Peter Colin Campbell discussed premiering his short film, Variations on a Theme, at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 14 and his many other projects.

Campbell, 29, is known for his work and collaborations with artists such as Saba, Tianna Esperanza and Chance the Rapper. In his short film for 2023 SIFF, he shows the surrealism of a relationship breakdown.

“Variations on a Theme has garnered critical acclaim and its success has fueled momentum for its feature film adaptation, currently in early pre-production”, says Campbell.

The film shows the story of a couple who begin split into different versions of themselves with each argument or uncomfortable situation that arises, only to come across a mutation turning the situation into something unmanageable.

Interview with Peter Colin Campbell

The Knockturnal: I saw your film and I loved it. My partner and I were both watching it together and even just as partners ourselves – when we have these arguments – we were trying to dissect what was going on. But first thing I wanted to ask you was what led you to becoming a filmmaker? Was it something you always knew you wanted to do?

Peter Colin Campbell: I think that it’s been the most constant thing in my life from from an early age. I definitely had a bunch of other, like, hobbies and interests and stuff when I was young. But film was the one that I always kind of came back to. I was making short films and stuff in elementary school and middle school and then by high school, I was pretty sure that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And yeah, that’s basically it. I don’t know why exactly it took hold. I looked back and I like thought, Oh, maybe it’s because of this or this or because I struggle to communicate interpersonally or something, but it’s yeah, it just kind of worked out that way.

The Knockturnal: How do you feel your level of support was when you were starting out as a filmmaker? I mean, do you feel like you needed that support system or were you pretty much drawing from your own energy and momentum as a creative?

Peter Colin Campbell: I’ve always kind of just needed to make stuff. And so that’s always been the momentum, even as I’ve gotten older.

The Knockturnal: When it comes to making your films…I imagine it’s not just you. I’m sure it’s a lot more collaborative. What does your production team look like?

Peter Colin Campbell: Um, well, it’s different for every project. The team for Variations was like 20% people that I’ve worked with many times and like 80% people I had never met before because they were put together by the producer and yeah, it changes for every project. The team that I don’t know, it’s like the creative part of it has typically started with me and then remained pretty, pretty much just me until like production. We did write a feature film based off of the short that we’re trying to get funded now.

The Knockturnal: That is the question I was gonna ask you. That’s awesome.

Peter Colin Campbell: Yeah. So we…Sofia, who’s the the co-lead in the short? We co-wrote the feature together. The first time I’ve ever co-written something that scale, but it was really cool. And now we’re trying to get that made. I don’t think that we would be in it in the, in the feature version, but the writing process is great.

The Knockturnal: When it comes to co-writing, what did that look like for you?

Peter Colin Campbell: I would say that when I’m like solo writing, it’s very difficult to sort of like generate thoughts. I’m having so many thoughts at the same time that it literally feels like I’m having no thoughts.

And then with co-writing, to get into your actual question – with co-writing, we kind of followed that pattern, but we took a lot more time with it because everything was a conversation. We wrote the whole thing over Zoom because she was in L.A. and I live in New York. And so both of us kind of just didn’t want to just send a document back and forth.

So yeah, we basically just had like hundreds of hours of Zoom, just like deciding every sentence and stuff.

The Knockturnal: How did you meet with your partner? Did you already know her before you came up with this story?

Peter Colin Campbell: We just met on Instagram.

I think she found my work and we followed each other back like years and years ago. And then at some point we made a ahort film. We had a lot of fun and we’ve stayed in contact.

We just wanted to make something and I was like, Well, I have this idea for the feature version of this. I hadn’t written anything because I was procrastinating. And then we just thought we were going to do it in like an afternoon or something and like have no cameraman or something, just like set up a camera on the tripod.

And it was like, Yeah, we’ll just act in it. Sure, fine. And so I wrote like a draft and then one thing led to another and a friend of mine said that she could be producer and get us a little bit of money. And it grew and grew and grew. And eventually we [were] in Chicago filming in my friend’s house.

The Knockturnal: I love that it was really just set in one location with variations of two characters. Yeah that just blew my mind – how much I could get from that.

Peter Colin Campbell: It’s also a great location. My friend’s house in Chicago, I’ve always wanted to film there because it just looks like that. Like there was no production design done on that film.

The Knockturnal: Yeah. Like that location was great because it kind of just felt like almost it almost felt like a wrap, I would say. Yeah. You know, And I loved even this world where opening doors and finding their variations in all these, like nooks and crannies and everyone acting so different, but yet the same. I think my favorite variation or couple were the ones fighting in the bathroom…

I think it was just the banter alone and that heated argument that I think a lot of couples can kind of resonate with when having disagreements with their partner.

Peter Colin Campbell: That was one thing that I felt out of my depth as an actor because we would start a take and I would be like, I would be like at a 55. And then Sofia just started screaming at me and I was like, Ha, like it’s every one of those takes was filled with genuine discomfort on my part…because I’m not an actor.

The Knockturnal: Right. I think that really is like the proof of a good scene partner. Right? Because though I hope you stay in the moment and really viscerally feel discomfort, I think it’s actually like a very Meisner technique – what you went through with Sofia, where it’s just like, Oh, this is an argument. And I am actually quite uncomfortable.

Was that your first time at the Seattle International Film Festival?

Peter Colin Campbell: It’s the first time at Seattle.

The Knockturnal: How was it for you?

Peter Colin Campbell: It’s super fun. It is so like massive. It has like so many different venues and it’s really spread out. But, you know, they did a great job setting things up for all the filmmakers and at the first few days, I knew a bunch of people in town. So there was like there was always something to do.

The Knockturnal: Did you get anybody that pulled you to the side and kind of talked with you?

Peter Colin Campbell: I mean, the other filmmakers were definitely very nice about it. I think that’s yeah, some people came up afterwards. It’s mostly just the audience reaction during that matters to me and I think that it was good. It was a pretty big audience. And I think when they realized that like it was okay to laugh at things, then they kind of like warmed up and by the end were, you know, laughing in all the right parts and gasping at the right parts and stuff.

And that felt good.