Experiencing Interruptions?

The Jettison

A scientist searches for his lost daughter in a wasteland at the end of the world, but finds that she isn’t what she seems.

This is a horror film about AI, made using AI. It is also a homage to Chris Marker’s La Jetée. Here a different kind of post-apocalyptic future is explored: a haunting vision of a world in which machines now control everything, including our memories and our dreams.

When a giant solar flare destroys all the machines, this dreamworld is completely shattered. Roth tries to piece things back together and deal with his grief.

  • Michael C Coldwell
    Director
    Views from Sunk Island, Punctum Temporis
  • Michael C Coldwell
    Writer
    Views from Sunk Island
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Other
  • Genres:
    Sci-Fi, AI, arthouse, horror, photography
  • Runtime:
    34 minutes 55 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 14, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Michael C Coldwell

Michael C Coldwell is a photographer, filmmaker and academic from Leeds, UK. His eclectic work explores themes of memory, illusion, haunting and technology, in a variety of different media. His recent essay film, Views from Sunk Island, was selected for several festivals in 2022, including Leeds International Film Festival, winning best experimental short at Pennine Film Festival, in 2023. Coldwell has had several solo exhibitions over the last decade, holds a PhD in photography, and is a critically acclaimed musician.

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Director Statement

Recent meteoric progress in generative AI presents filmmaking (and humankind, in general) with a new and disturbing challenge. It poses fantastic promise and terrifying threat, in equal measure. This project saw me exploring this theme in both method and message. The film was created using AI tools, and it explores the impact these technologies might have on our minds and lives, in the speculative story that it tells.

The Jettison began has an attempted remake of Chris Marker's La Jetée, using Midjourney to recreate the photographs. It quickly evolved into something else entirely. As I began to use AI tools, I started to let them lead me away from my original ideas and into something much stranger. This new way of writing involved my own emotional responses to the images being generated, attempting to “collaborate” with artificial intelligence, and heading further down the rabbit hole than I ever thought possible... The exploratory method of production then became part of the story I tried to tell.

Chris Marker's La Jetée wasn't the only influence to surface during this weird creative process. Tarkovsky's Stalker and Solaris, Blade Runner, Pi, Total Recall, Eraserhead, and even The Matrix, all became part of this distorted memory mix. Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys was a big influence on me as a kid. While 12 Monkeys borrowed La Jetée's narrative and took it in a new direction, I was more interested in the original feel and aesthetic. The story is no longer Chris Marker’s, but The Jettison is profoundly haunted by the feeling his film left me with. The biggest surprises were how AI allowed me to channel something as elusive as an eerie and indescribable atmosphere, from vague memories, and its uncanny ability to represent our worst fears about itself.