"There was once a forest," we hear, over images of a deserted desertscape.
I came upon this short film by way of a tortuous road. Searching for an insightful video essay I saw years ago on the center-framed cinematography of Mad Max Fury Road, I ended up browsing its creator's YouTube channel.
Vashi Nedomansky works as a film editor, colorist and work flow specialist on various projects, his credits include Deadpool and House of Cards. Among the few dozen videos on his channel, was the telling of the journey of this short film, as well as the work itself.
I saw the short film last, beginning with the Behind the Scenes retellings of how he, with a crew of 3 (himself and the 2 actors), shot the film over 2 days in the Mohave desert, capturing about 100 setups; an impressive feat.
He then augmented the footage he captured with shots of virtual environments created in Unreal Engine 5, purchased various 3D assets such as spaceships, hires-textured rock formations, foliage and more.
A character model of his main actor, in full costume, with props and outfitted with an easily animatable skeleton was then commissioned from a freelance 3D character creator, and animated using MoCap data separately sourced to serve the intended shots.
It was a monumental task aggregating all the necessary resources and creating a cohesive final product.
But as I watched the film, I was fully prepared to regard it with due dispassion. Every film, even the worst out there, is a herculean production effort, and only the final result bears meaning.
The film is notably beautiful, not only visually, as could be determined from the BTS shots, but in its writing. This second part was unexpected. A soulless sci-fi short would have been my prediction.
But from the first lines of voice over;
"There was once a forest," we hear, over images of a deserted desertscape.
"The story of this forest tells of a flower at its center, that kept it alive. Like the thread that holds the seam; all of its experiences, and all of its memories."
You can possibly intuit, though not necessarily predict, the line the story will tow for the next 10 minutes. It explores both inward, into the character, and outward, into his world, before arriving at a beautiful, cohesive unifying conclusion, driving us to both the circumference and center of its emotional tapestry.
It does not devolve into sentimentality; there simply isn't the time for that, what you've got here is beauty, simplicity and efficiency.
8/10.
