About this Film

Probably the fastest turnaround I've ever had on a short, Lunar Dark, from idea to release, was actually only about a month of time!

The idea was born when a colleague shared a link to a film competition put out by a music company sharing the same name, Lunar Dark Sounds. To promote their company, they put out a short film competition; specifically, to make a 60-second short film using their song Indio. Their music was very synthwave-inspired, so of course, as soon as I heard it, my mind began flooding with ideas of a spacey sci-fi direction.

This was also summer 2024, only a few months after I'd been lucky enough to witness the great American solar eclipse and get 4K footage of the literal lunar dark, so between the music and some inspirational imagery, I already had several key building blocks for what I wanted the short to be. From there, it felt lke a perfect opportunity to sink my teeth into some art department things I'd been really wanting to give a try. The result of that was miniature models at several scales, as well as building myself a space suit! One of the best parts of being a filmmaker is getting to play like a child but making a career out of it. The suit takes inspiration from many real-world pressure suits, including those worn by pilots of the SR-71, the Mercury program, the Gemini program, and the more modern space shuttle ACES suit. The ship similarly takes heavy inspiration from the Apollo command module.

The film was shot in about a day and a half; the first day being a few hours in an open wheat field, and the second day being all the composite work shot on a green screen. We utilize models and elements at full-scale, 1/6 scale, and 1/24 scale!

The contest cut, which took first prize, was 60 seconds long, whereas this "director's cut" adds a bit at each end for some dramatic effect. At some point, I would love to extend the cut to 5+ minutes to make something possibly sellable to a distributor like DUST, but for now, we're looking forward to a brief festival run in 2026!