“Lullabye”

_{An auditory odyssey that takes place over the course of a single dark and stormy night.}

_STILLS

My primary objective for this project was to creative an immersive soundscape that succeeded in putting the audience in the protagonist’s shoes; I wanted to blur the line between fantasy and reality, thereby making it difficult to determine whether the sounds you hear are real. The end result is a psychological thriller that is definitely open to interpretation. I shot and edited this entire project within the confines of my home during the COVID-19 pandemic; armed with nothing but a rinky-dink camera and an amateur actor (my little brother in real life!), it has been one of the most fun short films I’ve ever made.

^{The Twilight Zone}

The Twilight Zone episode that our protagonist happens to be watching is called “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” It tells the tale of a terrified airline traveler who is convinced that he sees a monster on the wing of the plane, but is unable to convince his fellow passengers that what he is seeing is real. This was an intentional choice on my part, as my character could have been watching any random episode from the series. I wanted to include this little easter egg to communicate how he feels that his imagination is playing tricks on him. It also begs the question: would it be better if the sounds were all in his head, or if they were, in fact, real? According to Rod Serling, the Twilight Zone is “a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.” Therefore, I thought that this was a nice touch.

^{Created as part of the Lateral Thinking for Filmmaking Production Course at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Written, directed, photographed, and edited by Arianna Garcia.}