A Look Back At My First Short

It all begins with fire.

Ivan and the Firebird. The flames of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Tuatha Dé Danann. Prometheus.

First thing I should say - I still love The Myre. I won’t tell you it’s the best thing ever, but I’m still proud of what my small team and I managed to do with our limited knowledge, skillset, access to equipment, and understanding of it. We had so little and decided to offer so much. The full crew - uncredited in the publicly released version - consisted of myself, Denis Holton, Bailey Gavin, Finbarr O’Donovan, and Stephen Fogarty. Myself and Bailey worked behind the scenes while the other three took up acting.

Making The Myre was a mess. We were in our first semester of college - to say we hadn’t a clue what we were doing may just overvalue us. It’s bizarre, sometimes, to see the crew of the short where they are now - all so determined and wise. We had only met a few months prior, and in hindsight, didn’t fully understand the value each of us brought for a long time. Maybe The Myre helped us see that. I’d like to think so.

The outline for the project was a silent film, set to Brahms’ Violincello orchestra. It was public domain, and beautiful. Listening to it charged me with vigour. Have you ever heard a song and felt like you saw new colours swirl in your mind? Now, have you ever had that happen to you sober? Well, that’s what this music did for me. The highs and lows of the piece drew my mind toward our own mental stability. First Year was tough. At the end of it, I had to re-sit a few modules during the summer. I put in the work, but it was hard. I knew it was coming when I was making The Myre - that I wasn’t adapting seamlessly to the audio post-production modules we had, and that I was falling behind. The stress was tough.

I drown in mythology. I’ve always been a steady reader, but mythology and retellings of it have always been a focal point of fascination for me. Mythology and religion are the thought engine that spawned every single modern civilization. With the advent of the Internet and the connectivity it brings, a homogenization of many culture sis beginning. This is not necessarily good or evil; it is what it is. But it makes mythology only more compelling to me. Our future is history, if we forget what we as a species have learned (and such is the moral of many mythic parables, no less!), and so the formula for The Myre began to emerge.

A story about mental illness and overcoming it through our connections. Now, you could tell that story using the Internet as a plot element. I didn’t want to exclude the Internet, nor include it. I would take no stance on it - it was not the point. So I decided my characters would dress in modern clothing - suits. Nondescript and vague, but modern and classy. Moreover, we would use mythic symbolism to tell our story.

What else could we use for such a tale than a flaming sword?

The Magic Sword is a trope of so many mythologies; Japan’s Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, Skofnung, the Spirit-Sword of the Dane-King Hrólf Kraki, Gram the blade of Sigurd the Dragonslayer, Roland’s Durandal from the Matter of France, Excalibur of the ill-fated King Arthur, and Ireland’s own Fragarach - The Answerer. It is a rallying cry so loud it echoes and resounds through time immemorial. To pair it with the Creation of Fire trope seemed… so fitting for reclaiming one’s own mind from itself. Tearing off the tangles, ripping out the doubt, absolving the guilt, shaking off the ridicule - colour it anyhow you like. The flaming sword of The Myre will help you see clearly.

And so we blinded our characters until they understood the Sword. And we loved it.

So I wrote the script, and Bailey drafted storyboards. We organized the equipment - we’d need shovels, to dig graves. And then we headed to my family’s land in the bogs of Kerry on a perfectly suitable miserably grey day.

I started shooting with Denis while Finbarr and Stephen began to dig their own graves - figuratively speaking, they’re part of the plot! Bailey and Denis both helped me organize the shots - though she also had to juggle keeping the truck we rode in on out of the frame (it’s still very much in one shot, which most won’t notice, but I can never unsee - can you spot it?).

The Myre is full of issues. We scraped together everything we had for it - I was penniless after it. We had so little. And given that, I like to think it still endeavors to offer so much.

May we all be so steadfast,

Sean Spillane.