Sea Creatures

Hello! We're beyond excited to share the vision we have for this movie and with your support, we can make this film a reality.

To show our appreciation we've designated a list of rewards for specific donation amounts.

$5: Special thanks in the credits

$10: Shoutout on our Instagram

$20: PDF of the script

$50: Early access to the film

$75: Behind-the-scenes content

$100: Poster of the film

$250: Personal thank you video

$500: Executive Producer credit

LOGLINE:

When two kids wash up on a mysteriously empty beach, they find comfort in the memories of their mutual friend Zoe as they look for answers.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Hi, I'm Casey Baum.

Throughout college, I was creatively stuck. I was in the most emotionally volatile period of my life. I didn’t know how to handle many of my feelings, much less my creative projects. My dad offered the idea of value mining, a way to add clarity on why my life might not be aligned with my values. Some of the words that came up were compassion, open-mindedness, and fun. The eye-opening conclusion that I was invited to confront, seeing these words laid out together, was that these are all traits that come naturally to children.

There is a lot that kids can teach us about dealing with hardship. Understanding grief or pain as emotions and not attempting to rationalize them can be an important first step in the healing process. I have always been drawn to stories that center around kids, as their unfiltered way of seeing the world makes for some of the most profound observations about life.

As an artist, I want to embody these traits in my storytelling. I want to take the example of my younger self and offer stories that can portray empathy and wisdom through vulnerability and play. To escape from this creative rut, I came back to a film I attempted to make back in high school, Sea Creatures. While not a kid when I first wrote this idea, I was much closer to my adolescent self than I am now. I wanted to understand how pain is not always as painful when you have others around for support. I wanted to follow the lead of children in being open to feeling these feelings without guilt or repression. The story of two kids dealing with a form of loss, but processing these feelings together, is one that is very important to me and I have wanted to tell it since well before college. My senior thesis is my attempt to further explore the questions raised by confusion and grief and how tapping into our inner child can allow us to better understand ourselves.

Thank you again for your support!