Cris and Mason Skulmoski on 'Equinox': 3,882 Frames of Change, Memory, and Handmade Animation

There is something quietly profound about watching the seasons change. The transformation is inevitable, yet almost imperceptible from one day to the next. Leaves shift colour, familiar landscapes become unfamiliar, and the places we associate with particular moments in our lives begin to reflect the passage of time. In Equinox, Cris and Mason Skulmoski translate that experience into an animated music video that is as much about the uncertainty of the future as it is about the beauty of what we leave behind.

Filmed primarily along the Middlesex Greenway in Fords, New Jersey, a location of considerable personal significance, Equinox explores the fear and acceptance of change. Drawing a visual parallel with the autumn equinox, the film considers the fragile balance between endings and beginnings, uncertainty and hope, loss and renewal. Accompanied by music produced by the filmmakers' two-person band, the images move through a landscape where memory, nature, and digital artistry become inseparable.

What makes Equinox particularly fascinating is the painstaking technique behind its creation. Inspired by the visual aesthetic of the video game Out of This World, the filmmakers employed rotoscoping, animating over previously filmed footage to create a distinctive pixel-art universe. Working at 25 frames per second, they painstakingly hand-pixeled 3,882 individual frames using Aseprite, adhering to a deliberately restricted colour palette. The result is an unusual marriage of live-action observation, retro video-game aesthetics, and contemporary independent animation.

The film's dedication to handcrafted visual storytelling has already earned recognition on the festival circuit, including Best Special Effects/Video Effects at NJ Webfest and Best Super Short Film at the New Jersey Independent Film Festival, alongside inclusion at the Rutherford Film Fest. The filmmakers have also listed the Aphrodite Film Awards, with its outcome pending at the time of their submission.

For Final Cut Magazine, Cris and Mason Skulmoski discuss the extraordinary patience required to animate thousands of frames, the influence of classic video games, the creative possibilities of working across music and film, and why they believe handmade artistic expression matters more than ever.

Equinox explores the fear and acceptance of change through music, animation, and the changing seasons. Where did the idea originate, and what were you hoping to express?

The entire thing was made with rotoscoped animation, “rotoscoped” simply meaning animating over an existing subject.

You can see this technique used in old Disney films, as well as Ralph Bakshi movies such as Wizards.

However, this particular project was inspired by the Super Nintendo game Out of This World. The visuals in that game are really incredible.

The music was produced by our two-person band and works hand in hand with the animation to tell the story I set out to make.

It mostly revolves around the fear and acceptance of change.

The Middlesex Greenway in New Jersey plays an important role in the film. Why was this particular location meaningful to you?

Most of the footage was captured at the Middlesex Greenway in Fords, New Jersey, a place that has played a significant role in my life.

The song and music video reflect my thoughts on life, change, and the uncertainty of the future, while celebrating the moments of joy that emerge along the way.

The imagery also draws a parallel to the autumn equinox, symbolising balance and transition.

The animation pays homage to Out of This World, a game with a very distinctive visual identity. What attracted you to that aesthetic, and how did you translate it into your own work?

The animation style was inspired by the Super Nintendo game Out of This World, paying homage to its unique visual aesthetic.

Each frame was hand-pixeled at 25 frames per second in a program called Aseprite, totalling 3,882 drawn frames.

We also adhered to a strict colour palette to emulate the game that inspired the project.

Creating 3,882 individually animated frames is an extraordinary undertaking. What were the greatest technical and creative challenges?

We shot the film over the course of several months to capture the changing seasons in a compelling way.

The animation was meticulously completed frame by frame, totalling 3,882 frames of hand-pixeled footage.

We also had to adhere to a strict colour palette to emulate the game that inspired the film.

Independent animation often requires an enormous investment of time without any guarantee of completion. Looking back, what makes you proudest of Equinox?

Most projects go unfinished, and this was one that took months and months of TLC and countless hours of work.

The fact that we were able to bring Equinox to fruition without abandoning anything that made it special was a real challenge—and one I still can't quite believe we managed to overcome.

Your work moves naturally between music, filmmaking, and animation. What first drew you toward creating films?

Yearning.

You've already begun applying what you learned from Equinox to new music videos. What can audiences expect from your upcoming projects?

This is what I'm most excited to talk about.

We have several new music videos to promote our concept album, In Order To Remove A Limb, which came out earlier this year.

I recently finished a video for the first track, Limb Remover. It's a two-colour animation, also known as 1-bit, created at a constrained, tiny resolution of 128 × 96 pixels.

It takes full advantage of the same rotoscoping technique I learned from Equinox. Thanks to that, I was able to make a fully animated and surprisingly gruesome video.

The other project we made relating to this newest album is titled Necrophile. It involves a large amount of puppetry, as well as some editing techniques that were completely new to us.

We also have two more videos we're currently working on, so stay tuned.

Every day we improve at our craft, and it feels like the new things we're making are some of our best.

You initially didn't consider film festivals a natural home for your work. How did that change after submitting Equinox?

Initially, I didn't even consider film festivals to be an outlet for us, and I entered the New Jersey Independent Film Festival on a whim.

I've been met with a wonderful community and open arms.

I feel this has really bolstered our creativity, and we want to be the best filmmakers we can be.

What advice would you give independent filmmakers and animators who might feel discouraged by festival rejections?

Don't be deterred by rejections.

Remember that if you have an idea you believe in, there is very likely someone out there who appreciates that idea!

Your film is the result of thousands of hours of deliberate artistic work. At a time when AI-generated imagery is becoming increasingly common, how do you see the future of independent filmmaking?

I think the rise of independent film and the globalisation that the internet allows make for a very promising future, especially for small creators.

However, the rise of AI is somewhat of an anti-art movement.

In a significant way, it is creating such an oversaturation of lower-quality content that important messages and prolific art are getting lost—or worse, silenced.

You mention Hideaki Anno as a filmmaker you particularly admire. What is it about his approach to storytelling and animation that resonates with you?

Hideaki Anno is an extremely versatile, meticulous filmmaker who is able to tell stories with so much emotion and incredible animation.

He is such a reputable and widely imitated artist that it's very hard to call him overrated.

He really is that good!

Finally, is there a film you've watched recently that surprised or inspired you from a filmmaking perspective?

We recently watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the first time, and the camera movement and cinematography in that movie are phenomenal.

Really inspiring stuff.

Final Cut: Why Equinox Matters

When I think about Equinox, I find myself returning not only to the images on the screen but to the extraordinary amount of human attention required to create them. Three thousand eight hundred and eighty-two frames. Each one individually considered, shaped, and transformed. In a contemporary visual culture increasingly defined by immediacy, that number feels almost like an artistic statement in itself.

What interests me most is the relationship between the film's subject and its method. Equinox is about change, yet its creation required patience, repetition, and a willingness to remain committed to something over an extended period. The filmmakers spent months observing a landscape as it moved through the seasons, then spent countless additional hours transforming those observations into pixel art. Time is therefore not simply represented in the film. It is embedded in the work itself.

I find that connection particularly meaningful because independent cinema has always been a space where the process of creation can become inseparable from the ideas being explored. A film does not need an elaborate narrative or a conventional dramatic structure to communicate something deeply personal. Sometimes a familiar location, a piece of music, and a carefully developed visual language are enough to express feelings that would lose their complexity if translated into dialogue.

There is also something compelling about the filmmakers' decision to look backward technologically while expressing contemporary emotions. By drawing inspiration from Out of This World and employing a restricted colour palette, Equinox connects the visual vocabulary of early video games with the possibilities of modern independent animation. What might initially appear nostalgic becomes a means of expressing memory itself. The imagery feels connected to a particular technological past, just as the landscape is connected to a personal one.

For me, this is where Equinox becomes especially relevant to the broader spectrum of independent cinema. It demonstrates that the boundaries separating music videos, experimental films, animation, and visual art are often less important than the creative intentions connecting them. The work exists comfortably between these categories, finding its identity through the combination rather than attempting to fit neatly into one.

The filmmakers' progression from Equinox toward new projects involving limited-colour animation, puppetry, and increasingly ambitious visual experiments is equally encouraging. Their practice suggests an understanding of filmmaking as continuous discovery. Each completed work becomes a foundation for the next, and every new limitation presents an opportunity to develop a different artistic language.

I am also struck by the contrast between the painstaking handmade process behind Equinox and the growing tendency to measure creative progress through speed and volume. I do not believe artistic value can be calculated simply by counting the hours invested in a work. But there is something undeniably moving about artists choosing to spend those hours on an idea because they believe it deserves to exist.

In an environment increasingly saturated with images, Equinox reminds me that independent cinema's greatest strength may lie not in producing more, but in making something that could only have emerged from a particular person's memories, influences, limitations, and persistence.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful connection between the film's theme and its creation. Change is inevitable, but transformation still requires time.

Equinox is a small film built from thousands of individual acts of commitment. For me, that makes it an eloquent reminder that independent cinema remains a place where patience, experimentation, and deeply personal artistic expression can still flourish.