The Special That Lit a Fire Under My Butt

by Lucas Matthews

It’s not very often when you consume a piece of media and it noticeably affects your actions, let alone something as grand as directly inspiring you. This happened to me in May of 2021 when I saw Bo Burnham’s most recent special INSIDE. INSIDE is a musical special written, directed, filmed, edited, and performed all by Bo Burnham. The entire special takes place in a room, reflecting the feeling of when it was filmed in the early years of COVID. This characteristic of every single part of the special having been done by Bo himself is what inspired 18 year old Lucas. 

Throughout the many iterations of my passion for video creation, be it gameplay videos, birthday videos, or movie trailers, one characteristic that had been consistent is that I was a one man crew. I didn’t have anyone around me that shared the passion let alone knew about this hobby I had. I would be too embarrassed to show people what I did. This meant the shooting, acting, and editing were all done by me. This of course is a limiting set up in terms of what you can easily do. A single simple shot becomes much more difficult when you have to be both in front and behind the camera. Not only does it raise the difficulty of shots, but increases the time it takes to get that shot exponentially. It would not be rare for these complications to ultimately turn me off from going through with a video idea. I remember genuinely having close to 30 short film and music video ideas in my notes app that never were to see the light of day, because I couldn’t be bothered to put the effort into them.

This was especially the case in the first half of 2021. With how my high school’s calendar worked, my last classes of senior year were in December. Which means I didn’t have anything to do from January to June when I would start getting ready for College. I had close to six months where I had the most free time I had ever had in my life, since growing up I would always have summer and winter break homework. Instead of taking this time to learn a new skill or work on a project, I really did nothing productive. By around the start of May I had realized that while the past months have been fun, it was very much a wasted opportunity. Even after realizing this though, the inertia to get my creative juices flowing was close to impossible to overcome. It was coming to the point where I was wondering if I even wanted to continue video creation as a hobby. Maybe it was time to put the camera down and focus on a “real” future. This was until I saw INSIDE. I had already been a big fan of Bo Burnham since 2019 and was very excited for this special to come out. Although the effect that it would have on me was beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

I was in absolute awe. The creativity behind the special in how Bo used the setting of a single room, and being a one man crew to elevate the themes and storytelling throughout was mind blowing to say the least. How it perfectly constructed comedy and deep messaging through the songs and skits. And then I remembered, Bo literally did everything. He didn’t have a crew, he didn’t have actors, he didn’t have an editor, it was all him. Simply put: I was blown away. It was easy to make a comparison to myself. Everything that Bo did in the special, I could physically do too. This is what lit the fire under my butt. If he can make something on his own that is so amazing, what’s stopping me. It didn’t matter that he had more equipment. It didn’t matter that he had more skill and experience. It didn’t matter that he’s a professional and I had just graduated high school. None of those technicalities mattered. Being on my own was the thing I would continue to use as an excuse for why I couldn’t create, calling it a limitation. And then Bo goes and just proves me so wrong. It felt like the special was telling me I was the one making it a limitation. When in reality, it was never a limitation. It was merely different circumstances. I could have been creative all this time, but I had decided to blame it on something else. It turned a switch on in my brain that had been dormant for months. The urge to create was like nothing I had ever experienced before. This led me to write, direct, film, edit, and star in one of my favorite videos I have ever made. The project led to more ideas, and eventually me taking a class on filmmaking, and now an internship in the real film industry. It is very possible that if I had not seen INSIDE, my attitude towards creating would be very different. I might have not even pursued filmmaking to the degree I have. It almost feels like I was saved by the special in a weird way. Like if not for it I would have walked the horrific path of pursuing a career that I wasn’t even passionate about. Luckily, no need to worry about that.