The Film

Artifice chronicles the demise of a relationship between an Apple iPhone and an Amazon Echo.  While an esteemed director frets about the passion in their performances, we get an absurd glimpse into the future of our relationship with technology.

Artifice was filmed in an evening and the device audio was assembled over the course of a few days.

The Festivals

Artifice premiered at the Florida Film Festival on April 7, 2018.  It screened as part of the Rooftop Films Summer Series with subsequent screenings in Austin, Toronto, and Berlin as part of a Rooftop Films/Mozilla multi city tour with a technology focused short film program.

The Team

Artifice isn't the most complex piece of filmmaking you'll see. It was kind of one man show until I realized it worked as a film and then I needed to fix a bunch of things.  There were a number of colleagues who helped out in important ways.

Special thanks to Patrick Mulvey who rescued me from handling the voice-over myself and provided some inspired improv as Stuart the director; James Christenson who showed up with his gear and expertise and saved me a lot of hours getting the shots for the film; Tom Hambleton who cleaned up some messy audio; and Towle Neu who gave it a nice visual polish.

Director/Producer/Writer/Editor: Kevin Byrnes

Director of Photography: James Christenson

Voice Over:  Patrick Mulvey

Sound Editor and re-recording mixer:  Tom Hambleton

Color and Finishing: Towle Neu