Crumb Canvas is going to a film festival!

Hi everyone,

I have news that’s both exciting and slightly anxiety-inducing.

Shelf Life has been officially selected for the AI Film Festival in Phoenix, Arizona (October 30 - November 1).

If you’re not familiar with Shelf Life yet: it’s a dark absurdist comedy set in Crumb Canvas, the animated storybook world I created. When bread across the town of Custard Cove suddenly develops emotional awareness, an investigation unfolds to solve a crisis that challenges everything the town knows about food and consciousness.

Yes, it’s about bread with feelings. Yes, I’m serious. And yes, a festival programmer thought enough of it to include it in their lineup.

A Second Film (Different Brand)

I should also mention I have a second film selected for this festival: DESCENT, a haunting 50-second experimental short exploring themes of isolation, survival, and the human condition in an alien landscape.

DESCENT is from my WellerVision work, which has a much darker tone than Crumb Canvas. If you’re interested in seeing it and my other WellerVision films, you can view my YouTube channel here.

But this newsletter is about Crumb Canvas, so back to Shelf Life...

Why This Feels Big

This will be the first time Shelf Life screens on a theater screen with an in-person audience. Actual strangers who chose to watch AI films on Halloween weekend in Phoenix.

I’m excited and nervous in equal measure.

The film and Crumb Canvas emerged pretty organically. I wanted to create something lighthearted and whimsical, a space for playful storytelling. I have thousands of images in my archive, and one image of a single piece of crying bread sparked the question: what if bread had feelings?

That became the seed for an entire narrative.

The Aesthetic Choice

I made a deliberate choice with Shelf Life that runs counter to current AI filmmaking trends. Many AI-generated shorts pursue photorealistic polish and technical perfection.

Shelf Life embraces visual absurdity, storybook illustration aesthetics, and deliberately non-glossy visuals. I knew this approach would alienate viewers seeking technical spectacle, which made the storytelling non-negotiable.

The narrative had to be strong enough to carry an audience through intentionally rough edges and stylistic shifts.

I bet on story over shine. We’ll see if that pays off in Phoenix.

What’s Next

I’ll be attending the festival in person (first festival attendance - wish me luck), and I’ll be documenting the experience for a detailed post-festival debrief.

Things will be quiet here through the rest of October while I prep for the festival, but I’ll have a full report when I get back in early November.

In the meantime: if you know anyone who’d appreciate playful surrealism and bread with existential crises, feel free to forward this newsletter!

Thanks for being part of this journey.

Best,
C.E.

P.S. I’m genuinely nervous about watching Shelf Life with an in-person audience. The film is intentionally weird and rough around the edges. It might bomb spectacularly or connect in ways I can’t predict. Either way, I’ll tell you all about it afterward.

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