An Interview with Writer and Director Carson Mell

Phil Spector, Mick Jagger, Johnny Cash, Lou Reed, and others have their insane moments both on and off stage, but none hold a candle to Bobby Bird. He is a man out of time, out of this world and out of his mind. He is a tattooed, drug-addled, waxed-poetic songwriter raised by a single mother and her rotating cast of cocks. He is a menace. A lover. A genius. A failure. Bobby Bird is “the Devil In Denim.” Bobby Bird idolizes himself more than everyone and everything, except for perhaps, his pet monkey Chonto. However, there is one catch to Bird…he’s fake—a created character from the mind of writer/animator/director Carson Mell. Chonto is the animated tale of Bobby’s greatest failings and also, possibly, his greatest accomplishments.

Carson Mell was born in Arizona in 1980, the son of a landscape painter and a nurse.  He moved to Los Angeles in 2002 to write and work in film and television.  Since then, three of his short films have been Official Selections of The Sundance Film Festival and many other film festivals including The San Francisco International Film Festival, Toronto’s Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, and Brooklyn’s Rooftop Films. His short fiction has been published inMcSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and Electric Literature.

Previously on VICE Shorts – Dumpy Goes to the Big Smoke