Aside from a few unfinished chase-scenes-in-the-woods experiments from my early teens, this is my first film. I made it because I love the multidisciplinary art of filmmaking, because I was tired of my fear of failure, and because I wanted to see what would happen if I just finished one.

 

I wanted to simply explore whether this was something I enjoyed and was good at, and I don’t think you generally need to make a large financial investment to get a sense for that (I want to outgrow what I have before buying anything new).

One of the reasons the film has no dialogue is because I didn't have any sound recording equipment, and wanted to make something that would work well without it. I envisioned it as a simple story carried along by the music, and shot the film with no on-set sound. But when I started editing, it felt lifeless. I felt like a distant observer; it was difficult to get immersed in the story. So I decided to add all the sound back in.

 

On another trip to the beach, I brought home some sand and beach grass, and set up a foley recording studio in my basement, adding footsteps, rustling grass, camera shutters, and other details. I added some environmental sound with heavily modified sound effects from Logic Studio, and finally the film started to come alive.

I wanted the original score to match the simple, rustic beauty of the locations, and capture something of the subtle mystery of the story. I tried to keep the arrangement sparse, with only a piano and glockenspiel, recorded with no metronome to keep it feeling natural. You can listen to the score here. 

Some have asked about Emily; the film wasn’t written about her (she passed away while it was in post-production), but she was a dear friend of my family and many others, and it was an honor to dedicate it to her memory. 

The Lights Film School blog interviewed me about the making of the film and overcoming fear of failure here.