Once / Again

For our third short film, we return to the forest for a sci-fi fantasy adventure. A girl on a mysterious quest. Strange objects hidden along the way. A startling discovery awaits. Through the trees and down mountain streams, she explores an ever shifting pathway through time, haunted by what came before, and will come again.

Shot with no budget, in Western North Carolina, on a Canon T2i.

Me and my daughter had a lot of fun designing the look and feel of her costume out of random materials we found around the house. Her collar was constructed from a broken pair of headphones, an old paintball mask, a book light, and microphone. We pretty much made up the story along the way. It turned out a little more abstract than I tend to prefer, but hopefully that works with this kind of science fiction. We had a lot of ideas. Only a few actually made it into the finished film. We also got to play around with some practical effects I've been wanting to try out. All of the ink visuals were done in a homemade light box, with food coloring dropped into water. I tried several different inks, but food coloring had a much better feel.