The World We Knew Is Gone - Short Film.
I was engaged to my business partner, best friend, and girlfriend of 5 years. We were planning to elope at Devil’s Bridge in Sedona, Arizona on November 5th, 2018. Several months before that, we broke up, and I had to rethink what I wanted my future to look like, how I would deal with the loss, and what kind of person I wanted to be going forward. The day that she moved to Colorado was the day that I left to start a photo series taking self portraits in desert landscapes wearing a spacesuit. The series is called The World We Knew Is Gone.
On the exact day we were supposed to be married, I went to the exact place we were supposed to be married. I knew that day would suck no matter what, so I decided to make it all the way suck, and to channel all those feelings into something productive. I spent the entire day there writing in two journals; one journal full of what I wanted in my life and in a partner, and another journal where I wrote the “script” for this short film. The words in this film are exactly the words I wrote that day, and the realization I came to.
A film by Wesley Kirk.
Starring Penny Halcyon.
Edited by Edward Chalupa.
Penny’s costume fitting.
This short film was unlike anything I had attempted before. Firstly, it wasn’t a style I had ever written before, considering that when I wrote the “script”, I wasn’t thinking about the plot or visuals, I was just writing a sort of poem for what I had been through, what I was going through, and how I wanted to continue. It was a hope as much as it was a diary. This non-linear, non-obvious format made for some challenges throughout the making of the film.
First off, I wasn’t sure how I would even film it, since I was doing the photography aspect of the series on weeks long solo trips. The way I wanted it to look meant I would need to bring someone along with me, so there could be someone to operate the camera and someone in the suit. But as you can imagine, it’s not very easy to find someone willing to run away to the desert with you for weeks on end, for no pay, and a lot of hard work. I spoke with a friend, Mike Lopez, about accompanying me, since he also had to head to the desert for a photo project he was working on for a show, but unfortunately his show was due before the weather would warm up in the desert enough for us to be out in the elements for such long periods of time.
Luckily, my best friend and now editor, Penny Halcyon, agreed to the task. But since she was much more experienced in front of the lens, and not as comfortable operating a camera, especially considering how quickly we’d have to work to get all the footage we needed during just the right light, we thought it’d be best if for the short film she played the astronaut while I filmed.
We spent a couple days getting the suit refitted for her. We’re roughly the same height, but she’s much slimmer than me, and even though the suit could accommodate, it takes a lot of time restringing it.
On March 23rd, 2019 we left for a whirlwind week long trip to some of my favorite spots for the shoot. Our first stop was my favorite location, Bisti Badlands in northwest New Mexico. The first thing we did when we got there was hike around the area as much as we could without equipment. We went much further than I went on my first trip, just to be sure we weren’t missing any gems that we might want to film. The big mistake we made though was that Penny was breaking in the boots that she had brought for the trip, some vintage Justin boots she had borrowed from her sister since she doesn’t normally wear boots. Unfortunately by the time we returned to the car to grab the equipment, Penny had formed a massive blister on her feet that would plague us throughout the entire trip.
Penny exploring Bisti Badlands before filming.
Penny was a real trooper and wanted to persevere, which was a lot to ask, because I wanted to try to shoot the film in chronological order as best we could, which meant starting with the most complicated sequence of the entire film, the crash landing scene.
I bought a matching parachute off eBay, and had never actually used it before, or even understood how exactly it would work. Once we had reached the spot we wanted to film in, we spent almost an hour just untangling the parachute from the box and laying it all out so that we could fill it up and make it look as though she just landed.
My primary concern with the parachute was that we wouldn’t be able to get it to fill up, especially considering there was basically zero wind when we got started, but was I sure wrong! Poor Penny had to spend every last bit of energy she had left trying to keep from flying off. Part of the problem was when the parachute would inflate, it would try to launch Penny, and once I’d adjust the parachute so that it wasn’t jerking her around, it would deflate so fast that I couldn’t get to my camera and get the shot in time.
Just so happened though that of all the time I’ve spent in Bisti Badlands and never seen a single other soul, at that exact moment, when we needed an extra hand the most, a guy was walking by, saw our struggle, and asked if we needed a hand. His name was Brandon Lewis, and he absolutely saved the day. He & I would hold the parachute up on both sides while it inflated, then I’d rush over to my camera, he would keep it at that perfect spot between launching Penny and deflating completely, then as the camera would roll, he’d jump out of the shot. After several absolutely exhausting takes from various angles for film and photo we got the perfect shot with the perfect light. Even though it was an utter pain for everyone, especially Penny, we successfully filmed the opening sequence of the film.
A photo from a passerby of us in the middle of filming.
(Fun Fact: in the final photo series, all the photos are of me, except for the first photo, which is of Penny in the parachute, since it would’ve been impossible for me to get the same photo by myself.)
We spent the next morning and most of the afternoon capturing as much footage as we could think of throughout Bisti Badlands, while taking breaks for Penny to rest her blistery feet, and for me to get some drone footage. Part of the trick of filming a project like this was since there wasn’t a concrete story, we didn’t have storyboards or a shot list. We talked at length about the project while on our long drives from location to location, and long hikes carrying the equipment, and had come up with key sequences for the story to revolve around, and the majority of the footage would be various shots of searching, exploring, curiosity, exhaustion, and despair. We would try to get as much variety in the footage as we could imagine, but I could already tell that it was going to be quite a feat of editing to piece together.
I’m glad that Penny was the one to help me make this idea come to life, because not only did she know me better than possibly anyone, but she is a great and thoughtful collaborator, who brought a lot of considered care to the project that it might not otherwise have received, and came up with a good portion of what to film.
Penny Halcyon in the spacesuit at Blue Forest in Petrified Forest National Park near Winslow, Arizona.
Another behind the scenes photo from a passerby at Petrified Forest.
The next stop on our trip was Petrified Forest National Park.
We explored the same place I did before, Blue Forest, near Blue Mesa Trail. We climbed cliffs, hopped hoodoos, and moved our way up the to the top of the mountain, shooting everything we could think of along the way. We took advantage of every bit of sunlight we could manage, but Petrified Forest closes at sunset, and park rangers come kick you out before sunset. That night we stayed at the famous Wigwam Motel in Winslow, Arizona, alongside the historic Route 66.
The next morning I let Penny rest as much as she could, so her blistered feet could heal. We even made a stop by Walmart to get her some flip flops so she didn’t have to put her shoes on until we were filming. We made our way north, aiming to get to Shiprock before sunset.
We were pretty disappointed when we arrived at Shiprock though, because even though we got there at the perfect time, it was entirely cloudy, so we weren’t likely to get any amazing sunset shots. Just grey and dull. Which was a mighty shame, since the setting sunlight looks so gorgeous on the rockface.
We figured, ‘Oh well, let’s get what we can.’ I started by pulling out my drone. On previous trips I had borrowed a friend’s DJI Mavic, but this time I had my own DJI Mavic 2 Pro, which I was excited to finally use on a real shoot. Once again, the closest we could get to Shiprock was still about a mile away, but it still looked imposing in the distance. I started with a low and dramatic shot of the drone soaring towards the rock formation as fast as it could go. Since Shiprock was so far in the distance, it didn’t really look like the drone was really going that fast, so I figured maybe if I sent it along the jagged hill to my left, that would give the foreground more of a sense of movement. So at full speed, I pulled a hard left, and didn’t notice the slight incline on the plain we were on. Before I even realized how quickly the ground was approaching, it was too late. The drone had crashed, and worse, it landed face down, so I couldn’t even see what it was seeing. To make things even worse, the area where it crashed, everything looked exactly the same, and the desert brush was just tall enough to hide a drone. To make matters even worse, I had never crashed a drone before and had no idea how to find it if you didn’t have eyes on it when it landed.
My first (and only) drone crash.
In a full on panic, without explaining anything to Penny, I just sprinted at full speed in the direction I thought it had crashed in. Since I was going about 35 mph prior to the crash, the drone had made it at least a half mile away from me. After 10 minutes of running and frantic searching, I thought ‘surely there must be an easier way to find a crashed drone, and pulled up the app again. The GPS dot didn’t update, so I didn’t know where I was compared to the drone, then I double clicked on the map, which sent it to full screen, finally updating the GPS on the map, and showed me that I was less than 20 feet from where it had crashed upside down in a small bush. Completely out of breath I walked back to the Penny & the car, while dusting off the drone and checking for scratches. It looked to still be in good condition.
Our incredibly lucky drone shot at Shiprock.
We decided to keep going. Penny put on the spacesuit, and we started filming what we could under the cold gray cloudy skies. When we started to climb up the jagged cliff to the west, I was busy framing a closeup of Penny’s face, when I saw her eyes suddenly get really wide. She pointed behind me, and when I turned around I saw that the clouds had cleared, but only a sliver to our west, creating a remarkably gorgeous ring of vibrant orange light all around us. We instantly went into full gear. We ran back out to the field to recreate shots we had just gotten, but now with the perfect light we were after. I ran fully sprint to the car to grab the drone for more footage. I was hopping from one camera to the next, trying to capture the moment every way I could while the light would last. Couldn’t believe how lucky we had suddenly become with the lighting at the last possible minute.
Penny Halcyon after a grueling day of filming at Great Sand Dunes.
The next stop on our trip was Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, the only stop in Colorado for the entire project. The park was pretty crowded, so the only place we could safely film far away from others was on the furthest edge of the park we could drive to. We gathered our gear and started the last most excruciating hike for Penny. After we’d crossed the grassy trails and the soggy marsh at the foot of the dunes, it was going to be nothing but pain for Penny as she climbed up the dunes and her blistered toes & heels dug into her boots. So every bit of struggle you see Penny portraying in the short film isn’t so much credited to her acting skills as it is her genuine pain and exhaustion.
To make matters more difficult, we had to go deeper into the dunes to find a place free of anyone else’s footprints, and again after every take so that we could show a fresh and unexplored landscape. Didn’t make things easier when a group of teenagers wouldn’t leave us alone and walk right through our scene, meaning we’d have to go further out, higher up, and try again. Eventually we asked them to leave, and finally managed to get the perfect shots.
The last key sequence to film was a scene involving Penny breaking down, feeling utterly defeated. For the last shot, I rested the camera in the sand, as a gust of wind picked up, creating a surreal haze turning the entire ground into a single blur. Luckily my camera was safe (since sand can so easily destroy camera equipment). We dusted ourselves off, and trekked back to the car. That was the end of the first trip for the short film.
I was so thankful for all Penny had put up with throughout the trip, I bought her her favorite ice cream cone at every Dairy Queen we passed, and told her I owed her big time for whatever she asked.
Penny has a habit of taking her favorite rocks from each location we film.
On May 17th 2019 we left for the final trip for the short film. We needed to film the ending sequence somewhere with more vegetation, and a water feature near a dramatic landscape to have the sense of finality and peace that we were looking for to conclude the film. The place we chose was Big Bend National Park, specifically the Rio Grande river near Santa Elena Canyon. After an all day drive across Texas, we arrived at the canyon at sunset to scout our location for the morning, and check on my sun tracker app where exactly the sun would appear and how we’d frame the shot.
We camped nearby, got a bit of rest, and woke up while it was still dark so we could be all set up in time for our sunrise shot. The sun & clouds worked in our favor and we were able to get the perfect closing shot to the film on our first attempt. We celebrated with a little hike into the canyon itself.
We spent the rest of the day driving around Big Bend and hiking various spots trying to keep an eye out for locations that would work well for sunset and sunrise the next day. We even hiked down The Window trail so Penny could see it for herself. When we reached the waterfall at the end of the trail, the wind coming up the mountain was so relentlessly strong, it was blowing every last drop of water directly back up, creating a shower. An odd sight.
That evening and the next morning, we filmed the last few scenes in the places we had scouted earlier. And that was it. We spent all day driving back across Texas, and I immediately had to prepare for flying out to Las Vegas for the next trip for photos.
The last shot before Penny wrapped filming the short film portion of The World We Knew Is Gone.
Penny snapped this photo of me just after we finished filming the last shot.
Now that I had all the new footage, I knew I had a whole new problem on my hands. I have a very linear mind. Things need a beginning, middle, and an end. But this whole project wasn’t exactly linear. It had something resembling a poem for the audio story, and a parallel story with lots of great visuals, but no obvious way to connect them all together.
Tried as I might, I couldn’t piece it all together. I could assemble sequences I liked separate from the audio. I could find pieces of sound effects and ambiance that I enjoyed with the audio. But I couldn’t stitch them all together in a way that was satisfying to the feeling I was after. So I knew what I had to do. Exactly the same thing I did the last time I had this problem. Reach out to the most experimental and non-linear editor / thinker I know, Edward Chalupa. He was just the person to save the day, and fortunately for me, he was willing to take on the project. I was especially grateful because I had spent so long attempting to edit it myself, that the deadline for my solo show at Fort Worth Community Arts Center was fast approaching.
Roughly a month later of him tinkering with the footage and audio I had provided, he completed a beautiful cut of the film full of so many details and edits that I never would have thought of. When I was finally alone with the film, I couldn’t help but cry when watching it. After some difficulty getting it transferred to my computer (since he edited the film in DaVinci and I edit in Adobe Premiere), I was able to start tweaking some minor things and color grade the footage myself. I just barely managed to finish the film in time for the show, adding open captions the morning of the opening reception.
While I absolutely love the edit that Edward created, I often think about so much of the gorgeous footage Penny & I filmed that didn’t make it into the film, and how it keeps such a steady pace, without lingering on the searching and feeling of hopelessness that I was wanting to build in the middle of the film, to help add meaning to the epiphany and conclusion of the film. So one day I hope to edit a director’s cut of the film to elaborate on the feeling I was hoping to portray the day that I wrote the film on Devil’s Bridge in Sedona.
