J Paul Johnson
Cheerfully exploiting its mockumentary approach to comment on postmodern ennui and relationship anxieties, Stephanie Röst’s new short film My Boo boasts an uncommon conceit: its protagonist, suburban millennial Jessica is dating an Edwardian ghost. And as she has come to learn, dating a ghost has its complications. As she goes on camera to recount their romantic history, her interview takes on a therapeutic dimension and she starts to realize that maybe, just maybe, their relationship problems aren’t all the ghost’s fault.
Stephanie Röst is a writer, director and producer in Los Angeles. In the last 12 months she has written and directed two short films, and produced three. Her first short film titled Finishing Notes is currently on the festival circuit, and premiered in Los Angeles in September 2024. My Boo, her sophomore short which she also wrote and directed, premiered at the 2024 Anchorage International Film Festival, where she was born and raised and her love of dark comedy began.
Following My Boo‘s premiere, Röst spoke with Film Obsessive’s J Paul Johnson about her film’s inception and production. The transcript below the video has been edited for space and clarity.
Film Obsessive: Welcome to you, Stephanie, and thank you for joining us at Film Obsessive.
Stephanie Röst: Thanks, Paul. I’m glad to be here.
Let me have you start a little bit by just describing what your film My Boo is and does.
So My Boo is a mockumentary-style comedy that follows in traditional interview style. A young suburban millennial woman appears normal, but recently, she’s been in a long term relationship with an Edwardian ghost, and recently, things have been on the rocks. And so now it’s time to sit down and talk about it and where things went wrong.
Oh, that is so funny. And your film is so funny. I have to ask, wherever did that idea come from? I suppose it’s not like personal experience—like you’ve been dating an Edwardian Ghost in your relationship?
Yes, so deeply involved with the occult! [laughs] Yeah I feel like this answer might annoy a few people that are struggling to get something on the page, which I often do as a writer, as well. But it really just came to me in a lightning-strike impulse moment. Although I will give context to that, I was sitting on my couch and and I was watching TV. I don’t even recall what it was, but I was just finished writing a script for another short film that I was about to direct, and it was my first short ever.
And I knew in the back back burner of my brain, I knew that I had wanted to work with the lead actor [Jessica Faust] in My Boo. She’s a good friend of mine. I’ve known her since I was 15 years old. She’s a talented theater actress. And so I was sitting there and I had that in the back of my brain, and I knew I wanted to work with her. So I just this concept came to me, this character. And it was just it was simultaneously, I knew this was for her. It was like, I don’t know which thought came first, her or this girl in this movie. So I just sat down and it just wrote itself the next day.
And I will also include that during our premiere last week and she actually filled in a blank that I could not articulate in the Q&A. And I was really happy about that. And she described it as being this brainchild of years of being—we would weave in and out of this character bit together for many years as this suburban normy couple that’s always kind of quipping at each other. I was like, That’s great. That’s that’s definitely in this. So I would say it’s a little bit inspired by that, as well.
Well, it’s a funny film, and Jessica Faust, the character Jessica, is really quite wonderful in it. Is making a mockumentary film funny?
Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of people were really excited to work on this. It was a small crew. But comedy has a hard time in the short-film space, I think, at least on the festival circuit. And people were so excited to work on it. I mean, from the beginning, from its inception the idea that I uttered to maybe a few people were like, That’s hilarious. And then the script I sent it to everyone was like, Yes, I want to be a part of this. This is hilarious. This concept is great.
And throughout the whole making of it, every step of the way was so funny adding our wardrobe, our costumer, who is amazing, every Zoom call, talking about the specifics of this character and, like, who is she? And what would Wallace be wearing? And would he have giant frills on the bottom of his things? Something completely emasculating. So just every step of the way was so funny. And then, of course, on set, it was just I mean, we were moving really, really fast. So it was not a lot of time to sit and laugh, but there were so many moments that were so funny and just I could feel the entire crew kind of just cracking up throughout.
And I did want to ask about the production itself, because most of the film is the interview setting, and then you’ve got flashbacks to the other moments in their relationship—ones that must have been on their own, complicated to set up each of them its own individual shoot for maybe sometimes just a few seconds of screen time. Is there room in that for improvisation?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I will say, I think she stuck very much to the script in terms of the interview segments. And, I mean, she’s such a born-and-bred theater actor and this, I think, maybe was her second or so script. And so I feel like she kind of just made that her own, even though she stuck to it. But I mean, it was a lot of improvisation, more in the physicality of it, I would say, and trying to get it right in the space on the day, especially with Wallace and those things like the seance were in a very tight space. We had open flames, things like that. So a lot of those bits were we had to, like, work around and less so in the dialogue and more in the physical comedy, I would say.
I have to compliment you on some nifty, small-scale practical effects that were kind of fun. Anything in there you’d like to talk a little bit about?
Oh, God. I could talk about all of them, quite honestly, because they were such hell to achieve. I mean, we had such a small crew and the people who spearheaded those were all the practicals were my art department, who are two young fantastic young women who Rachel [Morales] and Grace [Hinson], I have to give them a huge shout-out because I think that they were the real MVPs of this weekend. On top of all the production design and craziness, they also tackled all those practicals.
But yeah, just the coaster [a gag with a coaster moved by the invisible ghost] was so difficult to get down. And you’ve got people laying on the ground and you’re trying to land it right on the beat with the joke and the dialogue. And of course, like, everything makes sure everything looks good, and it reads. And yeah, it was difficult. And I mean, we had to enhance a lot of that and post with sound and we obviously had to paint out what was reflected in the fishing line. A lot of what you see, aside from the 2D composite of the popcorn in the flashback. That was all practical, it took a lot of work to achieve, even though we rehearsed it quite a bit and talked about it. I mean, we probably six people around a dinner table the day before and prep talking about it. And it was still hard to get.
And the bar scene was really difficult as well. You would not believe how stringing a string through a straw and trying to make sure it’s at the right angle and that you can see it pulling down is so difficult. But yeah, it was great. And then it’s funny a lot of people ask about the sheet, which I was surprised by because it was such an old-school gag. I mean, we had done a small version of this, me and Jessica just running around with a Nikon DSLR. It was just her and I, and I was shooting it as a blue [screen] and all we did was pull it off, and he [Wallace] stepped out of the doorway. And it worked!
And I will tell you that it was a little nerve-wracking on the day because our sheet was a lot heavier with all the added wardrobe doodads at the bottom. It was I was nervous, and there’s a lot of choreography in that shot and a lot of dialogue leading in. But it somehow worked. We just pulled it off and he stepped right in, And people think someone actually thought it was not practical, which I was surprised by, but I’ll take it.
Well, it’s neat. It happens in the blink of an eye, but it kind of harks back to the very inception of cinema, almost like, George Méliès’ magic tricks and quick cuts and edits. And that’s some of the work that you do. I think people don’t always realize, too, in mockumentary, a lot of the humor really follows from the edit, right? It’s not necessarily that the character says a funny thing, but that the edit following what she says or accompanying what she says is often juxtaposed in a way to make it funny.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely I couldn’t agree with you more because just from experience on this, this script, I would say, I wrote with the edit in mind. The first one I did, it was music and dialogue and performance. But this one was a concept that wrote itself, and the edit was so clear in my head of kind of flip flopping back and forth between this interview and these little fly on the wall memories.
How long ago did you finish?
So we shot in April, and it was edited really quickly in June or July. But we had a bit of a long winded process with the music, not to anyone’s fault, but me waiting on someone I loved, and then him being like, oh, don’t wait for me. So he passed me off to someone who was absolutely incredible, Pietro Milanesi. He’s went above and beyond, and just the music is something that is in my head now. So I’m really happy that we the stars aligned the way that they should, and I was really happy for that. So I think it was the music was delivered in November. So it is pretty fresh!
So mockumentaries can be funny, but I think the really good ones always have something to say about our current condition, and it seems like yours with Jessica’s character really kind of speaks not just to her kind of romantic aspirations and what she believes her romantic life, her partnership should be like, but also about the insecurity she seems to have about being without that person. And I just wanted to compliment you on that and ask you to comment a little bit about getting that kind of thematic meaning into your film.
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that because [the story] is such a silly thing and it’s silly. It’s just fun, and that’s what I wanted. But I did really think about her backstory and, like, what’s what’s the human element here that is the lasting, resounding impression? And and I hope that people take it away, which you did, Paul, so thank you. But I I think there’s a lot of importance around perception and individuality. And I thought about it when I was writing it. Like, what’s the thing that it’s gonna be? And her backstory, which we don’t really see, is that she’s concerned about what her friends think and what her family think, that she’s in this unconventional relationship.
And I liked that we’re led down the rabbit hole to wonder if Wallace did something wrong or he’s not showing up for her anymore. But then in the end, it strikes this deeper chord: she had deep insecurities. And she still remains innocuous enough, I think that she just wasn’t aware of it. So yeah, thank you for noticing that, and it’s something that I would love to really delve into more and hammer home that deeper meaning in a longer form.
I like her and I get her. I’m not sure that I know somebody exactly like her, but I’ve known people who have exhibited some of those same kinds of insecurities about their identity and about their relationship, and it ends up manifesting itself in behaviors that sometimes have the opposite effect of what they’re really striving for. So that seems to me to be really insightful. I wanted to ask, too, are you a film school grad, or did you hone your skills another way? What prepared you to make a film like My Boo?
Oh, man. I did not go to film school, and I’m so jealous of everyone who did. My degree was in film theory, so I would say it was film and media studies, but it was predominantly analytically based. So I’m totally envious of film school. I’m actually applying for an MFA and directing. I worked for years in development at the Kennedy Marshall Company reading scripts and manuscripts all day long, and I loved it. And then I left pursuing my own writing. And then I kind of slowly over time, shed the fear that I think was holding me back of Oh, I think I want to direct.
And so it’s really just been me diving off the deep end. On my first short I learned a lot, and I took on way too much responsibility just because I didn’t know how to ask for help. So a lot of it was I had a wonderful, wonderful first AD that I have to give credit to Justin Hogan. He’s incredible. He’s too big for my britches, for his breeches. I had a lot of help—I wouldn’t call it hand holding, but I had a good support system around me to make sure I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. But it’s really been me flying by the seat of my pants, and then also having a great crew. I had a really great producer on My Boo, Grayson Probst, and all those people that you hand plucked, my team. It’s a reality that won’t last long, but it’s one that I think sets you up for some amount of success.
And the festival in Anchorage, was that your film’s premiere? What was the experience like?
It was really nice. I had just come off of New York Dances with Films on my other short film, and it was just very daunting because I was speaking to a crowd of 150 strangers and I didn’t have my actors there or anything. And this was such a lovely thing to come home to, to premiere in my hometown, to fill this theater with our friends and family and Jessica’s parents and my parents and my family and friends. And it was just a very cozy and a nice experience and to be able to show people who I maybe haven’t seen in years or don’t really know what it is in doing our work.
And it was great. It was great. There were so many laughs. So that’s all you can ask for.
I know it can be such an enriching and rewarding experience for a filmmaker—especially when they get to premiere in their hometown is really, really special. So what’s next for the film and for you, Stephanie?
Next for the film: well, rejection season is upon m! [laughs]. This kicked off the festival circuit, obviously. And I’m just hoping to get this seen by as many eyeballs as possible. I think it’s a light in a dark and chaotic time for a lot of people. And I think it’s a nice release. So I really just have high hopes for this to do really well in this circuit. And for me, in terms of My Boo, I’d love to adapt this. I don’t know why I haven’t written the feature or the series, but I think I should be doing that after we get off this call.
And then, yeah, I have other ideas brewing, and we’ll see if I get into this MFA program. If I don’t, I’m just gonna keep making movies. So yeah, lots of things ahead.
Well, I’m going to wish you the very best of success with all of those endeavors. Thank you for making me smile with eight minutes of My Boo. And thank you so much for speaking with us at Film Obsessive today, and best of luck with everything in the future.
Thanks so much, Paul. I really enjoyed chatting with you.
