Three UNC Wilmington film students are using their senior seminar to think outside of the box both figuratively and, more unusually, literally, with their experimental triptych film, “Children of Salt.” Caleb Andrew Ward, James Martin and Ethan M. Sigmon are creating a full feature film that has already gained a bit of international commercial success.

“Children of Salt” is a graduation requirement that, under normal requirements, would have consisted of a fifteen minute long film. After the first shootings, though, the director, producer and cinematographer realized they wanted to do something more, to push boundaries and to take this as an opportunity to announce themselves in the world of film.

“Sometimes we’d shoot a scene for thirty five minutes. There was not a way to edit that down to almost nothing,” said Sigmon, the film’s cinematographer. “We had to look at real life without the movie magic. The point was to emphasize the characters on the screen. The story had to come across.”

“Children of Salt” focuses on a failing couple. The male lead, played by Jacob Keohane, is a carpenter. He’s logical. He is the opposite of the free-spirited female lead, Ashleigh Lineberry, who is a jewelry maker by trade.

The triptych nature of the film comes from the utilization of three screens that are choreographed to show three views of the same moment. The left screen displays Lineberry, the right displays Keohane, and the middle are the lovers together. This setup allows the viewer to see different sides to the same story. Further, each of the views is set in a way that it could stand as its own, separate movie.

This causes problems with the actual shootings, however.

“We shoot with three or four cameras,” Sigmon said. “We have to silently work together to get out of each other’s shots.” 

“We have to just get a lot of footage because editing is really coming into play,” Sigmon said. “We’re always incorporating what we’ve learned from the film department”

Director Caleb Andrew Ward feels that the difficulties in filming are not only worth it, but that the film is coming along wonderfully.

“Reading literature is an active thing. You’re actually reading. But movies are passive. They wash over you. Doing the film this way, I see it, is a way of combining literature and film because you’re actively watching the movie. You could watch it over and over and find something new on a different screen,” Ward said.

This innovative set up has caught the attention of the U.K. online publication The Hollywood News, which did a short preview of the film.

“The idea of applying triptych art to cinema is a bold and intriguing decision. Hopefully it will gain a lot of momentum and appear worldwide soon,” said Luke Ryan Baldock, of Hollywood News.

Hollywood News’ brief came as a surprise to Ward, Sigmon and Martin, who had no idea that an unrelated source had written about “Children of Salt”. Ward found the article a full six days after its publication, feeling both terrified and excited. All of Hollywood News’ information came from “Children of Salt’s” Vimeo video, made in effort to fundraise for the film.

This unbeknownst evidence of success is just an addition to “Children of Salt’s” acceptance into the Cucalorus Film Festival and the International Movie Poster Gallery, an interview with Chautauqua Literary journal and Wilma magazine.

It is clear that “Children of Salt,” while not done filming, has a bright future.

The staff of the UNCW Department of Film Studies agrees.

“There’s a lot of interest from the department. The whole staff is so supportive. A professor even came to us for an idea for fundraising,” said Martin, the producer. “That speaks so much to how they feel about ‘Children of Salt.’”

Andre Silva, a Film Studies Associate Professor, is pleased to see his students working so hard.

“It’s an impressive undertaking. In my years of teaching I haven’t seen students take on a triptych film like that. I’m so impressed that they’re going out on a limb and expanding the boundaries,” Silva said. 

Donations are welcome for the continued production of “Children of Salt.” There will be a fundraising party in Downtown Wilmington at the Black Sheep Tavern on Oct. 24, to help reach a target goal of $3,500.

“We just want to keep pushing to see what people can get out of the film,” Sigmon said.