LIMINAL, is a surrealist, romance-drama following Gene, as he wakes up in a dream-like world and meets Mary, an outgoing woman who guides him through this strange reality. Initially, Gene is very on edge about this world and the surrealist nature of it, feeling constant unease, but Mary’s warm demeanor eventually lowers his guard. The two begin dating and form a deep connection, spending what feels like years together, eventually falling in love, and embracing this fantastical world together.

However, one day, Gene notices that the surrealist elements of this world have become less subtle and more eerie and dangerous. Less like something out of a dream, but rather something out of a nightmare. This culminates when one day, Mary disappears without a trace. Gene is now forced to face the reality that something strange is going on in this new world, and must uncover the terrible truths behind it to save Mary and himself, before it's too late.

VISUAL AND TONAL LANGUAGE

LIMINAL, as a film, will set itself apart from recent media tied to the modern concept of liminal spaces in a variety of ways. Right of the bat, the story does not include any science fiction elements whatsoever. This film will not represent liminal spaces as an alternate dimension or digital world that can be reached through technological means, but rather tie them directly to our main character’s psyche and memories brought to life through fantastical means.

The film will also NOT be presented through VHS style found footage or any other experimental framing device, but rather be shot and framed like a classic narrative film (the found footage style is only specific to some of our early marketing as we are trying to get the film off the ground and will become more concrete as production goes fully underway). The film will be shot digitally with our Sony FX3 Cinema Camera, in RAW + LOG, and edited/color graded in DaVinci Resolve. While we are not shooting on film, we have been extensively studying classic 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s movies, and will be using various techniques in cinematography and filmmaking to try and capture the cinematic aesthetics that made many of these movies feel more haptic and real; deeper focus and wider shots to take in the scale and feel of the liminal spaces, more reliance on physical locations and practical effects, and quieter sequences to immerse into the atmosphere and/or focus on the smaller moments.

Additionally, unlike the vast majority of modern liminal media, LIMINAL is NOT a horror film. First and foremost, it is a fantasy-romance-drama with thriller elements. The use is liminal spaces will largely be used to highlight the dream-like quality of the life the two leads spend together, with certain stretches of the narrative tapping into the darker, more eerie and lonely atmosphere of liminal spaces. The balance of fantasy and darkness is heavily inspired by classic 80s movies and darker family films, tapping into a similar vibe as Coraline, Spirited Away, The Secret of Nihm, Labyrinth, and The Neverending Story. A general dark fantasy tone that I think is grossly underutilized in today’s cinema landscape and is a beautifully perfect fit for liminal spaces, something familiar that calls you back, but also undeniably eerie and strange.

LIGHTING

The film will utilize a variety of lighting for different scenes, but a consistent motif is that the lighting will be used to create a sense of nostalgia and highlight certain structures amidst the darkness of the void. Many scenes will strive to capture a dreamlike, bright and colorful quality to them, and others tapping into a darker, nightmarish look.

Lighting is one of the elements I truly believe can elevate a film to cinematic heights even on a smaller budget. Because of this, a large portion of our planned budget will go specifically to hiring a professional Gaffer with years of professional commercial and film work. He also has access to an entire gaffing truck, which will automatically increase the equipment and resources at the disposal of our production ten-fold, along with bringing in a cinematic eye for lighting to enhance the film to the next level.

COSTUMES

This film is set in the modern day, inside a dreamlike world tied to memory. As such, the film’s wardrobe is largely grounded in reality, with the outfits of the two characters ranging from casual to fancy. Most outfits the two wear together are casual to business casual, but there is one set piece where they wear wildly fantastical and extravagant outfits. This scene is a surrealist gala event, with Gene and Mary decked out in fantastical dress wear, almost like something out of a dream.

Costume design is being lead by Ella Cooper, who is well into pursuing her BFA for it at UF, along with years of costume design/production experience.

Why Me?

I am obsessed with Liminal Spaces. I'm a deeply nostalgic person who reminisces about core memories and loves the idea of returning to places that once meant something to me. As I’ve grown older, I feel that this is both a blessing and curse on many fronts. I’m happy that I look back on my childhood memories so fondly, but I also think that at times it distracts from the now. During the worst periods of my life where existentialism and depression overtook me, it became easy to retreat into my memories and nostalgia for an escape, but I eventually came to realize that this is not the healthy way to deal with these issues. At least from my experience, the only way to truly keep moving forward is to face your demons and find the best way to live with them. Even so, this is why Liminal Spaces stick out in my mind, their aesthetic returns me to a time and feeling I still look back on fondly to this day, even though my life has now moved on.

Beyond the nostalgia, I'm also an explorational and imaginative soul at heart who loves the idea of this infinite, surrealist world to explore. This is also one of the major reasons I became visual effects artists. My films often involve very out-there ideas and worlds, so over my 14 years of filmmaking since I was a child, I've had to teach myself how to expand out these worlds and make them a reality. To do this, I've taught myself blender and animation create entire worlds from strach (often inhabiting them with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures I animate), built various practical sets, puppets, and props, and of course, mastered the ins and outs of compositing effects to expand out landscapes into infinite horizons.

As LIMINAL's director and VFX supervisor, I plan to utilize all of these tricks and more, along with one aspect of VFX I've been wanting to use on one of my films for years: miniatures! Along with myself, LIMINAL has a team of three other 3D VFX artist, but the team will actually be keeping full 3D shots to an absolute minimum, instead prioritizing on-set locations and compositing effects. However, our 3D team has actually been hard at work constructing set pieces in Blender, but rather than texturing and rendering these out in the computer, our plan is to physically 3D print them out as miniatures! These will be painted and shot with a miniature tube lens, compositing our actors into them, to give a physical and undeniably tangible quality to some of the film's most surreal set-pieces.

I’ve wanted to make a film centered around the liminal space aesthetic for years, but one of the primary things that took me a long time to figure out is crafting a narrative that’s engaging and uses the aesthetic in a purposeful and inspired way. In modern media, I don’t think the true potential of Liminal Spaces has been grasped. Major online series like The Backrooms and The Amazing Digital Circus take aesthetics from Liminal Spaces and ground it within their settings of other dimensions and/or video games. While both of those series are incredible in the story department, I think both of their framing devices and setups rob the aesthetic of it’s true potential, just turning them into “places” that characters can visit and traverse through. To me, Liminal Spaces are rooted much more in a state of mind, and tied directly to how these are places we can only truly return to in memory, places that bring us back to a time and/or place that was, or no long can be, and there's something deeply fascinating, beautiful and sad about that to me.

This is something I’ve always kept in mind, and it took me many years, but I feel as though I’ve finally came up with a narrative that I think suits Liminal Spaces and their themes very well. A story of working through loss and all the messiness that comes with that, framed through the main character literally having to traverse his memories and find out how to move on himself. Fully taking advantage of this aesthetic being about the feeling and a state of mind, rather than the physical spaces themselves.

For Who?

LIMINAL is a film made first and foremost for lovers of fantasy, dreamcore, and surrealist-narratives in cinema. The use of liminal spaces is a stylistic choice intrinsically rooted to the story, themes, and presentation of the narrative. Their use is NOT meant to be a vehicle to reference well-known and/or pre-existing liminal spaces like the Backrooms and have only the audience familiar with that go: “I understand that reference!”. Rather, the goal is to create an atmosphere that captures the spirit of this imagery in a cinematic experience that can be approached and enjoyed by anyone from anywhere, regardless of pre-existing exposure to the concept of liminal spaces.

The story specifically taps into dreamlike fantasy and narratives of the mind. The film has a “down the rabbit hole” type story with a heavy, dream-like atmosphere and a good splash of darkness. As mentioned before, it’s mood and aesthetic is heavily inspired by darker family films, carrying a hint of 80s aesthetic with some of its set pieces, production design, and the use of practical effects and miniatures. Atmospherically, the narrative has a similar vibe to Spirited Away, Coraline, and Super Mario Galaxy. A small, innocent character getting whisked away into an impossibly vast, beautiful, and dangerous world where they’re constantly on their toes and having to adapt to new challenges thrown at them in order to return home.

Despite these more family-centric inspirations however, LIMINAL is geared towards an older, slightly more mature audience. Certain scenes dive headfirst into the deeper, more intimate and personal aspects of romantic relationships, and others deal with darker themes and imagery associated with death. The goal though, is that outside of younger children, the film can be watched, enjoyed, and appreciated by anyone of any age.

Many of the themes and ideas are also specifically geared to people who are either going through or who have experienced grief and loss. The film presents dark themes and ideas, but showcases a hopeful outlook designed to make the audience better understand and process these concepts. Showing that even amidst these dark and tragic realities, hope, beauty, and love can still preserve at the end of it all.

Why Now?

What made me want to tell this story now more than ever, however, is that I once again find myself in a state of liminality. These last few years in particular have been almost nothing but constant change for me. Some of it has been heavily positive, like the development of my film career and social life, while some of it has had negative effects, like the passing of various members of my family, my parent’s divorce, losing my job in early 2025 to forces beyond my control, and the loss of my family’s final home together that I once believed I’d be bringing my future children to. Meanwhile, some of it has just been purely neutral changes, like me finding my own place and learning about life through all the trials and tribulations that come with it. In this last year in particular, I feel as though I‘ve truly left the stable shores of my childhood and am now facing the ocean of life, and the truth is, I have absolutely no idea when or if I’ll ever be able to settle on another shore. This feeling is an inspiration to pour my heart and soul into my art because that’s where I feel I find my true stability. This film is a projection of that. A fictional narrative embedded with many of the struggles and feelings I’ve faced during this time in my life, crafting a story around a nostalgic aesthetic that many relate to, in the hopes that it will bring people together to understand that they’re not alone and maybe even give them hope to work through the darkness in their lives.

How You Can Help!

Now we need YOUR HELP to bring this fantastical world TO LIFE.

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With a goal of $8,500, we hope to use our funds to provide...

• Catering for cast and crew for a month-long shoot
• A Professional Gaffer
• Locations
• Production Design
• Costumes/Makeup
• Hollyland Mars M1 Enhanced 5.5" Wireless Transceiver Monitor
• Zoom F6 Multi Track Field Recorder
• Cooke SP3 Full-Frame Prime 5-Lens Set (Sony E)
• AND EVEN MORE EQUIPMENT AND RESOURCES SHOULD WE EXCEED OUR CROWDFUNDING GOALS!

(Check out our Wishlist for more info)

Thank you for your contribution! We are so excited to finally share this project with the world, and your help would make all the difference! Please reach out if you have any questions!