A young woman’s psychedelic experiment yields unexpected consequences in Director Megan Park’s comedy, My Old Ass.
Park’s film spins the tale of Elliott, a free-spirited 18-year-old whose mushroom trip brings her face-to-face with her 39-year-old self who starts handing out warnings about her future.
On August 25, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Park discussed the making of My Old Ass during a Q&A moderated by Director Siân Heder (CODA) and during the conversation, revealed how the challenges of the shoot helped to bring the cast together and ultimately serviced the film.
“Shooting on water … Everyone kept saying like it takes twice as much time. It takes like 10 times as long and half the time the actors would be on a boat and we’d lose service [on the follow boat] and we’d be like, ‘Well hope it’s going well. I hope they don’t need us.’ So we really had to be loose and flexible and know what we needed to cut the film together, but also just surrender a little bit to the leeches in the lake and the bears in the woods. But I think it did really create an atmosphere — especially for the younger actors — that allowed for some playfulness and some fun. And I do think that that really helped the energy of the place come alive in the actual movie.”
She also spoke about finding the movie in the editing room.
“You’re faced with the footage you have and it’s just not always what you expected. My editor deserves so much credit for how much she opened my mind to trusting the audience and just really looking at the footage that I had instead of getting stuck in what I thought it was going to be or what I had written. The movie originally ended with a voiceover monologue which didn’t feel like it did the film justice and we’re like, ‘Well it’s funny, but like it just doesn’t feel right anymore.’ The opening shots of the movie was her driving the boat around the lake, but we ended up changing it to sort of like say goodbye to the lake and those beautiful shots of her driving around and it just felt right. It just felt better. So, it’s very much like a ‘Kill Your Darlings’ thing, as I’m sure you know, and you just kind of have to surrender.”
Park’s other directorial credits include the feature film The Fallout; and the short films Calvert Collins Is High and Lucy in My Eyes. She became a DGA member in 2020.