Ethan Eng Isn’t Done Breaking Rules: Inside Therapy Dogs, Joji’s New Video, and His Next Anti-Love Story
Photo credit courtesy of Utopia
Ethan Eng’s 2022 directorial debut, Therapy Dogs, which he co-wrote with his best friend Justin Morrice, blends real-life footage with scripted content and follows two best friends (Eng and Morrice) who set out to make the ultimate senior video for their yearbook during their last year of high school. This angsty coming-of-age film is an impressive debut full of cathartic emotion, and featuring ambitious storytelling (as it uses a variety of forms to tell its narrative), a kinetic editing style, and some incredibly dangerous stunts.
Recently, REVERIE chatted with Eng about Therapy Dogs, directing the music video for Joji's new song “Past Won't Leave My Bed,” acting in Matt Johnson's films BlackBerry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, and a little sneak peek at the second film he is working on.
Therapy Dogs
Drawing on films such as Elephant, Timeless Bottomless Bad Movie, The Dirties, and Zero Day, Eng and Morrice decided to make Therapy Dogs a sort of 'anti-yearbook' film that encapsulates what the last year of high school felt like to them. “There was a lot going on during high school, and we wanted to make something to remember it by, but not necessarily in a fond way,” Eng says. “We wanted something to capture exactly how we felt at that time, so we never look back at it and be like ‘Oh, wasn’t that swell?’ because that was what we were getting a lot of when we were talking to people out of high school. They would tell us, ‘You’re gonna have the time of your life,’ and it really didn’t feel like that.”
For Eng, collaborating with Morrice on Therapy Dogs was the most enjoyable part of the filmmaking process. “If you have one best friend, that’s really all it takes,” Eng says. “He saw the vision for it right away. We just poured everything that we had into it. We were skipping classes, and any plans for going to college or post-secondary went away. We both just decided to throw our souls into this.”
Therapy Dogs is split up into multiple chapters, most of which center on the wild antics of Eng and Morrice, while others focus on completely different things. Three chapters focus on a musician named Kevin Tseng, who has dreams of making it big in L.A., but also heavily worries about his future. “If the movie was just about me and Justin, I think it would have been very annoying because we were just two kids doing daredevil stuff and really interacting with the camera a lot,” Eng says. “We needed another point of view that was more humble and a bit more attached to the social climate of the school. Kevin was a loner, but he still had communities, whether it be with the drama club or the music majors. We were just seeing a different type of loneliness that isn’t so much rebellion, but is more quiet in everyday life.”
Therapy Dogs uses a variety of techniques in its storytelling, including Google Maps, Jackass-style stunts, footage from Grand Theft Auto V, archival footage, interviews, found footage, and staged shots, among others. Experimenting with all these formats gives the movie a very unique visual style. “This was less a movie about me having the skill to express myself in a particular form, and really, I was just trying to use whatever I could to express any kind of idea that I had,” Eng says. “[We were using] anything we could to get at that feeling of angst that we had, and it wasn’t always something formal like a scene.”
There are tons of crazy and intense stunts that Eng and Morrice pull off in Therapy Dogs. One of the most memorable stunts (which is super anxiety-inducing and stressful to watch as a viewer) involves strapping Morrice to the top of a friend's car while they drift and do some donuts in a parking lot. A police officer catches them doing this illegal act. “That was really fun to watch and record,” Eng says. “It just so happened that the backlot of the school was just surrounded by the backyards of all these suburban homes, and people were walking their dogs while this car was drifting around, so it was inevitable. It was quite scary, I mean, the scene that you see in Therapy Dogs was like 5% of that cop just talking to us and scolding us non-stop.”
Another huge stunt they pull off is the fireworks intro. “I remember leading up to it, I had dreams of like police and helicopters and all of these things happening when we were on the roof,” Eng recalls. “We woke up at like five in the morning, got ready, and there was not a word between us. We packed our backpacks with fireworks, put on ski masks, and headed up. It was all very cut and dry. I remember I was panicking on the roof before we were going to light it up, and Justin is like, ‘Why are you panicking? This is fun. You should be having fun.’ Then we lit it up and we danced. Our friend was recording from below, and as soon as that last firework hit the sky, we all just ran away, and it was the most beautiful feeling running away at that moment.”
Engs shares that the most challenging part of Therapy Dogs was getting people together to film it. “You can obviously disguise filming it as a hangout, and that’s the secret for a lot of it, but at the same time, it's high school. Everyone is already kind of in their own movie, so it's hard to kind of bring people out of their own personal spotlight to participate in it sometimes.”
Upon reflecting on whether the meaning of Therapy Dogs has changed for him since he has gotten older, he acknowledges it has pretty much stayed the same. “I still pretty much stand by what I was saying with that movie, and I still hate school,” he laughs.
Directing Joji’s “Past Won’t Leave My Bed” Music Video
Recently, Eng directed the music video for Joji's song “Past Won't Leave My Bed.” Eng shares that Joji came across Therapy Dogs and really enjoyed it, which led him to direct the music video. “I still did my pitch, but I think that [Therapy Dogs] was definitely most of the pitch, and as you can see from the music video, it's not so different from what Ethan was doing in high school in Therapy Dogs.”
Eng has always been a fan of Joji ever since Joji was known as Filthy Frank. This made it easy for him to find a balance between his vision of the music video with Joji's music. “There was never a problem in terms of match and taste,” he says. “I remember when I first saw Joji’s music video for 'Yeah Right' and that kind of turned on a light bulb in my head for how to approach a lot of the hyper montages in Therapy Dogs.”
Although Eng notes that the imagery in a music video and a film is quite different, the overall experience was quite similar. “It still felt like we were shooting it like a feature,” Eng says. “The only difference was in the editing, but in terms of the intensity of the shoot, the length, and the amount of energy spent, it was all the same. It is just crammed up into a smaller package, but I hope it still delivers the same punch.”
Acting in Matt Johnson’s Films
Therapy Dogs was executive produced by Eng's filmmaking heroes Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller. Since Therapy Dogs Eng has acted in Johnson's films, BlackBerry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Both of these experiences were absolute joys for him, and he had a ton of fun on set. “Matt is a master at creating atmosphere, and he understands that’s really a huge part of the equation of how a movie feels is just the atmosphere that you create,” he says. “With BlackBerry, having us play Doom, hanging out in the engineering room, making sure all the games on set were playable, and that there was always something to do. With Nirvanna the Band, you look around the house, and there are toys everywhere, and there’s always something to interact with. Nirvanna the Band was pretty much just friends on that set, and it felt like a big sleepover. I completely disagree with this tip that I read online once, which was never to make a movie with your friends. That couldn’t be further from the case. I only want to make movies with my friends. When I did the Joji music video, it was a very small crew as well, with pretty much people that I trusted and like to spend time with. As I continue to make movies in the future, I am going to continue to hold on to that because what I realized from Therapy Dogs to working on Matt’s movies to this music video is that the feeling of making something good is no different from that feeling that you had when you made your first video with your friends at school.”
Eng shares that being on set on these films and getting first-hand experience of how Johnson directs and writes films left a huge impression on him, especially BlackBerry, which he called “the ultimate summer camp… If I could sum up [the experience] into one thing, it would be the diligence in getting it right. There was a lot of focus on getting it right and not calling it quits until it is at the standard that you want it.”
Photo credit: Elevation Pictures
Upcoming Movie (Second Feature Film)
Eng has been working on his second feature, which he is incredibly excited about. “The movie is called A New Age and it’s pretty much Therapy Dogs 2.0 and 2.0 as in 20 – a version of Therapy Dogs in your 20s,” he shares. “I have so many more ideas on, like, the different kinds of camera styles. There’s gonna be even crazier stuff beyond, like Google Maps. We’re thinking of 3D animation and so many types of different experiments in terms of expression for it. It’s going to be, I guess, an antisocial love story.”
Therapy Dogs is availabe now to watch on YouTube via Utopia here.