Oceandrop

Logline:
On a classified deep-ocean descent, two specialists discover a buried artifact that shouldn't exist — and one of them begins to remember something buried with it.

Synopsis:
Oceandrop is a standalone short and the second chapter of the anthology Collective Unknown, a series exploring buried memory and hidden artifacts that echo across time. While the first entry, Moonshot, reimagined the moon landing, this chapter descends into a colder, more subconscious kind of isolation, exploring the dread of recognizing something you've never seen but somehow remember.

It’s a quiet, psychological descent led by fractured versions of Neil and Buzz — not confronting the unknown, but what’s resurfacing from within. And beneath it all, the faint stirrings of something deeper...a resonance that will echo forward.

Winner: Austin After Dark Film Festival
Finalist: Glendale International Film Festival (Glendale, CA)
Semi-Finalist: Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (Academy Award–Qualifying Festival)

  • Michael H. Moore
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Short Script
  • Genres:
    Sci-Fi, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Drama
  • Number of Pages:
    24
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Austin After Dark Film Festival
    Austin, TX
    October 18, 2025
    Winner Best Screenplay Dark Fantasy
  • Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival
    Providence, RI
    August 5, 2025
    Semi-Finalist Best Short Screenplay
  • Glendale International Film Festival
    Glendale, CA
    September 25, 2025
    Finalist Best Short Screenplay
  • Your Script Produced!

    November 8, 2025
    Quarter-Finalist Best Short Screenplay
Writer Biography - Michael H. Moore

Michael Moore began writing in May 2025, having now completed 9 original short scripts in five months. His debut shorts have earned close to a 70% placement rate and 33% finalist/win rate across all submissions, with 8 festivals recognizing multiple scripts in the same competition. Notable recognitions include FilmQuest (Semi-Finalist; Quarter-Finalist), Flickers' Rhode Island (RIIFF) (2x Semi-Finalist), DIFF-Storyline (DaVinci Writers' Corner) (2x Finalist; 1 Semi-Finalist), HorrorFest International (Semi-Finalist), Glendale International Film Festival (2x Finalist), Vancouver Horror Show (Semi-Finalist; Quarter-Finalist), Filmmatic TV Pilot Awards (Semi-Finalist), and Wins at The New York Sci-Fi and Horror Festival and Zepstone International.

Collective Unknown is his anthology featuring emotionally resonant short scripts that explore buried memory, recursion, and the hidden artifacts that echo across time. It blends sci-fi with dark comedy and psychological tension, with philosophical undercurrents — at times reimagining mythologized events in uncanny new lights.

Affect Protocol is the second anthology series in development, forcing us to confront whether emotion and empathy are more beneficial or threatening in a world built on systematic and technological control. Identity, class systems, and weaponization or erasure of feeling all get examined through vastly different sci-fi landscapes.

Wrench Kings is his original long form grounded sci-fi series in development. It's set in a post-automation future ruled by labor/working class guilds rather than wealth, exploring a world rebuilt by the very people society once discarded — scavengers, machinists, growers, healers, and builders — after artificial intelligence failed the former ruling class.

As a newer voice in this space, his goal is to share work that engages both thoughtful genre audiences and industry professionals looking for fresh, emotionally intelligent storytelling.

Drawing from lived experience and thematic curiosity, Michael’s work interrogates what it means to stay human, and what or who decides. His stories are cinematic, layered, and emotionally restrained — designed to linger long after the final frame.

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Writer Statement

I write to explore the systems dictating our lives, whether shaped by nature or humanity. Our world's contradictions, values, unknowns…and quiet horrors. If a work leaves you unsettled or questioning what it means to be human, it's doing its job.

As a newer voice in this space, my goal is to share work that engages both thoughtful genre audiences and industry professionals looking for fresh, emotionally intelligent storytelling.