By: Richard Kim, Contributing Writer
Photo courtesy of Caden Crenshaw

On Tuesday, Feb. 25, the Laidlaw Performing Arts Center hosted a screening of “Young Justice: Inception,” a DC Comics fan film written and directed by Theatre USA student Caden Crenshaw. Crenshaw has performed in multiple theatre productions at the university, most recently in Brian Friel’s “Winners.” Originally premiered on YouTube on Dec. 25 of last year, the 51-minute film was the culmination of five years of planning. The Vanguard’s Richard Kim reached out to Crenshaw to get some insight into the creation of the film.

Kim: How big of a DC fan are you?

Crenshaw: I’m a pretty big DC fan. I watched a lot of the animated shows growing up, I collect comics, have merch, play DC video games, all that good stuff!

Kim: You’ve said that the movie took at least five years to make. What were some of the biggest changes it went through in that time?

Crenshaw: Some of the biggest changes the production went through over the past five years were definitely the very first draft of the script and the final draft along with the changing of cast members.

Kim: What made you want to do a fan film? Were you inspired by any other fan films?
Crenshaw: Honestly, it started off as a fun little idea [during] my sophomore year of high school, then it became a fun little project. Then, I got serious about it [and] wanted to really go all the way. I did watch other fan films to compare, but none necessarily inspired me.

Kim: How did you get Theatre USA to screen your film?
Crenshaw: After I showed the movie to my professors at the theatre department, they were more than willing to host a public screening over at Laidlaw in order to garnish support for the program and for JagPantry to receive any donated goods.

Kim: Did other theatre students express interest in being actors?

Crenshaw: Yes, one of my closest friends, Matthew Cognevich, who is also with the drama department here at South. He was elated to hear about this project and was a huge factor in the final product overall and I could not have done this without him.

Kim: What are your goals in making the sequel?
Crenshaw: As for my goals in making the sequel, I would like to have more people on deck to help, for starters. This is all voluntary work, but the more people working with me on this, the better the quality of the sequel can be. Another goal is that it surpasses the quality of the first one by far. I want to use the skills and lessons I learned during the first production of “Young Justice: Inception” to make my sequel a dozen times better. [This] is my dream and passion project, so finalizing the sequel and presenting it to the public is a major goal on its own.

The film is still visible on YouTube today.