanna, I don't know, look around the area. There's so many beautiful spaces, not just here in Ithaca, but, you know, you headed up towards Syracuse. There's, I don't know, Green Lake State Park up that way. Yeah, there's so much to visit.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 29:29
Yeah.
Jessie Jia 29:32
I think you briefly mentioned, sorry, I'm like, jumping around. You brieflymentioned about, like, your solo show in New York. Can you tell us more about it?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 29:40
Okay, yeah. So that's, like, an idea that I had literally last week during spring break. I was like, I want to do a solo show. It's always been on my bucket list to do a show in like, Green Room or 54 below, which are, if you don't know, they're, like, these venues that are very cabaret esque. Instead of, like, you know, like a bar, they're very geared towards like theater people, and I've done a few shows at 54 below. I've done one show in green room, and it's just a great space. And I would love to just be able to do a full set of my music with my friends, and it would be a lot of fun. So don't know when exactly it'll be yet, but it's something in the back of my mind that I want to do, and I'm also like planning to write a lot more this summer, so that I have more songs to be in my set.
Chris Christensen 30:25
When do you find inspiration hits you?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 30:29
Okay, I find inspiration hits me. The easiest thing is anger, which is not great, but whenever I'm angry about something, or whenever I feel well, really, any strong emotion, really, I during the summer last summer, when I was like, in Burlington, Ontario, the lovely suburb that I also like to call borington, Ontario, I was like, man, I do not like being in the suburbs in the summer. I want to be in a city. I want to be famous. I want to be doing crazy things. And so I wrote something about that. Another song, Price of Perfection, my dad told me it was, it was in my freshman year. He was like, he fully didn't think I would get into Cornell. I applied out of spite, because he was like, your brother didn't get in, so there's no way you could so I applied to prove him wrong. And then over winter break, he was like, so why didn't you apply to Yale? I was like what do you mean? You said I couldn't get into Cornell. So I wrote an angry song about that. Okay, yeah. And then I was like, Wait, I don't want to be angry all the time, so maybe let's write like a self-healing song. And then so I did that. So any really strong emotion or feeling that I'm feeling in the moment I guess is when inspiration hits,
Chris Christensen 31:46
Do they does the inspiration find you at particular times of day? The reason I ask this question is sometimes I'm inspired at like, 2am and I think I'm too tired. Nothing is happening right now, and have to try to piece it back together the following day. Is it the kind of thing that that happens instantaneously and you have to do it right then? Or do you spread it out over like, several days or weeks or something like that?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 32:10
I'm Oh, my mom hates this. Whenever I'm like, in the zone, I cannot exit the zone. So a lot of the time the zone happens at like, 11pm my mom's like, it's time to sleep. I'm like, no, no, I got I'm cooking. I'm cooking, let me cook. And so I'm like, writing, writing, writing until like 1am she's like, Katherine, this is really bad. You have insomnia. I'm like, I know, I know. I'm cooking. Let me cook. Same thing with editing, actually, with Class Crush, we shot this night, shot until like 3am and everyone's like, okay, time to sleep. I had to, like, shower all the blood out of my hair, and I showered. And they're like, okay, good night. I'm like, no, not, good night. I'm gonna go edit. And they're like, what? I'm like, yeah, I have all the footage. Let me edit right now, I need to see a rough cut right now. So I did the edit that night, at 3am after being doused in blood in the freezing cold.
Chris Christensen 32:57
I completely understand.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 32:58
Yeah, I just had to see it.
Jessie Jia 33:01
Yeah, is there any idea or message you want to write but have yet to write about yet?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 33:07
I need to brainstorm more. But one thing I was thinking about is like a horror comedy that's like, that takes place in a theater. I don't know if it'd be musical, it'd probably just be a horror comedy, and it follows these, like, theater kids during tech week or something, and they get, like, locked in their high school auditorium, and the title would be called, like, Ghost Light or something.
Chris Christensen 33:27
Oh, nice.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 33:28
That'd be fun.
Chris Christensen 33:28
Like, the title.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 33:29
Yeah,
Chris Christensen 33:30
What draws you to horror?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 33:32
I don't know. I don't even watch that much horror. I really-
Chris Christensen 33:34
I was curious, like, what, what wouldn't- what, yeah, what the hook is there?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 33:38
Yeah, I don't know. I need to watch more horror movies, because I don't even watch that many, and I keep making horror films. Yeah, I guess there's something really fun about like, faking all these crazy gory elements to me. Yeah.
Chris Christensen 33:54
Are there specific horror films that you do like?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 34:00
There is one, but I forget the name of it, which is not helpful. It was on Prime. I like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies that one was a fun one. I like horror comedies, like they're fun to watch. They're so camp and so silly.
Chris Christensen 34:15
I love the idea that you're not watching a lot of it, but that's, that's the genre you're going for. Which is-
Katherine Lynn-Rose 34:20
Yeah.
Chris Christensen 34:21
-which is great. Why not? Right?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 34:22
I watch a lot of musicals, but I judge them. That's why I'm doing musicals. I'm like guys, we can do better than this.
Chris Christensen 34:30
Is there anything we didn't ask you today that you really wanted to talk about?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 34:37
I don't think so.
Chris Christensen 34:38
Any last words of wisdom?
Katherine Lynn-Rose 34:40
Words of Wisdom? Um, well, I always say if you're wanting to get into any sort of like arts thing, don't be afraid to put yourself out there, whether that being like posting on social media or just like reaching out to people, because you never know what might happen. And social media is kind of your best friend, but also don't get too sucked into the likes and stuff. I need to tell myself that as well.
Chris Christensen 35:08
Well Katherine, thanks so much for joining us in the podcast studio.
Katherine Lynn-Rose 35:11
Thank you.
Chris Christensen 35:16
Yeah.
