My First Short Film

Upside Down

– a fictional story about a guy who finds himself torn between the present time and past memories of a deceased lover. Will her memories keep him from the point of no return? She can only hope so.

I give to you my first short film.

A fictional script of heartfelt words spoken with a thin slice of molasses and southern draw.

A film that is far from perfect.

With flawed direction, production, editing, and writing – I give to you the rawest concoction of emotions, leaving you breathlessly sad while discovering what mysteries lie in wait in the one place that leaves most of us vulnerable – the gray.

I give you a glimpse into the life of a man that has nowhere and everywhere to turn, fighting with his inner and outer self as he tries his best to merely exist in a world that has forgotten him.

Regardless of race, gender, political status, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status, this story’s personal meaning and hidden symbolism should resonate to the edge and back with you, one word at a time.

This story revolves around the one thing that connects all of us as human beings – that thing being loss.

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I publish this movie under my newfound creation titled 3 Castl3s Film, for reasons known to me and unknown to you. I’m not quite sure where this may take me, but I trust the wind that fills and pushes the tattered sails of my decades old ship.

I have braved the high seas of blogging and podcasting, not to mention having very little knowledge when it comes to these certain platforms. It should be no surprise to anyone that I continue to venture in the same fashion as I started, hoping to help and inspire as many people as I can along the way.

Fifteen years ago when I started my artistic journey, if you would have told me that I would have completed a short film in a little over two month time span in the great year of 2021 and had started what is my now my fifteenth fictional novel (part of a miniseries), I would have scoffed. Fourteen unpublished fictional novels, one screenplay, two years of blogging, one year of podcasting, and many years of observing the human condition later, here I am, still going where the wind carries me, unashamed of the destinations that lay before and behind me.

I render and end my year on this note, a way that makes me feel complete, helplessly hopeful, full of imagination and wonder in a world that looks to rob us of those things.

No matter how lonely and doubtful the world and its minions try to make you feel – stop, breathe, close your eyes, quick complicating things, reground yourself, and believe the ‘I’m’ in ‘impossible’.

You are possible because I am possible.

I am possible because you are possible.

We are in this together, whether we want to accept that or not, and I appreciate my family (God, for them I continue, unashamed, so full of love for them and their place in my life because they know what dream currently emanates, here, in the rustic).

I appreciate my friends (for them I push in my relentless pursuit of that which one would say is out of reach and keep them beside me, in my passenger seat, as we guide ourselves to the unknown and push one another toward manifestation).

I appreciate all my fellow visiting adventurers that have been here with me during this stage of my life. You make this journey worth it.

And (I know, you’re not supposed to start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction – but I must) I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to all the new adventures that await us in the year to come, whether that be through words – spoken, written, or visual – or experience.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

“If you can dream when your eyes are open, my friends, imagine what you can do when they are closed!”

Vernon Herring

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