Memento Mori: Completing My Light Painting Short Film Trilogy

Nine months. 777 long exposures. One final chapter.

With the completion of Memento Mori, my latest light painting short film, I wanted to share the bigger picture: how this project began, what changed along the way, and why I kept going.

Memento Mori (2026) completes a trilogy that began with Fiat Lux (2022) and continued with Carpe Noctem (2024). Together, these three stop-motion films follow a character through a world drawn with light, one long-exposure photograph at a time.

But the story behind them began in 2021, during a time when I wasn’t sure what the world would look like on the other side.

How the trilogy began

We were in the thick of the COVID pandemic. Staying home. Wearing masks in public. My wife had recently given birth to our son, Jasper.

I didn’t sleep much then. I still don’t, but it’s gotten much better.

I had read about Shakespeare continuing to write through an era of plague outbreaks, and it made me question what I would do with this period of anxiety, isolation, introspection, and uncertainty.

What would I come out of it with? Who would I lose? What would happen to the world I knew?

Looking back, I don’t think we’ve fully processed what those years did to us. I still feel the distance between people: the hostility, the selfishness, the way so much of our communication becomes an argument. Kindness can feel like something people take advantage of. Attention becomes currency, and the loudest voices take up the most space.

Those feelings became part of the backdrop to the trilogy. So did becoming a father, watching time pass, and wanting to make something meaningful with the hours I had.

I started with a character, a journey, a camera, and some DIY light painting tools.

Fiat Lux (2022): Bringing light painting into a story

Making a narrative short film with light painting felt ambitious enough in 2021.

Each frame meant creating a light painting during a long exposure, then doing it again with the changes needed to move the story forward. A finished photograph was also one small piece of a much larger sequence.

When I released Fiat Lux in 2022, the reception was amazing. I felt like I had reached a milestone: the images could do more than stand on their own. They could carry a story.

I collaborated with musician and sound designer Scott Doherty, working closely with him scene by scene. His music and sound design gave the film weight and helped bring its world to life.

That first film showed me what was possible. It also left me wanting to go further.

Carpe Noctem (2024): Pushing the camera and the conditions

Two years later, I released Carpe Noctem.

This time, I pushed the filmmaking further with dolly zooms, circular camera movements inspired by bullet time, multiple characters, and winter locations that sometimes meant working in waist-high snow.

Light painting already asks for patience. Adding camera movement and difficult conditions gave me plenty of opportunities to question my decisions.

My wife, who makes music as Astrobandit, took over the music and sound design. Her cover of an INXS track helped bring a love story into this strange, glowing world.

The technical challenges grew, but so did the emotional possibilities. I wanted viewers to care about these characters and where they were going.

Memento Mori (2026): Nine months and 777 long exposures

Memento Mori feels like a full-circle moment.

The final film continues the main character’s quest: finding gemstones, defeating enemies, making friends, and trying to find his way home.

I storyboarded every scene and worked with the natural world to bring those drawings to life. Tides, full moons, a lunar eclipse, and the Milky Way became part of the storytelling.

Those elements meant working on their schedules. A scene could depend on a particular moon, a tide, or a window of darkness. Making the film took nine months and 777 long-exposure photographs.

That relationship with time is what keeps drawing me to light painting animation. You can see it passing inside the images. The sky moves. Water changes. Light becomes a character, then disappears.

There’s something haunting about watching a story unfold this way.

Blink and you might miss it.

My wife, Astrobandit, created the original music and sound design for Momento Mori, with Christopher Royal King contributing guitar. From the smallest sound effects to the music carrying each scene, her work helped shape the rhythm and emotion of this final chapter.

Why spend years making light painting films?

Over the years, the responses to these films have given me a lot to think about.

For many viewers, they seem to feel like a gift: a visual treat, a moment of wonder, or an invitation to make something themselves. Some see the patience behind them. Others connect with the characters, the landscapes, or the challenges of simply existing and trying to find your way.

Then there are the other comments.

Why spend so much time on this? Why create it this way? Wouldn’t it be easier to use a prompt?

The tools available to make images have changed enormously since I began this project in 2021. So has the conversation around what an image is worth.

For me, the time spent making these films is part of their meaning. I remember being in those places. I remember the cold, the waiting, the failed attempts, and the moment a scene finally worked.

For years, I told myself I was doing this for me. That’s still true, but it isn’t the whole answer.

I’m doing it for people who value art and humanity. For those who might see something here and feel inspired to create.

I do it for the light in people: the good and worthwhile, the funny and sweet, the clever and crafty. For beauty and joy. For nature and time, expression and free will.

I do it for the creative spirit inside me.

And perhaps you.

Watch the light painting trilogy

Watch the three films in order to follow the complete journey:

1. Fiat Lux (2022)

2. Carpe Noctem (2024)

3. Memento Mori (2026)