Kelsey Taylor & Adam Lee On ‘To Kill a Wolf’, ‘Alien: Specimen’ & Influences

Ansh Dubey spoke with Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee about their upcoming film To Kill a Wolf. 

As part of the festival circuit for their upcoming feature To Kill a Wolf, which at the time of writing does not have distribution yet, director/writer Kelsey Taylor and cinematographer/producer Adam Lee sat down with Feature First to discuss the inner workings of the film, as well as some of their aspirations and inspirations.

A synopsis for the film reads as follows:

In a modern re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood, a social pariah discovers a teenage runaway in the Oregon Wilderness and does his best to help her find a way home – a troubling exploration of trauma and redemption.

Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee also speak on their Alien short film Alien: Specimen that they created in association with Tongal and 20th Century Studios for the 40th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s Alien. The short film was produced alongside 5 other shorts that are all available to watch on YouTube.

Feature First’s own Ansh Dubey sat down with Taylor and Lee and had the pleasure of diving deep with the artists on the upcoming film.

Thanks to the Austin Film Festival, Kelsey Taylor (KT), and Adam Lee (AL) for allowing this interview for To Kill a Wolf to happen. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. The full interview can be found above.

Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee On ‘To Kill a Wolf’

Did the Little Red Riding Hood reimagining aspect come first or did you figure out the parallels as you were making the film?

KT: We started with the fairy tale. I’m from the Pacific Northwest and we do a lot of driving from LA up to Washington, and when you drive through those areas, there is an aspect of magic to it. And we are people who want to make bigger worlds and world building is important to us. But, when you’re making your first feature, nobody is going to greenlight a big fantasy film. 

So we were like “How do we make something that is going to be in line with something we want to make?” So the fairy tale came first and then grooming inherently was something we started to explore early on when you’d think about what are the things that would lead a young girl from the path, or what are the dangers that young women face today? So those are the two sparks that have stayed true from the beginning. Almost everything else has changed from the first draft of this script seven years ago. Like it’s unrecognisable. 

AL: Also not to speak for Kelsey, I think a lot of Kelsey’s work and a lot of other scripts she’s written kind of reflect the grey areas of society. Things aren’t as black and white, people aren’t strictly good or evil. So I think examining the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, which is very black and white, I think the script did a really good job of exploring those weird, nuanced areas where someone might be in the wrong, but the other person still might hold some type of shame or guilt about the experience and such. And I think that was kind of the central pillar in which the script stayed true from the beginning to the end, but it sort of evolved around that central idea.

Did you guys have any specific influences or stuff that you guys watched to get to feel inspired and to make the movie? 

KT: Yeah, I think this has evolved a lot but one of our original references was Winter’s Bone. And I think in hindsight now, we’ve come quite a ways away from that. I think that’s much more grounded in reality than what we have. Blue Ruin is a film also, like I don’t know that like tonally, but just their model for getting the film made was something that was very inspirational to us. We’re like, okay, how do we rely on the things that we’re good at and turn it into our first feature so that we can start our career?

AL: Aesthetically, I think we saw the show on HBO, I Know This Much Is True, and it’s a masterfully done series, Mark Ruffalo plays two brothers, but the cinematography of that piece was just — something about the really muted, faded-ness of it really struck a chord with us and kind of gave us this idea of going for this faded photograph look throughout the film. And I think that series was a really big inspiration to try and find the tones and the palette for our story. Obviously, you know, we do our own take, but I think that was a really good starting point for sort of the texture, at least, of the film. 

KT: Something beautiful that came out of this was we showed this [film] to some friends who are cinematographers and directors and they mentioned the photographer Todd Hido. And we’re like, “We don’t know who that is,” and they pulled up some photographs. We’re like, “Oh my God, that’s exactly what we just did.” But it’s pretty cool to see how you just dig into what you want to do visually with all these, you know, amalgamations of references and come up with something you think is unique. And you’re like, oh no, we just didn’t know, we didn’t have the length for the reference.

If you could do a reimagining of any other fantasy or fairy tale story since that’s something you’re interested in, what would it be? 

KT: So [laughs], It’s the Pied Piper. I’m so fascinated by that one and we’ve been trying to crack it for a while now and I don’t necessarily want to build a career on only interpreting fairy tales, but there is something just so ominous about that story and I think looking at it from many angles, works well. So that’s the one that we’re currently trying to crack open. 

AL: We have some good ideas. 

KT: Yeah, yeah, we got some ideas. Seven years from now, there might be really good ideas. But yeah, I think that’s the next one. 

Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee on ‘Alien: Specimen’

Previously in your career, you guys worked on an Alien short film, [Alien: Specimen], which was really cool. Would you guys ever want to do a feature in that series? 

Both: Definitely. Yeah. 

KT: We’re very excited about the new Alien movie, but yeah, I would love to work in that universe. We both loved it. 

AL: It’s so fertile with such great motifs and characters and [the] Alien universe is amazing. It’s cool to see how many different directors, like, amazingly talented directors have been able to come in and interject their own take on the world and the characters. It’s just, the Alien franchise is amazing for a sci-fi franchise.

Any other franchises you guys would like to work in? 

KT: Yeah, I think that something I’ve discovered through just talking about this film was that I love adaptations. I love re-interpreting what was originally intended and subverting people’s expectations. So I think getting to work in any kind of existing IP is really cool. What a challenge to try to maintain and get the fans who are already invested to continue being excited about it, but also recruit new people to it. We’re big fans of the Lord of the Rings and the Rings of Power series that came out. It’d be cool to be a part of something like that. You know, we’re big into Harry Potter. I don’t think we’re gonna be a part of the series. 

AL: I got a great dark take on Harry Potter, though. I can’t share it here, but it’s good. 

KT: So yeah, I think any kind of adaptation. I was an avid reader growing up, so seeing all these books I love turn into films and series, it’d be really cool to be a part of those at some point before they make all of them.

Kelsey Taylor and Adam Lee On Balancing Feature and Short Films

Do you guys want to go all in on features or shorts? Are you guys trying to balance the two? 

KT: It’s frankly like, I’m not really that interested in making shorts anymore. I don’t know about Adam, but it’s for me, like shorts are a different format and there’s something really, really cool about it. But I just know that I want to work in the feature world. I think you can tell bigger stories and get more of an invested [audience], give the audience more bang for their buck with a feature and make a bigger world. 

So while I might make another short at some point, it’s a proof of concept or something, features are definitely where it’s at. And I’d love to do television as well. Like I think it’s amazing the worlds that can be built in television with where we are.

AL: I’d work on anything that has a visual story to tell. And obviously, features are where my heart is. It’s what inspired me to make movies. And I think that’s where I’d like to continue going. But right now I’m just interested in finding people to work with who want to tell stories and I can help be a part of that. 

KT: I should also say, I’m a director who doesn’t want to write. I think both of us are very much aware that we’re good at making things. But we’re not committed to telling singularly our stories. So we are looking for other screenwriters to collaborate [with]. And that’s what was so cool about Austin [Film Festival] is meeting people and being like, “Send me your script, send me your script.” Because we are looking to connect with other material and bring it to life.

You can watch the rest of this interview, including these questions and so many more over on our YouTube channel. 

To Kill a Wolf is directed by Kelsey Taylor. The film was shot and produced by Adam Lee. It stars Maddison Brown and Ivan Martin. The film does not yet have distribution but recently screened at Austin Film Festival.

Thank you for reading our Kelsey Taylor-Adam Lee interview. For more interviews stay tuned here at Feature First.