‘Eighth Grade’: Bo Burnham On This Generation’s More Affectionate Version Of ‘Welcome To The Dollhouse’ [Interview]

Much like that movie you are looking at the way kids act these days. The difference I noticed is that there really isn’t physical or verbal bullying with today’s millennial generation, it’s more ignoring the other person.
There are much fewer people being shoved into lockers today. The currency today is more attention. To be not seen is maybe worse than to be bullied. At least when you’re bullied they know you’re there. Being unseen is the real fear. Just like American fear right now, The big cultural fear is to not be seen. If you’re not seen you’re not alive.

Which correlates perfectly with the social media zeitgeist, which, again, is why this movie feels so fresh.
Yeah, filmmakers are a little scared of the internet. The internet means a lot to me emotionally, I grew up inside it as well, so that was important for me to portray it.

You also hit all the right notes in the film with the experience of being an eighth grader. You must have done a lot of research to nail it the way you did.
Here’s the thing. If you want to find out something about these kids, well, they post everything online. So you don’t have to go that far. The research for this movie was literally watching hundreds of videos of kids online talking about themselves.

I bet not even videos that were that highly watched
Oh yeah, I would sort it by upload date and not view count relevance. So I would see the kids that would get 5 or 6 views because that was more interesting to me. The only people we see are the ones that go viral and that get the attention. I wanted to tell the story of someone on the internet that doesn’t get the attention they want or seek. Most people are not seen on the internet.

And through these videos you molded Kayla?
That was sort of the idea. It was like, ok this is the person, this is her voice, now what’s her real life? What if we kind of structured a movie around these videos interfacing with her actual real life.

Are you surprised at how this movie is being politicized with today’s culture and movements?
What’s amazing about that is that things that were in the script, like, just two years ago like the shooting drill sequence, and the other one with the boy in the backseat of the car, those ended up being attributed to two huge political things happening now. I hope they are in alignment with the virtues of those movements.

What were your cinematic influences?
For this, probably “Woman Under the Influence,” “Fat Girl,” “Fish Tank,” … um “Krisha,”[laughs]. I actually stole a few shots from “Krisha” for this film, I love that movie. Also “Raw,” “The Wrestler.” As you can see, I wanted to do a total vérité thing, taking this movie a little more seriously than the genre implies. I actually stole the bathing suit from “Fat Girl” [laughs].

It does have the style of vérité, now that I think about it. Even some handheld camera.
I do feel like actual real-life is a little more surreal than just using the handheld camera. You do have to put some style to it. The style is meant to be naturalistic, her real experience is hyper something.

How was the Sundance experience?
It was great. I mean, that whole world terrified me and then when I got there I was, like, “oh everyone is so much more forgiving than I thought.” You know, between filmmakers we were consistently asking each other every day “is your movie okay?” [laughs] Trying to support each other. Sundance ended up being so warm and inviting

Your background wasn’t necessarily cinema, but you were still making “movies“ on Youtube.
Well, making “things.”

Right, what you were doing on YouTube was a very visual “thing.” What did you learn from that part of your life that you are using now with cinema?
To conceive something. Try it. See how it finished. See how people react to it. Notice the sort of space between what you thought it would be and what it is. Try to minimize that space in the next thing. Just the rhythm of the creative process.

Having a vision.
Exactly, finding a voice with what I like, finding what you might be good at. Because the technical stuff, I can try and learn that but developing my sense, my relationship to my own, that was what was most important and what was learned.

Anything coming up next?
I’m not great at multitasking [laughs] so once this is done I’ll just hibernate and let it come to me.

Kind of like what David Lynch does.
Yeah exactly, sometimes something starts to take shape in you, and it either increases in your mind or decreases.

“Eighth Grade” opens up today in limited release via A24 Films. For more, here’s Jerrod Carmichael (“The Carmichael Show“) and Bo Burnham talking “Eighth Grade” and more on A24’s own recently launched podcast).