Staff Pick Premiere: "Charlotte" by Zach Dorn |

In this episode of the Staff Pick Premiere, forgotten folk musician Lena Black discovers her fifty-year-old song "Charlotte" was remade to become a popular pop tune. Set in the aftermath of the song's release, director Zach Dorn explores how the legacy of the song impacts Lena and her daughter Diane and her eleven-year-old grandson, Eli.

In a letter addressed to the popular singer, Lena writes: "There is a far more serious thing than forgetting, and that is to be misunderstood." The central idea runs through the entire film as the song's newfound triumph reveals past injuries. In a series of all-but-one conversation - including the letter of Lena, Diane's telephone call, as well as Eli's cassette tape - Dorn paints a poignant depiction of a family that begins to listen to each other over the sound of music.

If asked about his distinctive style for the film Dorn explained: "I loved the conceit that we explore these bonds but never seeing the family members interact. In presenting the narrative through isolated monologues I wanted it to feel like that the characters had each created their own version of the same song. There are these generational physical, emotional and geographical gaps, but, hopefully some element at the root of their struggles ends up converging into the same song."

The melody may sound familiar to those who have experienced their families drift apart, but "Charlotte" is unlike any other family drama that we've seen on the . Using hand-made puppets and stop-motion animation, Dorn takes us inside their lives, memories, and imaginations, for an incredibly emotionally charged journey.

 In advance of the release We reached out to Dorn to hear more about his inspiration as well as his process and design. Find out more details about "Charlotte."

 Based on the film's origins:

"In 2019, I made a puppet show about the world's biggest sponge, as well as the hit TV show Gilmore Girls. A few days ago, as I was shopping for miniature items at the faux floral aisle at a Michael's Craft store, Carly Rae Jepsen's rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" heard on the speaker. It's a wildly upbeat cover and a wonderful bubbly pop tune that is a bit odd considering the original song is rather difficult and empathetic. The feeling was awe-inspiring that I enjoyed the Carly Rae cover so much. I personally felt that the version with pop lyrics although it was less slick, still possessed all the emotion from Joni Mitchell's first. I was a bit embarrassed and conflicted over this notion, yet I kept thinking of Carly Rae Jepsen as well as Joni Mitchell's renditions of "Both Sides Now" during a conversation. This conversation eventually became the script for "Charlotte ."

 In making the script

"I created the original rendition of "Charlotte" as a radio play, sort of a Joe Frank voyeuristic drama, with footage of miniature scenes without the use of puppets. I composed the story from the viewpoints of eight characters, who each had a personal or professional relationship that was built around the theme of "Charlotte." After taking time to get acquainted with these characters, Diane and Eli felt the most interesting, and so I kept them on the same page with Lena and the pop star T.Y.M. When I realized this and was able to understand the story, I spent lots of hours trying to find out how to make their stories intersect."

 On the music collaboration:

"When I wrote "Charlotte," I always thought of musician Jenna Caravello in mind. As I was writing the script, I sent the fictional Rolling Stone interviews with Lena Black and some of faux-diary entries. With this data, Jenna wrote the folk tune.

 Jenna's tune was sent to Zhenya Golikova, whom I met online. In the year 2020, Zhenya covered these voice memo tunes that I composed for a girlfriend, goofy and pathetic songs about marshmallows and cats as well as missing someone in another place, and then Zhenya changed my lyrics into incredible ballads. The music she created has that early Magnetic Fields vibe, like it was written by the sea by horny sea monkeys.. I gave her Jenna's tune and she got the pop version one few days later ."

 On the talk-show segment:

"So many female folk artists in the 60s and 70s were greatly under-appreciated. Musicians like Vashti Bunyan Karen Dalton, Linda Perrhacs, as well as The Roches, were either ignored or marginalized into categories like "freak folk," but were never treated as seriously as their male counterparts. There's fascinating contradiction in that folk music is regarded as having progressive ideals, while still bogged in a certain sort of unspoken misogyny.

 In the mind of these musicians I was imagining Lena at this strange moment of her career. to maintain relevancy her career would require participation in the 70s Laurel Canyon lifestyle, party with the right kind of people as well as take the appropriate drug - all in a society created and governed by men. But I don't believe she'd feel up to it. Perhaps it was due to her motherhood perhaps, or maybe she could see the whole thing. It's hard to say. It was just her sorrow - which spanned the course of a lifetime, mourning for an entire career. What does she do with her anger? How does the grief play out for her daughter? In thinking about these concerns I attempted to compose Lena's interaction with Sam as a prelude to her relationship with her daughter."

 On developing his unique visual style:

 "In my early 20s I was an actor, however I was never any good at the art. I am missing an eighth of my brain , and I swear its led to a real absence of spatial awareness. Making or manipulating things in three dimensions was out of the question. Luckily, I fell into Toy Theater, a type of puppetry that was popular in late 19th century England. I started building tiny dioramas out of Acrylics and matte boards, like pop-up books. I played with live-projecting cameras in of them as I narrated stories of my landlord or deceased dog.

 I obsess over the details of everything, no matter the bar code on an Doritos bag or the shape of an McDonald's Happy Meal box. Maybe because of the missing brain, I'm unable to cut straight lines or form things in a realistic way. So I'm like this, a sort of mashup of something that is falling apart and obsessed.

 In order to create the puppets I worked with stop motion animators Oliver Levine and Lily Windsor to create a slightly gritty and textural look that matched the film's hand-painted universe. Because I created the film in the period of lockdown, we traveled on a long-distance basis, Lily from Chicago, mailing tiny boxes of llamas and Oliver leaving head sculpts at my front door in Burbank .">

 The next step:

 "Currently I'm working on a short documentary about Livia Soprano, the CGI Livia Soprano from the third season of The Sopranos, as well as the genetic mutation known as BRCA2. I was raised in an Italian American family filled with various eccentricities and people, however, by my late 20s, the BRCA2 affected the family connections through the premature deaths of family members.

 In 2020, I watched The Sopranos for the first time. Each show felt as if I was suddenly in conversations with my family once more. In the present, I'm making an film on this event in which I recreate my home movies with stop-motion footage and examine Livia Soprano's posthumous performance relation to my personal grieving experiences. ."