Interview with Andrew Carstairs: Experimental Filmmaker
Interview by Sophie Norton
Andrew Carstairs is a multimedia creative, whose experimental short film ‘Tea Party’ is featured in the Norman Rave Exhibition. He loves abstraction, and experimentation is integral to his artistic process. I love working with paint, video, sculpting, screenwriting, poetry and even music (which I tried my hand at for ‘Tea Party’). Even when he’s not filmmaking, Andrew is constantly writing, creating, and sharing ideas.
Still from Carstairs’ short film ‘Tea Party’
We asked Andrew about the concept for ‘Tea Party’, and his thoughts towards its participation in our Norman Rave exhibition. I had the idea for ‘Tea Party’ late into the night at a small birthday party. Filming his surroundings, Andrew noticed how the recorded images were altered with colour and zoom. The flashing lights and pixelated image looked unrecognizable. ‘Tea Party’ encapsulates the danger of change. I started thinking about how at parties, raves, or any other kind of social engagement, people change themselves, in smaller ways (like becoming introverted) or bigger ones (like performing an identity, or intoxication). A theme that most of us will relate to, it’s interesting to perceive from an outsider’s perspective. We can only change ourselves so many times before we become something completely different, maybe even dangerous.
90s rave culture was iconic for many reasons. At the core, the nature of transformation is something that Andrew relates his artwork to. There seems to be something animalistic and instinctual about it, people change from talking and thinking to moving and becoming hypnotized by whatever music is playing.
Both Tea Party and that kind of rave culture share an almost psychedelic quality, which itself I think is linked to change, almost a metamorphosis of something natural.
What Andrew usually tries to create through his work is a sense of horror. Due to the abstract nature of his films, viewers are left to interpret the works as they like. If I try making a horror, I’d like to leave people with a certain sense of unease, but the theme and meaning they find within this unease is not up to me. He finds filmmaking a suitable medium to convey his intent, and hopes that regardless of reaction, his impression is lasting. I can only hope people don’t regret seeing it, whether they enjoyed it or not.
Still from ‘Tea Party’
Like other young creatives, the covid-19 pandemic has had a positive effect on his creativity. The 2020 lockdowns started my production of art. I started painting again because I had so much time on my hands. I wanted to try something where I could see a physical, finished product. The pandemic affected the practical aspects of his filmmaking course at university, so he was forced to produce his own projects with the limited resources he had to hand - himself and his phone. He begins by collating raw footage, and then edits it into coherence. Usually, the theme and narrative is developed during editing rather than filming. The process is an important part of Andrew’s work, alongside his journey to accepting that what I do can have beauty, however it starts, and wherever it goes.
He believes that his experimentation with different mediums stemmed from a cycle of creative blocks, giving him space to try new formats. I’d write, then tire from it; paint, then tire from it; make a film, then tire from it; and sculpt clay, then tire from it, ad infinitum. Collaboration is something Andrew looks forward to bringing together into his work. Incorporating all these mediums into one project would be my ideal outcome. We already see this in ‘Tea Party’, with the appearance of one of his own paintings, and he reveals that a series of his abstract paintings formed the basis for another of his films.
One of Carstairs’ abstract paintings, titled ‘Candyfloss’ (2021)
Creativity runs in the family, with Andrew’s brother James the founder of ‘Final Girl Films’, a film production platform to showcase experimental and unique horror. He started it as a way to bring together like-minded filmmakers for different projects. Andrew’s first film, ‘Liminal’, was supported and released with James’ company, and he credits his brother for his success. Tea Party, or any of my films, wouldn’t be what they are without James and ‘Final Girl Films’. Andrew’s uncle is a painter and his biggest artistic inspiration, and Andrew hopes to create something as meaningful himself someday.
‘Final Girl Films’ logo in a still from ‘Tea Party’
In love with the freeze-frame of action paintings, Andrew attributes more credit to James for his creative inspiration. I like to anchor my films in either a psychedelic/space-cult kind of aesthetic (which I owe to my brother’s love of Panos Cosmatos’ films), or a haunted/liminal home video aesthetic. Some of these qualities are already observable in Andrew’s other work featured on ‘Final Girl Films’, where he implements ominous locations, snappy scene cuts, and suspenseful audio among other effects. I’m big into things which look normal but feel haunted - there’s a lot of fake ‘haunted’ TV channels on Youtube, like Local58, which I admire and watch a lot, I think it's a great way to platform terrifying short films.
The future looks bright for Andrew, who wants to continue creating. I have a tabletop game I’m writing which is well underway, and I hope to have finished that by the end of the year. He continues to write, and hopes to push his artistic faucets further. I’ve started thinking about releasing a poetry collection, maybe in conjunction with some of my paintings too. He remains supported by ‘Final Girl Films’, and hopes to release another short experimental horror with them soon. It’s called: ‘Into The Black of Space’, about sacrifice and cowardice. I’m also planning an unscripted, abstract horror feature film which I hope to shoot in a few weeks time, more for the process than the finished product.
You can watch Andrew’s film creations at Final Girl Films on YouTube, and follow his Instagram: @andrew_carstairs_creative for snapshots of his work and updates about his projects.
