Van

Van

Directed by Nicholas Berg

An experimental animated short about the struggle to find direction in life, VAN follows a lone vehicle navigating outside of its comfort zone. The journey is shaped by rhythm, pacing, metaphor, and atmosphere, unfolding primarily through observation rather than explanation. As the story finds meaning, it adjusts, becoming more direct in how it expresses itself to the viewer.

Director Statement

This film considers the gradual realization that goals and dreams are not always fully understood before setting out to achieve them. Rather than focusing on a solution, it recognizes that the desire to feel different and shift perspective can be as meaningful as the goals themselves. Over the course of the film, it moves from a guarded, deflective tone toward something more direct, reflecting a change in how expression is allowed to surface.

The film combines physical miniatures, stop-motion, frame-by-frame and keyframed animation, digital compositing, and AI-assisted imagery within a tactile, hands-on process. AI is used as a material for building largely static environments and visual elements, with imagery recolored, combined, and shaped through iteration and direct interaction rather than used as finished outputs. Additional moving material includes AI-generated fire, water, and traffic beneath an overpass, along with stock desert footage. The soundtrack combines stock SFX, hybrid AI/analog/digital voices, and original music. Stop-motion is more prevalent in the first half of the film, before I realized that a moving vehicle’s physics does not naturally lend itself to stopping.

The filmmaking process was initially inspired by early silent film, where environments seemed to me more free to resemble a painted stage set rather than a convincing location. This encouraged me to embrace the film’s artificiality rather than hope to disguise it. An interest in miniature visual effects reinforced this way of thinking. Rather than resisting the textures inherent to AI-generated imagery, I figured they could complement the diorama aesthetic. Like a piece of sponge standing in for coral, I leaned into how texture itself can function as suggestion. At some point during production, I noticed my attention naturally returning to the physical miniature van. It reminded me of an idea I first encountered through John Singer Sargent’s paintings: convincing details at the point of focus can support more suggestive surroundings.

The film was always meant to help me develop a stronger intuitive understanding of perspective. I did this by repeatedly confronting the challenge of inserting a physical object into a preexisting image, using only the visual information it provided or that I could provide to it beforehand in order to design and redesign the process. It was fun to explore something new, with no particular example to follow, and not know how well it might work. As my filmmaking interests and skills continue to develop, I see the process evolving into something different, carrying these ideas forward rather than simply repeating them. I’m interested in discovering what kinds of limitations I can overcome through a better understanding of the space and materials I have to work with.

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While I prefer to give viewers the chance to watch the film without explanation and form their own interpretations, I’ll warn you here before spoiling one moment.

After the van essentially declares that it is “driving itself,” the film reveals an audience of sorts and holds on this moment for an uncomfortable amount of time. A smoother edit is possible here: the music could kick back in much sooner and maintain the film’s momentum. Instead, I chose to extend the pause, requiring the real audience to sit through some awkwardness and more fully witness my moment of stubborn vulnerability.

Revealing my willingness to risk annoying people feels like a risk of its own here. But in all honesty, when I showed the unfinished scene to my best friend, he very enthusiastically told me I should “hold it there for a really long time,” and I promised him I would. Ultimately, I decided the moment would be less truthful if I broke that promise in order to make the film more audience friendly. I did not, however, promise I wouldn’t throw him under the bus.

Director Biography

Nicholas Berg is a filmmaker and animator based in San Diego, originally from Gnaw Bone, Indiana, working primarily out of his garage using handcrafted analog methods, digital tools, and emerging AI techniques. Influenced by the delayed and uneven treatment of lifelong sensorineural hearing loss and the experience of living with its often unseen effects on emotional processing and communication, Berg prioritizes tone, rhythm, and visual clarity, using metaphor to translate experience and taking a more playful approach to language. Original music he writes and performs carries emotional weight, and his practice reflects a DIY, self-taught approach shaped by experimentation and iteration.

Plays in

Into the Unknown: Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Shorts