Best friends since Lafayette Jeff take entertainment industry by storm

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Kelsey Cornell and Derrick Childers are best friends, and 2010 graduates from Lafayette Jefferson High School now working in the TV and movie industries in Los Angeles, Calif.

Kelsey currently works as a producer on the NBC show “America’s Got Talent” and Derrick is a self-taught mechanical engineer working at KNB EFX Group, the special effects company that makes “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Walking Dead” possible.

The journey to these amazing careers, however, are best explained by Derrick — ”If I was a plane that took off … it was a crash landing.”

When he moved to LA in 2016, he had $700 to his name, no place to live and no job on the line. He spent two days delivering food on Postmates (one of the first food delivery services before the better-known UberEats and DoorDash came along). The first day resulted in a waste of gas and a $120 parking ticket, he said. The second day was an effort to make back the money he owed for the ticket. Afterward, he accepted a job serving popcorn at a movie theater.

Kelsey had made it to LA a year prior, also completely broke, she said. She spent six months in the area before ever getting a job offer and when she did, she was let go two weeks later, she said. Add a breakup to the mix and Kelsey, too, experienced her own “crash landing.”

The two friends met years prior in the sixth-grade choir at Tecumseh Junior High School and remained close throughout their school years, though, nowhere as close as they are now as adults, they both agree.

To better understand the bond they have and how each has reached their success, it is first important to understand how they became interested in their fields.

Kelsey grew up in Lafayette with her mother, father and little brother. One day, when she was about 10 years old, her father, who worked as a trashman at the time, came home with a giant VHS camcorder he’d found in the garbage. He gave it to her as a toy and she played with it for as long as she can remember, she said.

“It was instantly one of my favorite things and I had it forever. I would make little sketches to create scenes and I even have a video of me doing a makeshift AGT [America’s Got Talent] audition,” she said, laughing. “There’s some foreshadowing for you.”

Meanwhile, Derrick experienced a “standard childhood” in Lafayette, as he puts it, also living with his mother, father and younger brother. The first job he ever worked was at CD Land, formerly on Teal Road, and he credits his manager there, Bill Wheat, for helping fuel his love of movie creation.

“I told him that I wanted to make movies for a living and he didn’t tell me I was crazy. In fact, he had moved to LA and worked on ‘Big Brother’ but then needed to come back home to Indiana,” Derrick said. “Because our days were usually pretty slow, we would watch movies behind his desk all day and discuss different shots or techniques.”

During his senior year of high school, Derrick and a group of his friends won a “zombie-comedy-horror competition” hosted on the YouTube channel “Indy Mogul.” The show was co-hosted by the man who became Derrick’s mentor – Erik Beck, a special effects guru who has since left YouTube and works in LA producing, directing and creating.

“I had looked up to Erik Beck for so long and at this point he was kind of doing his own thing and sometimes guest starred on the channel,” Derrick said. “There was a video reviewing the final two short films remaining in the competition and I had no idea Erik was going to be on that video until I started watching it. “

As 18-year-old Derrick watched the final video to see if they’d won the competition, he was stunned as he realized Beck was not only watching his short film, but praising the special effects within it.

“I started freaking out because he is commenting on the special effects that I did,” Derrick said. “I was running to my mom almost in tears because of how excited I was.”

Kelsey, on the other hand, continued making camcorder videos that turned into an even deeper love for photography and videography as she progressed through high school. She took as many photography classes as she could with her favorite teacher, Ms. Brasch, at Jefferson High School.

“She was so quirky and different from anyone else I’d met in Lafayette at that time,” Kelsey said. “She taught me the basics of film photography and really encouraged me.”

Kelsey had struggled with her sense of belonging since the 8th grade, as she was the first queer-identifying person in her grade that was openly “out,” she said. Feeling as though she had a purpose in her high school choir and photography classes was the first time she’d experienced what felt like a “chosen family,” she said.

And Derrick Childers remained a part of that group.

It all falls apart for Derrick Childer and his family

Derrick entered several more short-film competitions and kept winning. After graduating high school, he received an Associate in Specialized Business degree through Tom Savini’s Special Make-up Effects Program in Pennsylvania.

Tom Savini is a professional make-up artist, actor and director known as the “Godfather of Gore.” He worked on classic horror movies such as “Friday the 13th” and “Dawn of the Dead.”

During college, Derrick and his friends were known to throw costume parties. After all, they were specializing in special effects make-up. It was during one of these parties he received the call that changed his life forever.

“I got a phone call from my aunt saying that my mom had died and I just wasn’t in that mindset. I was in complete shock,” Derrick said. “My brother got on the phone and that’s just, well, that’s when I knew it was real.”

Derrick’s mother had battled diabetes for a long time, he said. She had wounds that refused to heal and had already undergone several amputations. The event was sudden, he said, and he simply hadn’t realized how serious things were back home.

“I never even got to say goodbye,” he said, reflecting on the memory. “It definitely forced me to grow up faster and find a way to keep pushing through things.”

Kelsey Cornell's family goes through upheaval

Kelsey’s life flipped upside down, not too long before Derrick lost his mother, when her parents unexpectedly divorced the summer after her high school graduation.

“You know, you think ‘I am going to have all these things that both of my parents are going to be at’ and, boom, suddenly it isn’t like that at all,” she said. “I learned quickly that life will never be or look the way you think it will.”

Both friends went through periods of sadness, confusion and feeling unsure about their identities — each missing what was once a crucial element.

Kelsey spent two years post-high school in Lafayette attending Ivy Tech because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, she said. As the first person in her immediate family to attend college, and with her new family dynamic, she didn’t have the slightest idea on how to get started on college applications, she said.

When she wasn't at school, she could be found working at Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant on Sagamore Parkway and shooting wedding and senior photos for money on the side.

“I didn’t get into Purdue or IU,” she said. “I honestly didn’t even know how to get into those. But I was sick of being sad and lost in myself so I just had a day where I was like ‘nobody else is going to give you the life that you want except for yourself.’”

She successfully applied to and attended Columbia College in Chicago, majoring in television and graduating Summa Cum Laude, she said.

“I really pushed myself once I got in there,” she said. “I never got lower than basically 100% in all my classes, I was nominated for a student Emmy, I knew it was all in my hands.”

The same goes for Derrick. After his mother died, it felt like his entire family fell apart, he said. But, he knew he needed to finish school in order to pursue his dreams.

“I just told myself that the worst thing that could happen to me has already happened,” he said. “I forced myself into this mindset of doing things ‘for’ my mom; in honor of her. If I were to give up halfway through makeup school, what would I do? What would she think?”

Friends reunite in Los Angeles

Now, after more than five years of successfully living in Los Angeles, they continue to cling to one another for a sense of “home” on the hard days.

“Derrick and I are such simple people and we come from the same simple, spaced out place,” Kelsey said. “When we go out in LA there is always so much going on; it’s nice to have someone next to you who is also a Midwesterner at heart.”

When asked what her message to current Midwestern high schoolers would be, Kelsey thought of a Post-It note message from her mother that she has taped to her closet door. It reads: “They can knock you down, but they can’t knock you out. Stay strong.”

“I always had people putting me down in high school, or making me feel like I was ‘other,’” Kelsey said. “After high school I realized I cared too much about everyone else but myself and stopped holding myself to the grounds of who I was in high school.”

Achieving their dreams

Kelsey is now happily engaged and lives with her fiance and their two cats, Koda and Marshall. She has many more dreams she is still working toward and does not plan on stopping at “America’s Got Talent,” she said.

“I am only 32 at this point and it already feels like I have lived so many lives already,” she said. “And now that I feel like I know what I am doing, I am even more excited for the chapters ahead.”

When asked what his message would be to current high school students, Derrick said “keep going, don’t give up, keep pushing through and don’t let money be an issue.”

“Sometimes you have to fake it ‘til you make it,” he said. “If you keep talking about it then that’s all you’re ever doing. If all you do is say it, you are never going to do it. Put yourself into action.”

Derrick can now make just about anything in the special effects world, he said. Whether it is plastic, metal, wood, fake skin, etc., he  is not intimidated by it. His goal for the end of the year is to make a short film, even if it is only three minutes long, to make sure he stays in touch with his movie directing dreams, he said.

He works at KNB EFX as a special effects mechanical engineer and also assists with casting and fabrication. Since high school, he has also befriended his mentor Erik Beck and worked with him at the same effects shop.

Visit Kelsey Cornell’s website at https://ktruepictures.com/ and follow her on Instagram @ktruecornell

Visit Derrick Childer’s website at https://www.derrickchilders.com/ and follow him on Instagram @dchilders

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Best pals Kelsey Cornell, Derrick Childers follow dreams to Hollywood