Interview: We Never Sleep Directors Rashan Mines & Ren-Horng Wang On AI & Cancel Culture

We Never Sleep is a 13 minute long short film which is centered around a couple, Austin and Mikaela, who are discussing the rise of an AI program called the Mob, which is seemingly targeting anyone that’s “stepping out of line” and taking over their lives. Their theories about the origins and strength of this AI program become real when they start to suspect that the Mob is trying to get to them. I sat down with directors Rashan Mines and Ren-Horng Wang for a virtual chat about their short film, AI, cancel culture, and more.

Film Fugitives: How did you come up with the idea of We Never Sleep and how did it evolve into this short film?

Ren: We were brainstorming ideas for our next movie and the topic of things that really scared us came up. Not supernatural stuff like the bigfoot, werewolves, or vampires, but things that were rooted in reality and unsettling. And we zeroed in on cancel culture, because we’ve been noticing how people are being silenced for having an opinion, even if their politics align with one another. As a result of that, people seem to be afraid to just express themselves.

Rashan: For me, one of the greatest things about life is that people learn from their mistakes. You should be allowed to grow, evolve, and change your opinions over time. I grew up before Twitter was a thing, and what a lot of people say when they’re young, if they were recorded for all time and then dug up, they would definitely be cancelled. If someone’s worldview truly has changed for the better, then we should give them grace. 

FF: Did you struggle with making your fictional sci-fi AI feel scary now that real-life AI software is doing things scarier than what the human mind can imagine?

Ren: With the rapid changes in society, and people being afraid of AI’s growing capabilities, we think this actually made it easier for us to create an antagonist that the audience could be scared of. 

Rashan: I think one of the biggest fears people have about AI is overreach. In power and control, of which free speech is just a small part. That fear of AI always watching us, knowing where we are, what we’re doing, and what we’re saying, is already real, and it was easy to tap into that.

FF: Was Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) a big influence on your short film (based on the pointing, the screaming, and the general idea of humans being replaced by something that’s not human)?

Rashan: Funny you should mention that, because Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a big influence on our film, but more subconsciously than deliberate. I didn’t fully realize it until I had the final scene in my head and was talking to my aunt, who mentioned it. Then it clicked. The scariest part of Body Snatchers is the ending, when Donald Sutherland’s character becomes one of them. That kind of influence seeps into your psyche without you even realizing it.

FF: Movies about the threat that AI possesses to human life have been made for so many years. Yet our government and the general public keep pushing for AI. Why?

Ren: Even when multiple stories that are clearly cautionary tales that say “hey, we should not do that,” powerful people only see “oh wow that’s cool!” and are blind to the dangers that are literally the story. I think that’s because powerful people just want to increase their power by controlling even more things. But it’s a genie-in-a-bottle situation. Once that genie is out, there’s no putting it back. That’s what we’re starting to see now.

FF: What’s your opinion on artists that use AI, thereby furthering the problem that’s leading to the employment crisis?

Rashan: Unfortunately, I think, this is where the world is heading. It feels inevitable. So we have to figure out how to use it without letting it take away from human creativity. Nothing will replace our ability to create and make art, but AI will absolutely become a major part of every industry, including entertainment. That’s just the reality.

Ren: We also need to be cautious about how much AI consumes in terms of environmental resources, and we need to guard against large companies exploiting artists and having them do more work for less pay just because AI tools exist. For instance, studios are talking about downsizing or eliminating TV writers’ rooms because they assume the showrunner can just brainstorm with the AI. But that kind of massive work still needs a team of people to make quality shows.

FF: Without spoiling the joke that was the catalyst for the debacle, do you think an over-dependence on AI kills our sense of humor?

Ren: Humor died long before AI entered the scene. I think George Carlin was prescient when he said that political correctness was killing comedy. What we consider “funny” has changed. Stand-up is now often used to make statements and grandstand instead of being funny. What makes something funny is examining something that’s true in life, including our flaws. If we stop examining those flaws, comedy disappears.

FF: What was it like working with Melissa and Tyler? Did they bring anything to the table that took you by surprise?

Rashan: What surprised me most about Tyler was how dry his sense of humor was. I really enjoyed watching the choices he made. The snoring bit was his idea, and we kept it. It added this subtle, dry humor to the film. Melissa, on the other hand, captured fear so powerfully. That final scream, when she did it on set, we all jumped. Watching them bring their own interpretations to the roles was a real joy.

Ren: What made both of them special was how they took ideas and made them their own. Rashan and I didn’t need to be heavy-handed with direction, which was something we looked for in our auditions. We gave them space to play, and their ideas pleasantly surprised us. With Tyler, we originally planned for the monster to be CGI, but his performance was so cold and chilling that we changed the concept and made the threat human. He was always willing to jump in and try anything, which made him great to work with.

FF: What are some of your favorite movies about AI? And why?

Rashan: One of my favorite AI films is A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It’s incredibly thought-provoking and really questions what it means to be alive. I also love I, Robot. It’s a great action flick and Will Smith is in it. What more can you ask for?

Ren: I love Her because it explores emotional dependence on technology, which I think is particularly relevant in our age of loneliness. And also as a life-long James Cameron fan, I’m also a sucker for The Terminator (1 and 2).

FF: What are some of the movies that have shaped your style of storytelling?

Rashan: I was really influenced by slow-burn horror. Films like The Exorcist, which builds gradually, and The Ring, which relies on atmosphere and tension. This film is about a real-world horror, cancel culture, and we wanted to explore it slowly and deliberately.

Ren: We were also inspired by high-concept films like A Quiet Place. Keeping the “monster” off-screen for most of the movie makes it scarier, because, like with the shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho, imagination is always more powerful than what you can show.

Rashan: We have to mention Smile because that’s the movie that made us think about using horror as a conduit to address societal issues that haven’t been fully explored. 

FF: Do you intend to give We Never Sleep the feature-film treatment?

Both: Absolutely. We do want to turn We Never Sleep into a feature film. Recently released films like Get Out and Sinners are great examples of horror serving as a catalyst for in-depth discussions about our culture and society, and they have inspired us immensely. The way we developed the story is deliberate to include a wider world we can explore. As the character Mikaela says, “Who knows who could be next. It could be anyone!” and we want to show people anyone could be next.