The material that makes your body has existed since time began. An apparition appears in Hugo’s house while he lies awake at night. In the morning it finds him. His body is altered, Hugo will exist forever. He is neither alive nor dead, but something else.

--
I’m very excited to announce my upcoming short film ‘Forever’ with this teaser trailer! With any luck coming to a festival near you this year. It’s a bit of a diversion from my usual style of work and it was very refreshing to break out of the computer and, for the most part, do everything in camera.

I also wanted to say a massive thank you to the hugely talented Maya Shenfeld for letting us license her music for this one. Big thanks to the teams at Mute Records and Thrill Jockey for all their help. And also Shervin Shaeri for all the production help and generally putting up with me talking about this film for months on end.

The story is told through a series of living stills and monochromatic miniature sets, carefully lit and filmed with a macro lens to immerse the audience in the tiny sculpted world. The choice to film static 3D-printed miniatures emphasizes the concept of being frozen in time, adding to the sense of long, unchanging intervals. 

The slow pacing of the edit, paired with a rich, gradually intensifying drone soundtrack, amplifies the eerie, atmospheric scenery, drawing viewers deeper into the experience and underscoring the core theme of time passing.

At night the entity appears in Hugo's living room while he lies awake upstairs. Originally this was going to be some kind of ghost or apparition but in the end I went with something more basic that represents either a black hole or more generally, time. The cloud effect sits well with the underwater filming environment and also connects to the creeping cloud that envelops and changes Hugo in the following scene. 

Each miniature set began as a digital sculpture, which was then be 3D printed in resin. 

These printed miniatures are submerged in water and filmed with a macro lens. Shooting underwater allows dust, particles, and fog to drift naturally among the sets, creating dense, controllable atmospheres. 

This technique also enables unique lighting effects and adds subtle, captivating movement to the otherwise static scenes, enhancing the story visually. With this setup, smooth, precise camera movements is possible, adding further depth to each shot.

See below for a full behind the scenes video.

I’m fascinated by how new technologies have shaped my work as an animator and filmmaker. Although I’m not particularly fond of the term, I consider myself a ‘digital native’. Technology has always fueled my creative process, and as an early adopter of VR and 3D printing, I’m excited by how these innovations are transforming design and animation. Yet, as AI continues to rapidly change these fields, I sometimes worry about its impact on the creative process. In response, I’ve found myself drawn to techniques that take my work out of the computer and place it in front of a real camera. This approach feels grounding and I hope ‘Forever’ results in being a work that is both tangible and engaging on a human level.

3D sculpting in VR, for example, has fundamentally altered the way I, and many of my peers, approach design. It has resulted in making digital work feel far more tactile and handcrafted. Pairing these digital sculptures with modern, high-resolution 3D printing to create objects you can actually hold feels like a kind of modern magic. 

Creating a film that merges these techniques feels like a natural progression for me as a filmmaker, and a stepping stone towards future storytelling projects that explore the potential of immersive technologies.