I used various clips from movies and across the internet. The film I featured most was The Slumber Party Massacre. There’s something really eerie about the cinematography of that film, the way it plays with shadows, colour, and negative space. I intercut a a lot of clips from it with 80s nightly news footage. One image I’m really proud of was the Statue of Liberty with “1984” circling the American flag. It was a clip I found from a Reagan campaign bulletin, and subversively exploring American history is very on brand for AHS. That one made the final cut for the real thing.

My inspiration came from all those late nights glued to VHS tapes of B-horror movies. My mom is a horror nerd herself, and she would show me all her favourites. Hell Night (1981), The House on Sorority Row (1982), and anything with Jamie Lee Curtis. Retro horror has always been a nexus point for my love of film, so I tried to bring that love into the edit — always bearing in mind that it was a passion project and something fun to work on between acting gigs.

I redid the AHS theme on GarageBand using synths and bells and then distorted the hell out of it to give it an aged quality. I wanted the sound to come out warped and pitched as if it had gone through a glitchy VHS recorder. I Frankensteined the intro, cutting and splicing a variety of clips on an outdated version of Windows Movie Maker. I tend to hyper-fixate on projects, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, and I edited it all while on a family vacation on Anna Maria Island. We had a pool but I barely went outside.

All I knew was I wanted to post something for the fans. I had been interacting with all these online forums for years, listening to fan theories, and I felt like I finally had something to add to the conversation. The AHS community is very supportive, and I felt strongly that I should share this with them. The morning after, my edit had been reposted almost 300 times. It was on all the fan sites. I even saw it on Instagram reposted in Portuguese and French. I was honoured that the fans - who are very transparent about their opinions on the show - responded to my art with such praise.
It wasn’t until almost a week later that I checked my inbox and learned that Ryan Murphy had seen it and wanted to hire me. Naturally, I thought it was a scam. It was surreal: I’ve been a fan of his since Glee. But I was told later that Ryan was very explicit in his instructions to get me on their team as a conceptual designer

Getting to work with Kyle Cooper was a dream. He and his ridiculously talented team at Prologue Films were so kind to me. His work speaks for itself — he is great at what he does and he knew exactly what questions to ask to get our final product. Aside from providing the original concept and sound design, I gave them a few clips from my original fan edit. I also designed the font for the sequence: a hybrid of the signature AHS typography and a slasher font that I fell in love with. At the end, I think the sequence was a wonderful blend of my brain and his.

Working on AHS opened a million doors for me and proved to myself that my art was worthy of being shared. Being an actor, you learn to follow direction and think inside a given box. On the creative side, you build that box from the inside out and, if you’re lucky, you have a team that allows you to play and trusts you creatively. That was my experience on 1984.                                          

My contribution to the show says a lot about Ryan Murphy and how he truly listens to his fans. Part of what makes American Horror Story so iconic is its huge global following. So it feels very fitting that my involvement was through the lens of fandom. Another show would have plagiarised my concept, but they gave me credit throughout the entire process and listened actively to my ideas. It was a total honour — and a horror fan’s dream come true.

To read our interview with Kyle Cooper 
breaking down all 12 title sequences
from Murder House to Delicate

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