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aaranwss

Aaran Mckenzie

Bassist of While She Sleeps 🎸
Director/ DoP/ Screenwriter @aaranmckenziefilms 🎥

2K
posts
2.2K
followers
25.5K
following

Small film, big heart. Grateful to @soifilmfestival for the Rising Spirit Award, and to @curiosityjunction_for standing with me on this one!


722
55
7 months ago


We closed out 2025 by putting everything on the line for LIVID.

This proof of concept was born out of obsession and a lot of very tired people giving more than they had left at the end of a stacked year. A brutal, emotionally demanding shoot that only worked because of the team behind it.

Our cast carried this film on their backs with raw and fearless performances that never flinched. Watching these characters come alive in such an intense, contained space was genuinely humbling.

Behind the camera, this was a crew firing on all cylinders. Focused, calm under pressure, creatively locked in and not an ego in sight.

This project means so much to us. It is personal and very uncomfortable. Livid is about guilt, consequence, and the things we try to bury out of desperation. Trust us when we say this short film does NOT play it safe.

Behind the scenes photos coming soon!


150
1
4 months ago

We closed out 2025 by putting everything on the line for LIVID.

This proof of concept was born out of obsession and a lot of very tired people giving more than they had left at the end of a stacked year. A brutal, emotionally demanding shoot that only worked because of the team behind it.

Our cast carried this film on their backs with raw and fearless performances that never flinched. Watching these characters come alive in such an intense, contained space was genuinely humbling.

Behind the camera, this was a crew firing on all cylinders. Focused, calm under pressure, creatively locked in and not an ego in sight.

This project means so much to us. It is personal and very uncomfortable. Livid is about guilt, consequence, and the things we try to bury out of desperation. Trust us when we say this short film does NOT play it safe.

Behind the scenes photos coming soon!


150
1
4 months ago

This is decade of film.

This year marks 10 years of film making and quite honestly it’s strange watching ten years go by in a few minutes of footage.

Every project came with its own chaos, and its own little moment where something clicked.

When I watch it all now, I don’t just see the final product. I see the people who made it happen. The collaboration with the actors. The crew making the days possible - this film holds a decade of that.

This film more than anything is evidence to myself of what 10 years can look like and the potential in what the next 10 can hold.

A decade in and I’m only getting started.


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4 months ago

The amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.

The Switch Off | Skegvegas Edition

Graded using @filmy.color power grades 🎨 🤌🏻


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1 weeks ago

Aaran, mid final briefing before getting into it.

This first block of Afterglow was built around giving the actors as much freedom as possible.

The film opens with an in-world advert for the Aeternum Capsule, made up of clinical trial interviews and participant testimonies. The Aeternum Capsule allows people to reconnect with the recently deceased for five minutes inside the Afterglow.

Rather than scripting, the actors were asked to build their own characters. Who they’d lost, what that person meant to them, why they agreed to take the capsule, what they were scared of, and what they came back with afterwards.

Aaran interviewed them in character. The direction happened inside the scene, through the guise of the Aeternum interviewer. Pushing when necessary and holding back when the silence was doing the work. Letting the actors find it in real time and following the emotional thread.

That’s what made this block feel so exciting. It wasn’t about manufacturing emotion. It was about creating the conditions for something instinctive to happen, then getting out of the way when it did.

📸 @niamhblissfilm


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1 weeks ago

Follow @afterglowmovie for all official updates going forward! 🎥

Tomorrow, Afterglow the feature film has its first shooting day.

It’s been a long road of shorts, scripts, proof of concepts, false starts and a lot of figuring it out as I go. But it all feels like it’s been building to this.

We’re still a tiny production right now, but we’re not waiting around for perfect conditions anymore.

We’re starting.


378
32
2 weeks ago

For the first time I’ve shot a scene from the feature film I’m willing into production this year.

This was just a mock version of the scene for something we plan to shoot properly in a month or so just to get a vibe going. Me, one PA, one actor, minimal setup, in and out in under an hour. But watching it back, it’s something I’d genuinely use in the film without thinking twice.

I LOVE a full crew. I’ve worked with amazing people who elevate everything and make the process better in ways you can’t replace. That’s always the goal.

But there’s also something really important about just getting something on its feet for the sheer needing to see it exist, seeing if it works and pushing it forward. This felt like that. And this is how I’m attacking my first feature film. A hybrid between the two approaches I’ve been between my entire career. Getting out and shooting what we can with a lean team and fleshing the crew out for the bigger blocks and set ups we have where their expertise is crucial.

We’re always being told now days that with everything that we have at our disposal there’s “no excuse to not make your thing”. So, that’s what I’m doing. No permission. Because momentum is trusting that action now is better than waiting for perfect later. There can always be a more polished, better executed version of your film. But what if the “pitfalls” are the virtues that give your film the voice it wouldn’t have had otherwise? 🤔

After Glow the feature film in production 2026 no matter what 🎬 Keep an eye out for more news 👀

All production (for this mock shoot) - 🙋🏻‍♂️
PA/ BTS stills - @rossdrawndagger
Talent - @georgiaconlanxx

Developing with - @curiosityjunction_ @stateofstevesitkowski @konjrstudios @georgiaconlanxx


266
12
1 months ago


For the first time I’ve shot a scene from the feature film I’m willing into production this year.

This was just a mock version of the scene for something we plan to shoot properly in a month or so just to get a vibe going. Me, one PA, one actor, minimal setup, in and out in under an hour. But watching it back, it’s something I’d genuinely use in the film without thinking twice.

I LOVE a full crew. I’ve worked with amazing people who elevate everything and make the process better in ways you can’t replace. That’s always the goal.

But there’s also something really important about just getting something on its feet for the sheer needing to see it exist, seeing if it works and pushing it forward. This felt like that. And this is how I’m attacking my first feature film. A hybrid between the two approaches I’ve been between my entire career. Getting out and shooting what we can with a lean team and fleshing the crew out for the bigger blocks and set ups we have where their expertise is crucial.

We’re always being told now days that with everything that we have at our disposal there’s “no excuse to not make your thing”. So, that’s what I’m doing. No permission. Because momentum is trusting that action now is better than waiting for perfect later. There can always be a more polished, better executed version of your film. But what if the “pitfalls” are the virtues that give your film the voice it wouldn’t have had otherwise? 🤔

After Glow the feature film in production 2026 no matter what 🎬 Keep an eye out for more news 👀

All production (for this mock shoot) - 🙋🏻‍♂️
PA/ BTS stills - @rossdrawndagger
Talent - @georgiaconlanxx

Developing with - @curiosityjunction_ @stateofstevesitkowski @konjrstudios @georgiaconlanxx


266
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1 months ago

After Glow || In a world where grief-tech has been outlawed for it’s adverse side effects, Millie, takes a banned capsule to reunite with her dead fiancé - but the figure in the void isn’t the man she lost. 💊 🧟‍♂️

Writer - 🙋🏻‍♂️
Director/ DP - 🙋🏻‍♂️
Gaffer - @konjrstudios
Prop/ Set Dec - @maisiedrawndagger
1st AC/ Spark - @abby.filmportfolio
Producer - 🙋🏻‍♂️
MUA - @velvetbctwings
Sound Recordist/ Post Sound- @waqar_wsonsound
Colourist - @franztaztic
Associate Producers - @curiosityjunction_

Cast:
@isabellapercival
@laurencejamesdavis
@rafebirdactor


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2 months ago

These two photos are 20 years apart. The first was taken when I was 17, right on the edge of stepping into a life of touring (that kid who took ‘bass face’ way too seriously had NO idea what a ride he was in for). The second was taken a few days ago at 37, at the brink of stepping away from the road for a while.

EVERYTHING that has happened to me as an adult lives between these two images as a touring musician.

I met my wife, lost my mum, said goodbye to friends and family far too early, travelled the world with my best friends seeing places and cultures we never imagined, missed weddings, birthdays and funerals, discovered filmmaking, proudly watched friends become parents, became friends with bands I grew up idolising, became family with the best crew in the entire world, slipped into AND recovered from an ugly addiction. Every one of these moments and so many more, the good and the bad has shaped me. I was a painfully shy kid who got thrown in at the deep end and had no choice but to learn how to swim. The road gave me confidence, resilience, hardships, friendships and I owe a huge part of who I am to it.

But the truth is, the only thing I have never really known is a life without a touring schedule. And now, for the first time in our adult lives, we are stepping away from it to focus on writing new music and to figure out who we are without it. It feels bittersweet, but also important. This next chapter is about taking everything these years have taught us and turning it into something better than it ever was before.

I look at these two photos and I see how much life has happened between them. The privilege of what touring afforded us but also the price we had to pay for it. My only hope is when that next photo happens 20 years from now I can look back as proud as I am of the last 20.

📸 @nickpphoto


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86
3 months ago

These two photos are 20 years apart. The first was taken when I was 17, right on the edge of stepping into a life of touring (that kid who took ‘bass face’ way too seriously had NO idea what a ride he was in for). The second was taken a few days ago at 37, at the brink of stepping away from the road for a while.

EVERYTHING that has happened to me as an adult lives between these two images as a touring musician.

I met my wife, lost my mum, said goodbye to friends and family far too early, travelled the world with my best friends seeing places and cultures we never imagined, missed weddings, birthdays and funerals, discovered filmmaking, proudly watched friends become parents, became friends with bands I grew up idolising, became family with the best crew in the entire world, slipped into AND recovered from an ugly addiction. Every one of these moments and so many more, the good and the bad has shaped me. I was a painfully shy kid who got thrown in at the deep end and had no choice but to learn how to swim. The road gave me confidence, resilience, hardships, friendships and I owe a huge part of who I am to it.

But the truth is, the only thing I have never really known is a life without a touring schedule. And now, for the first time in our adult lives, we are stepping away from it to focus on writing new music and to figure out who we are without it. It feels bittersweet, but also important. This next chapter is about taking everything these years have taught us and turning it into something better than it ever was before.

I look at these two photos and I see how much life has happened between them. The privilege of what touring afforded us but also the price we had to pay for it. My only hope is when that next photo happens 20 years from now I can look back as proud as I am of the last 20.

📸 @nickpphoto


3.4K
86
3 months ago

Please clear seven minutes of your schedule, this is the paradox of progress.


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3 months ago

🧊 🖕🏻


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4 months ago


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