New York filmmaker and singer/songwriter Kris Lefcoe has launched her solo debut with the hallucinatory stop-motion video “Booked a Room.” The surreal fantasy, animated entirely in-camera, is about a woman who checks into a motel room for a scheduled nervous breakdown—based on a true story from Lefcoe’s life.
Released to the public at the 2024 Tribeca Short Film Festival, the haunting “Booked a Room” combines Lefcoe’s film direction and songwriting for the first time.
Third Man just pressed a limited-edition vinyl 7″ with “Booked A Room” as the A-side and a cover of The Stooges “Dirt” as the B-side. “The Time,” the third single from her debut EP The Naked Tapes, will come out in August.
The combo of music and stop-mo is an emotionally gripping artistic work. I asked Lefcoe about her inspiration for the piece and how, in fact, it captured her mental turmoil.
Kris, your video is a masterpiece of emotion in motion. What inspired you to produce this video, and how did the idea for “Booked a Room” evolve?
The song and video are based on a true story. In the depth of the pandemic, I was overwhelmed taking care of my young daughter and elderly parents but was suppressing all my emotions to protect them. So, I booked a room for a night, just to have somewhere to break down and cry. It didn’t work, I couldn’t let it out, not even one tear. I started writing this song instead.
The marriage of your searing, mind-bending, heartbreaking lyrics and the picture postcard conceit of the video play off nicely together. Which came first, the words or image?
The words came first, then while I was recording the song, I started imagining ways to create the tidal wave of tears that I couldn’t manifest in real life, on screen. I collected vintage motel postcards as design references for what I’d planned to build as a miniature ’60s–’70s era motel set. When space restrictions forced me to reconceive the idea to shoot on a down-shooter, I decided to embrace the 2D paper postcards as a central design element of the video. It’s an example of limitations leading to a more interesting creative result. I loved the way the picture postcards felt a bit wrong and off-scale with the 3D doll and miniature objects. It makes the video feel like a hazy memory, or a dream.
There are many songs about experiencing nervous breakdowns (the Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” comes to mind), but your visuals make your words resound and add emotion-filled force to the song. Do you feel that you accurately captured what you were feeling?
I do think I captured what I was feeling, and I’m glad that the emotion comes through, despite the fact that the doll’s face remains the same throughout the video. It’s a challenge to express emotion using a plastic doll.
You succeeded. I was very moved when the head flew off the doll. How close is the animated character to yourself?
That moment in particular is 100% autobiographical. I am so alarmed by the current state of the world, it’s a wonder my head hasn’t flown off yet. When the doll loses her head, she feels around for it on the ground and puts it back on—which is what I feel like I’m doing all the time, just calming myself down, like, “oops my head fell off, that’s OK, back to work.” The beauty of animation is we can literalize things to express otherwise invisible emotions. Those of us with anxiety feel like our head is going to explode, or our guts are spilling out of our body. So that’s exactly what happens in the video.
Did the airplane crashing into the motel hideaway give you a kind of catharsis?
Yes, and that shot might be the linchpin to the whole video. It was the last thing we shot because I struggled with what should happen in that moment. There was always this one black hole in my animatic with a title: “TBD HORROR.” I needed something to tie her inner world of anxiety to the outer world around her, and motivate that first tear to finally emerge. When I came up with the idea of the plane crashing into the motel room, my collaborator (animator Brian Haimes) was so relieved that we’d solved the mystery of the black hole, he quickly rummaged around to find something brown to use for smoke, and we gleefully destroyed the motel room artwork that we’d been painstakingly protecting throughout our five-week shoot, by crashing the plane right through the wall. So you could say that shot was cathartic both in the video, and in real life!
The overflowing bath was another striking sequence. It was echoed by the doll’s lounging in the pool. Was this a desire to save the character from drowning in self-pity?
The bath definitely foreshadows the flood of tears. And the ending reminds me of this idea I once had: What if everyone only has a certain amount of tears, like a lifetime quota, and if they could just cry them all out, they’d be happy? In the video, once she’s cried out all her tears, the tidal wave she’s created fills the empty, abandoned motel pool, so now she can finally relax on a floatie and have a pina colada. I like the turn of an upbeat ending. I didn’t want her to drown in tears, but float on them instead. That’s my fantasy.
What’s next for you? More music? Videos? Music videos?
So much coming up!
I’m co-creator-writer of a TV comedy called “Making Plans for Nigel” that’s currently in network development, with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Mary Rohlich (producer of “Atypical”) producing.
I’m writing my second feature film that I plan to shoot next summer, about a former rockstar who’s feeling strangled by motherhood and tries to resurrect her career. The film is a midlife crisis comedy that asks: Can hedonism and hallucinogens save a family?
On June 29 a fun short I directed called “Technical Support” will have its LA premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater as part of Dances With Films LA. The film, which has won a number of festivals, is a comedy about a customer service call from a guy who’s having an emergency with his sex robot.
In the fall, I’m launching an invite-only Project Incubator Lab where I teach (I’m a prof in the MFA Film and Television Program at Stony Brook University SUNY). I designed the Lab to help our MFA grads prepare more market-ready projects and pitches as they enter a business that has become more cutthroat than ever. Excited to see the applications rolling in!