Full Sail Stories

Digital Cinematography bachelor’s student Kenneth Gonzalez created Media Offline, a five-minute short film that turns a familiar editing error into a horror story. Created as part of an assignment to produce a narrated short, the film reflects Kenneth’s creative approach to blending horror with editing.

“I actually got my inspiration from one of Daniel Thrasher's videos,” Kenneth says. “The video is called ‘When the Editing is Really, Really Bad.’ The concept of that video is you see a mouse, like the actual arrow of the mouse, just ruining the video in a sense. I wanted to do something like that, but with a twist of horror.”

Kenneth knew the phrase “media offline” carried its own tension. For editors, it’s the dreaded message that appears when footage is missing from a timeline, a frustration that felt perfect to transform into horror film fodder.

Kenneth chose to film in a local forest called Seven Bridges, a place with a reputation for being haunted. It was a location he had used years earlier for a short he shot on his iPhone. But during this production, Kenneth was equipped with the Sony camera and shotgun mic included in his Project LaunchBox™.

“It took me the whole night. I didn't get any sleep that night. I did it all by myself,” he says. “Actually, my little brother helped me set design a bit. He let me borrow his table, so I put him in the credits.”

Building the on-screen computer sequences entirely in post, Kenneth layered and tracked each element frame by frame. “Basically, on the computer, I just had the script open and just did everything the script said, and then I actually edited the screen, what I wanted them to see, and then I tracked it on the laptop.”

His attention to detail helped him build suspense throughout the short. “I wanted to build up that suspense. It’s funny because I was actually editing the video, and I got scared by the jump scare,” he jokes.

Having recently graduated in November, Kenneth says editing is the path he wants to pursue after school. “I actually want to work as a film editor in the future,” he says. “I love visualizing the edit inside of my head, so that way, I know how I would direct later on in the future.”

He’s also drawn to the type of storytelling produced by A24 and recent horror filmmakers. “One of my biggest inspiration right now are the Philippou brothers. The films Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, so good.”

See how Kenneth turned an editing glitch into horror – watch Media Offline below. (NOTE: This video has brief adult language.)