A film shot around New Albany, Ohio in the past three months to test the new Lumix FZ300 4K camera and a wireless lavalier microphone. My son Chris (nicknamed Sirus) was visiting and (unknowingly) became the “star” of the film. I was also testing the Canon XA10 video camcorder with Chris in our studio. The music is the piece “Shiva-Loka” from Alice Coltrane.

As you can see on the film, Chris is very interested in things like astrology. I remember him talking about the “Saturn return” point in a person’s life so I thought it appropriate to call this film the Return of Sirus. The film was edited to show the change in seasons occurring at the time it was shot. I used color correction in editing the footage of Chris in Blendon Woods to bring out the bright colors of the arriving Spring. At the end of the film, the outside world of technology invades the type of “trance” of nature in the first part of the film through the harsh noise of a cell phone. The first person perspective (POV) of the camera in the woods at the end of Winter contrasts with the third person POV of Chris walking through the woods. The camera going out of the woods in the Winter is contrasted against Chris coming into the woods in the Spring.

The film footage was shot on three separate occasions and I never thought it might be part of one film. But a few days ago I all three short films together and edited them into what you see. A lesson learned here: sometimes that film you want to make has already been made; it’s just a matter of you realizing this and putting the pieces (you’ve already created) together.

Christopher “Sirus” Fraim