The hazy visual beauty of Zen Pace’s experimental short Little Mirror hit me in its very first frames but its questions of one’s inner child are what has stuck with me in the weeks following that initial viewing. Pace’s short is a piece of live action, experimental, essay-style filmmaking featuring the artist Cavier Coleman as he wrestles with both his childhood and his inner child, who is physically presented in the film by actor Micah Pedley. It’s an exploration that comes through in both Coleman’s internal, meditative performance but also through DN fave Ewurakua Dawson-Amoah’s beautifully articulated introspective narration which overlays the piece. With the film now online for all to see, DN caught up with Pace to ask them about the film’s beginnings as a project, collaborating with Dawson-Amoah on the narrated poetry, and the intricate structuring of the short’s emotional through-line.
What was it that motivated you to make a reflective film looking inward to a person’s inner child?
The start of this concept came from my time using Internal Family Systems therapy, which essentially involves inner child work. The basic idea is that healing starts with accessing our core parts and working out from there. I became really interested in the storytelling aspect of this process, particularly how the narratives we tell ourselves dictate so much of our lives. This was six years ago; I had just gotten sober, was working in a pizza shop, and hated myself. But I navigated through those old beliefs, held them, and, importantly, understood that it’s okay to have those beliefs. I don’t need to judge myself for having them; instead, I just need to understand that I don’t need them anymore. I think this is something our perfectionist society is still learning. Everything around us is very black and white, but healing is never like that. It’s nuanced, small, soft, and takes time.
With this in mind, one day I went to Cav’s studio and watched him paint. I was blown away by how he shifted into this childlike state as he painted, taking multiple forms, moving, and quite literally grooving with his work. I was curious how he got to this state that felt so pure. It became clear to me that his art was his way of talking to a therapist. He was in constant conversation with those wounded parts, the little Cav, talking, arguing, holding up, all of it in the art. It’s one of those moments where you intellectually understand that art can be therapeutic, but then you actually watch it, and it’s a whole different experience. It’s active healing.
What did the planning for Little Mirror look like? Where do you start on a practical level for a film that’s so explorative and experimental in form and structure?
For pre-production, I really wanted to challenge the way we view what makes a profile piece. So, instead of relying solely on the subject’s voice for structure, I used my inspiration from watching Cav and my own understanding of inner child work to create something entirely new. Then, I wrote the script of scenes that I wanted to see. These were based on a phrase I use to describe much of my work: emotional architecture. What I wanted the audience to feel was very intentionally crafted based on the emotional scene structure I laid out.
As a visual piece, Little Mirror is incredible too. Did you have specific vision for the cinematography?
Steve McCord, an artist, shot this and brought his own artistic sensibilities to it. He’s someone who brings out the little kid in me, which is what this project called for. While we had an exact shot list for most of our scenes, there was a lot of flexibility that allowed us to jump around and create new moments with our talent. This became critical. One of my favorite shots of the film is Cav and Little Cav behind the glass door, and that came from Steve’s instinct. It’s just so important for us all to be in the same mindset of play together because that’s where other people can bring things that support and amplify your vision.
What I wanted the audience to feel was very intentionally crafted based on the emotional scene structure I laid out.
To help tie the literal with the figurative, I wanted surreal elements in the piece. That’s where we have the child being buried in dirt come in, a moment of how we repress ourselves and what that can do to our own parts. I really wanted to have mirrors in the dirt so we could have Cav watching his younger self doing this. I worked with the brilliant Catharina Schürenberg, who did the production design for this. It was actually a very challenging part because we wanted to have moving lights, with reflective light hitting in just the right way, and also reveal Cav in the back.
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How was it navigating Cav and your other actor Micah to get what you needed from them in front of the camera?
Of course, to bring this alive, you need brilliant actors, and Cav and Micah were just that. Cav understood that, while this piece features him, it’s a love letter to all our inner children. He crafted so many moments from his instinct. Truly a renaissance man. There was one moment where he was painting, and he took the painting off the wall, put it on the ground, laid on it, and had a full cathartic moment, feeling and touching the painting. It was like 30 moments of meditation. We were all silent, watching him be one with his art… it was stunning.
The short is just over five minutes but, as I said earlier, it is not a traditional narrative short. How did that experimental nature affect the process of post-production?
Post-production was a very easy process, not something I say often. But when you bring on brilliant people and everyone is on the same page, sometimes you get lucky, and you get a first cut like I got that was nearly the complete film.
For post, I created a visual map that outlined the scenes with stills and described the emotional journey I wanted us to go on. Then, it became clear how the prose, the music, and the editing style would all be in conversation with each other, which makes sense for the type of filmic meditation this piece delivers. There’s a jazz-like quality from day one in how all of the artists involved complement each other by playing off of one another. A big shout-out to Sophia Lou, who understood this and, being the masterful craftsperson she is, constructed these worlds so they could have that conversation. There are times when the music is more prominent, and then the prose.
By avoiding the conversation with our younger selves, we avoid becoming whole.
I wanted to ask about Ewurakua’s narration. Could you take us through the process of crafting that aspect of the film and what you wanted to express?
Throughout the piece, I wanted us to hear this conversation between Cav and his younger self and for it to have a questioning nature. A big influence for me at the time was the documentary The Eyes of Orson Welles, which did something in that vein. I was lucky enough to work with Ewurakua Dawson-Amoah, who was someone I was already a fan of. She delivered a first draft that really didn’t need anything because she understood this concept to its core. Because of her delivery and prose, the edit also came together quite quickly. Ewurakua had a tonality that shifted and helped to create a wave-like edit style that complimented the music beautifully. I’m really grateful for the brilliant artistry and soul she brings to her work and how she brought it to this piece.
With this lyrical prose, we get to see Cav’s journey and how he is tempted to bury the unresolved aspects of himself, but ultimately, through it, he finds redemption and self-acceptance. In this way, Little Mirror serves as a coming-of-age story. Young Cav represents both the innocence we hold and the fragmented pieces of an artist’s psyche, all those stories and critiques we tell ourselves. By avoiding the conversation with our younger selves, we avoid becoming whole.
Could you unpack the term ‘emotional architecture’ for us? It’s a fascinating term, what does it mean to you?
It’s this idea of a structured design and the flow of emotional experiences with a story. It encompasses the deliberate arraignment of emotional beats, crescendos, and resolutions to act as a guide for the audience. But the root of why I call it this is, funny enough, for the love of the ocean I have. The ebb and flow of waves, the high points of excitement or tension, then with moments of calm. There is this delicious rhythmic nature inherent in water yet it is all following a set of rules designed by physics. Stories, when done right, should feel effortless, so by the time we are done watching we release a breath. We were just taken for a ride, and that’s all I wanna do, provide a ride… an access point… for others to feel a story.
I think when music is done right, it complements the characters’ inner psychology while also having an identity of the world itself.
The last question I have about the practical elements of the film is the sound underneath the narration. It’s atmospheric, even haunting at times.
The soundscape I wanted was the feeling of us being washed anew. I brought on the genius Adam Weiss from Found Objects. With his and Katt Matts’ help, we were able to craft something I’m always searching for, which is… ethereal sounds. I said the term “ethereal jazz”, and Adam knew exactly what to do. I love distant horns, almost muffled because there is a melancholic quality to that soundscape, like a little kid trying to stand up and say, “I’m here too”. And we get that sense in the score. I think when music is done right, it complements the characters’ inner psychology while also having an identity of the world itself. I’m really happy with how it washes over us. My hope is that by the end of the film, you just have a moment of stillness where maybe you access some of your own parts that you’ve let be dormant.
How’s the future of your filmmaking looking right now?
I’m working on a short and in development of my feature. I’m also opening a small boutique production-agency hybrid called no face studio. But beyond all that, I’m really interested in how filmmaking itself is changing and how the industry is going to react to AI. I’ve already heard of clients full on leaving agencies because they want to do in-house AI work. So it’s quite a spicy time and yet, I’m not too worried. I believe in humanity’s innate need to feel something real, it’s why we go to the theatre or movies… because when they are good, they can speak to pockets of our humanity that perhaps are subconscious. AI by its very nature can’t so I look forward to more human filmmaking.
