My third year of University was not a fun one. With covid lockdown policies active, I was stuck in a Cambridge dorm for most of the year, I had not much else to do but hammer out my graduation film, with little feedback, little support and little to distract me. Eventually, after a few months of static days, too long nights and help brought to me by things communicated in dreams (I may have not slept as much as I should have), ‘Wee Shadows’ was done. 

 

‘Wee Shadows’ is the tale of two Edinburgh grave robbers set to an original song composed and performed by my cousin. It was inspired by the 19th century grave robbing epidemic, where people would take fresh corpses and sell them to crooked doctors. The short was heavily researched and directly mapped off of Greyfriars Kirkyard. If you look closely and know Edinburgh well enough you can trace the route the grave robbers take, and see that its 100% accurate to the real locations.

 

I didn’t expect much of my short when I completed it. I was exhausted with everything going on in my own little world. Out of nowhere my landlord gave everyone in the building two months worth of rent back for free. A sort of cushion to soften the impact of lockdown policies on our lives. With a good bit of money now suddenly in my lap, I submitted ‘Wee Shadows’ to every film festival I could at random. Firing submissions off like a shotgun. I got into a couple dozen but none more prestigious and surprising to me than FRIGHTFEST, the largest horror film festival in the UK. Seeing my graduation film on a cinema screen in August 2021 was what I needed to know that this animation thing might work out after all.

 

Its got its lumps and bumps and visual mishaps, but ‘Wee Shadows’ is still incredibly dear to me and I wouldn’t change a single frame.