Kyle Mooney attended Scripps Ranch High School, where improv classes eventually led him to “Saturday Night Live.” Now, he makes his feature film directorial debut with "Y2K," which opens in cinemas today.
As a teenager, the San Diego native was disappointed when the Y2K bug turned out to be a bust.
"I think for those of us who lived it, it was just a really fascinating thing," Mooney said. "But it was just nothing. It was just a full letdown."
But then he thought, what if all the fears about Y2K had actually come true?
"Truly, within a week, we had all of the building blocks of what ended up on screen," Mooney said.
The result is “Y2K,” an end-of-the-world teen comedy in which computers turn on humanity. To co-write the script, Mooney turned to Evan Winter, who was also a teenager in 1999.
"The thought of turning this full-on nothing in reality into this disaster, this world trek across town to try to survive — I don't know, it just felt like a fun way to approach it," Winter said.
But how do you depict a global computer apocalypse on an indie budget?
"The challenge was really just the scale," Mooney explained. "We wanted to make a movie like a movie we would have seen in the cinema in 1998 or '99 or 2000. You're working with a limited budget, so it's how are you going to make this happen and make it look decent?"
You can start by employing the New Zealand-based Wētā Workshop to do your practical effects.
"We were really psyched on the idea of using as many practical effects as possible," Mooney said. "We worked with Wētā, truly the best in the game, and everything they sent us was already perfect when it got to us. But it was just cool, like, 'Oh, let's throw in this machine from 1998. Let's throw in this old vacuum cleaner from 1989.' I think it was just a lot of fun."
However, turning these sentient machines into suits that could be worn and operated by a person presented a challenge.
"There's all these practical considerations," Winter added. "The weight distribution and how they can move when they're inside of it; the amount of time they can be inside of it; how long it takes to put on. There's a lot of practical elements. The screens work with real glow so that the actors have something to play off of."
The filmmakers also wanted the story to have genuine emotion.
"No one's actual childhood high school experience is filled with this type of stuff, but that is the most emotional time in people's lives when you're that age and things are just changing," Winter stated. "We just wanted to make something that, even though there's all this insane stuff happening, it feels like there is this heightened emotionality that I feel like is very true to being that age."
Mooney added, "I think we always wanted to open with that grounded coming of age, iconic-ish teen comedy movie, and then obviously transforming into this entirely different thing once midnight hits. Our note to our actors and everyone involved was like, 'Let's play this as honestly and as grounded as possible, even though some crazy s--- is happening."
Mooney didn't initially aspire to filmmaking while at Scripps Ranch High School, though he dabbled in media classes. He did, however, take drama classes during his junior and senior years.
"They started an improv troupe my junior year of high school," Mooney recalled. "Then, when I got to college, I auditioned for the improv and sketch group. That was pretty foundational in the sense that it got me into writing regularly and especially writing comedy, obviously. So that stuff was pretty important to me and certainly laid down the building blocks of who I am."
This also led him to "Saturday Night Live," where he spent nine seasons. That experience helped him tackle directing for the first time.
"The main lessons I took from that job were, one, you're putting your pieces in front of a broad audience, and all of a sudden, you're finding out what plays and what doesn't play," Mooney said. "I feel like those patterns and rhythms make their way into your brain. In writing this, you start thinking of what in theory, could play in a theater, what is something that's more universal in some way or another? Then also in that show, we are constantly cutting lines, cutting pages. Things are shifting last minute. I'm not precious with the material. I'm down to edit and lose whatever. It's all about just getting that final product and making it as tight and as awesome as possible."
“Y2K” proves to be a promising directorial debut for the Scripps Ranch High alum.
