After an enigmatic online meeting with a life coach, an ambitious YouTuber discovers that you really should be careful what you wish for when all of his dreams and goals begin to come true at a terrifying cost in Chris Vander Kaay’s new movie .ask. A mind-bending journey that would be right at home in the found footage section of The Twilight Zone archives, .ask explores the horrors of “hustle culture” through an eerily realistic lens, and Daily Dead had the great pleasure of catching up with Chris in a new Q&A feature to discuss the DIY approach to filming .ask while on the road for his day job, capturing spontaneity on camera when unplanned things popped up during filming, the advantages of shooting on an iPhone, and working with a talented group of producers (including Preston Fassel and Mary Beth McAndrews) to help bring .ask to life!
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions for us, Chris, and congratulations on your new movie .ask, which puts an effective online twist to the phrase “be careful what you wish for.” When did you initially come up with the idea for this film?
Chris Vander Kaay: I appreciate you checking out the film and sharing it with your readers! The idea for the film came from three places: first, I wanted to make a movie for basically no money as a proof of concept to show other filmmakers that a great idea can make a movie that people will enjoy even if you don’t have money to spend on it. Second, I’ve worked for several years in the marketing arena and I’ve seen many “influencers” who purport to be experts but don’t have any idea what they’re doing, and I wanted to talk about that in a fun way. And third, I was getting major dental surgery to replace several of my teeth, and I thought that was a great bit of production value to use in a movie, so I reverse-engineered a story that used that as a centerpiece of the story.
Intertwined with your film’s otherworldly elements is a very human story of how the relentless online “hustle culture” mentality can lead to burnout and, in the case of .ask, a total unraveling of one person’s reality. How important was it for you to explore the potentially exhaustive and even at times dangerous side of hustle culture in .ask?
Chris Vander Kaay: It was key to the purpose of the film overall. I’ve long been concerned about people who find easy and quick success in the influencer and motivational space because it creates a false sense of importance and value. But on the flip side, I was also interested in exploring the idea of impostor syndrome, something I’ve dealt with a lot in my working life, because in some ways I think these are flip sides of the same coin: people with confidence and success who don’t have real discernible skills vs. people who know what they’re doing but are paralyzed by the intimidating sense that others will see through their “charade.” Those dueling ideas were interesting to explore in the same story.
I understand that you filmed most of .ask while traveling throughout the country for your day job. Did that lend a sense of spontaneity to the filmmaking process, and did you have any unexpected locations or situations pop up during filming that you were able to incorporate in the movie?
Chris Vander Kaay: While I am a screenwriter and have written many scripts, I didn’t write a script for this, just a beat sheet with scene ideas. I knew that most of the movie would be shot on the fly in places I would only have fleeting access to, so I couldn’t be locked down to memorizing a script. And as for unexpected locations and situations: there is a scene in the movie where a man is being arrested in the background of a scene I am in. That was a real person actually being arrested in a grocery store parking lot. I saw it happening, and I rewrote the point of the scene on the fly and incorporated that into the background. It’s an amazing scene now, and it was entirely accidental, totally luck that brought me to the right place at the right time.
Filming on an iPhone adds an added level of immediacy and urgency to the story of .ask (reminiscent of how Steven Soderbergh shot Unsane on an iPhone). As a filmmaker, did you find that using an iPhone gave you more flexibility and creative freedom in telling this story?
Chris Vander Kaay: On the budgetary level I was working on (which was basically ‘zero’), using an iPhone has so many advantages. You’re ready to shoot at a moment’s notice to capture footage on a plane or in a Las Vegas hotel or when someone is being arrested in a grocery store parking lot. It doesn’t draw attention, because people are constantly on their phones and almost no one notices anymore. The camera is pretty great quality, too. I absolutely would not have been able to make this movie if I hadn’t chosen that as the primary recording device.
The mind-bending moments and “be careful what you wish for approach” make .ask feel like a modern-day found footage episode of The Twilight Zone. Were you influenced or inspired by any other films, TV shows, books, video games, or comics while working on .ask?
Chris Vander Kaay: Aside from the obvious narrative references to the classic story of “The Monkey’s Paw,” which every story about wishes owes a big debt of gratitude, most of the influence of the movie was driven by real motivational and hustle culture influencer content, actual events happening in my life that I could leverage for production value, and a deep dive into my own fears and existential concerns. However, The Twilight Zone is a longtime favorite from childhood, so it would be impossible to negate any influence there because it’s basically part of my DNA at this point.
When you and Steven Espinoza (who is also a co-producer and plays the forensic tech in the film) were editing .ask, did you have a lot of extra footage that you had to sort through to assemble the final cut?
Chris Vander Kaay: In terms of actual amount of footage shot, it was VERY low. I shot no scene in the movie more than three times, and about 80% of the movie scenes were done in a single take. As for what ended up on the cutting room floor, the rough cut of the film was about 104 minutes, which was too long. I did a brutal cut that took it down to 71 minutes, and it moved fast but lost a lot of the character. The final cut ended up at about 85 minutes, which was a nice balance between the two. Most of what was lost was small parts of larger scenes rather than any major scenes themselves. It’s amazing to realize how much of a scene you don’t need and it will still work, that was a big lesson we learned on this film.
You worked with a great team of producers on .ask, including Preston Fassel and Mary Beth McAndrews. What was it like collaborating with them to help bring .ask to life?
Chris Vander Kaay: Without exaggeration, no one would know about this film without them. Making the movie was my challenge, but I literally had no idea what to do with it when I finished it. Mary Beth and Preston are both great friends and very talented people who also happen to have connections to all kinds of companies and venues that I would never have been able to reach out to on my own. The film only has distribution, recognition, and an audience because the two of them leveraged a lot of their hard-earned relationships to get it out to the public. Which is why every time I talk about them, I encourage everyone to go grab one of Preston’s books (Our Lady of the Inferno is a personal favorite of mine) and to check out Mary Beth’s awesome rape-revenge horror-with-a-twist, Bystanders. They’re both hugely talented folks and I was lucky to have them helping me.
Ultimately, what do you hope viewers take away from .ask?
Chris Vander Kaay: That hard work and creativity are always better and more satisfying than shortcuts. That success has less to do with what you get than with what you do. To be careful what you wish for, because sometimes you get it too fast and it’s not something you’re prepared for or happy about. And most of all, I hope people enjoy a found footage movie with almost no budget that is fueled entirely by passion and big ideas.
What advice would you give to filmmakers who are just getting started?
Chris Vander Kaay: There is nothing worth waiting for to get started. I know this because I waited way too long. I had a script made into a film for the Hallmark Movie Channel over a decade ago, and then I kept trying to get others to make more of my work. Then I finally made .ask because I was tired of waiting for permission. You don’t need permission, you just need an idea and a camera and the determination to finish something. You don’t need a budget or a big cast or a distribution deal. You just need to come up with an idea and run towards it as quickly and passionately as you can.
Where can our readers go online to watch .ask, and do you have any other projects coming up that you can tease?
Chris Vander Kaay: The film is currently available to rent on Amazon, to stream for free on the Fawesome app, and on the website from the distributor POV Horror. I’m working to get it on other platforms soon as well. As for other projects, I am nearing post-production on a series called Found Footage Finds, which is a nonfiction series with each episode focused on one subgenre of found footage film, complete with recommendations and filmmaker interviews and history of the subgenre, etc. It should hopefully be available by fall of 2025.
Thank you very much for your time, Chris, and congratulations on .ask!
Chris Vander Kaay: Thanks again so much for checking it out and supporting the film! Indie found footage films live and die by the coverage and word of mouth from fans and supportive venues like yours, so this means a lot to me.
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