This is Where
A poignant journey through memory
Directed by Kavin Kapoor
In This is Where, director Kavin Kapoor explores memory, love, and change through the lens of place. The film traces a past relationship by revisiting its key locations - some real, some imagined - blurring the line between memory and dream. Using generative imagery and a unique visual language, Kapoor captures the emotional weight of nostalgia with striking originality.
A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Kapoor is an award-winning filmmaker with a background in AI storytelling, virtual production, and real-time engines. His work spans from motion capture at PlayStation to VR and AR development, and he currently works at Google Creative Lab as a filmmaker and AI creative strategist.
This is where is a visually bold film that showcases Kapoor’s ability to push the boundaries of cinematic form.
This Is Where beautifully captures the surreal texture of memory. How did you approach translating something as intangible as nostalgia into a visual language?
Thank you. With nostalgia, it’s such a delicate, personal thing, isn't it? My goal was to create visuals that mirrored that feeling. I envisioned images that felt quite broad and almost generic on the surface – like wide, open spaces – but then, the way we shot it, the lens and the focus would draw you into something very small and specic within that frame. The idea was that these spaces could almost be a canvas for anyone’s own memories; you could project your own experiences onto them. Yet, there’s always a specic detail or a particular feeling embedded that makes it unique to the story we’re telling. It's this balance of the familiar and the specic that, for me, captures that dreamlike quality of memory – it feels real, yet somehow not quite tangible.
The locations in the film feel emotionally charged, even though many aren’t real. How did you approach creating these spaces and what role do they play in the story?
It’s interesting you say they feel emotionally charged, because that was absolutely the intention, even though, as you noted, none of the locations in the lm actually exist in the real world; they were entirely craed using AI. This decision to generate the locations was driven by a desire to have complete control over their symbolic meaning and how they evolved with the story. A key element in their design, and a primary motivation for creating them this way, was to represent the passage of time and its impact on the relationship. So, we intentionally moved these imagined locations through the seasons, starting with the bloom of spring and gradually progressing towards the quietness of winter. This seasonal shi isn't just a backdrop; it directly mirrors the emotional arc of the story, the growth, the peak, and the cooling of the central relationship.
Building on that, the fact that these are artificial locations also allowed me to explore something else compelling about memory and shared experience. Whether you’re watching AI with real places or artificial ones, if the story is about someone else's relationship, you're equally, in a sense, an outsider to their specific memories and experiences tied to those places. I found it quite compelling that AI could almost heighten that sense – it makes everyone universally a stranger to the narrator's remembered world, placing the audience right alongside the protagonist in navigating these ephemeral, deeply personal mental landscapes.
There are noticeable emotional shifts throughout the film - from longing and reflection to something lighter. How did you use elements like lighting, colour, and sound to guide those changes in feeling?
Those emotional shifts are central to the film. The protagonist is navigating a significant evolution of a close relationship, and we don’t spell out the exact nature of their bond initially. It’s about someone who fears they're losing their person, but the journey is more about understanding that relationships don't always end – sometimes they transform as people grow.
I don't see this short as a purely sad movie, though it has heartbreaking moments. There’s beauty in that complexity, in realising a relationship is simply… changing. With lighting, for instance, I wanted to convey that there isn't true darkness in this journey. There’s always a light, even if it becomes dimmer at times.
Sound design also played a crucial role. The ambient sounds of the city are present, but they subtly fade as the narrator’s focus intensifies on 'her.' It mirrors how memory works, at least for me; when things are going well in a relationship, you absorb so much detail, the small, wonderful things. But as anxiety or concern creeps in, those details can become hazier, perhaps as a way to shield oneself from the pain of remembering too vividly.
Isabelle, who was instrumental in creating the visual and emotional language, really helped solidify these shifts. She pointed out, and I agree, that while the change builds gradually, it becomes especially pronounced in the middle of the lm. This turning point is signified through changes in both the music and the visuals. We used the changing seasons not just as a marker of time, but as a symbolic structure for the relationship's evolution, its ebbs and bows.
When that significant emotional shi occurs, the dialogue subtly reacts too; personal pronouns like 'I' and 'you' start to surface more, replacing 'we,' which hints at a growing distance. The compositions also become more static and spacious, with an increase in negative space, to evoke that sense of distance and isolation. We minimized movement within the frame to create a kind of emotional 'pause'. Repetition was another technique; revisiting locations like the shop at different points in the narrative highlighted how these places changed, or how the character’s perception of them changed, reinforcing that feeling of being emotionally frozen even as the world moves on.
Did you draw inspiration from any specific memories, personal experiences, or even cinematic references to shape the dreamlike atmosphere you've created?
Very much so. My family moved around a lot when I was growing up, and I think that’s made me a deeply nostalgic person. For me, relationships are the anchors that connect me to my various homes and pasts. I’ve oen had this experience where I'd cross a familiar intersection, or see a certain kind of location, and instantly be transported back, remembering the person I was with in that exact spot. It can feel like a superpower at times, but also a bit of a curse, living in a world where almost everything holds a ghost of a memory.
Honestly, that’s how I perceive and recall the world: through these very specific sensory details – the curve of a street corner, the texture of a sidewalk, the light in a particular bedroom, the way a blanket was rolled up. I became curious if I could tell a story structured that way, building characters and a relationship almost entirely through these potent clips of nostalgia. I’ve written poetry that explores similar themes, and I wanted to see how I could translate that into a visual medium, combining spoken poetry with these evocative images.
And yes, this is born from my own experiences of learning to navigate the way relationships change. I wanted to tell this story in a way that allowed me to confront the fears I had about revisiting certain memories or locations, but to do so in a space that felt safe, and also creatively original.
You took on several key roles in bringing this film to life. How did that shape your creative process and connection to the story?
Wearing so many hats on this project shaped my creative process and my connection to the story in some profound ways. Honestly, it kind of forced me to confront my own unreliability when it comes to narrating or recounting previous relationships. You think you remember things a certain way, but when you're trying to translate that into a visual story, you start to see your own biases and the hazy spots. It helped me realise that facing those and trying to be authentic about them, is a really important part of my creative process now.
It also meant I was constantly working in tandem with the visuals and the narration, almost like they were two separate characters I had to get to know. Sometimes I’d have a strong shot idea rest – a visual that felt right – and then I’d have to figure out what line of narration would that moment, pacing, and how it served the bigger story. Other times, a written line or a piece of the poem would come up, and then the challenge was to and the visual that truly paired with it and amplifies its meaning. This back-and-forth forced me to think in both directions, which was incredibly insightful. It was like I was supervising two independent but deeply connected elements of the story: what was being said, and what was being seen. And through that process, I think I ended up with a much deeper understanding of what I was feeling and trying to express.
I talked to Ali about composing the sound of Joel’s brain computing what the hell is going on. He did an amazing job of articulating with instruments the sound of the cogs of Joel’s mind turning and digesting weird information. There’s also a ticking clock quality to what Ali did—a panicked sense of trying to solve a problem fast—he knows they are leaving in 8 minutes.
We wake up with Joel and never know more than him. So Phil and Tom made the opening scene very immersive, creating a soundscape that bleeds through from sleeping to waking. I didn’t want Joel to snap awake. From the opening scene, everything is groggy and foggy.
Collaboration plays a key role in experimental work. Can you speak to how you worked with Isabelle Kalyn on the AI/VFX and Ramsey White on the score to craft the film’s emotional and technical tone?
Collaboration was vital, and for me, it was about guiding that collaborative energy towards a very specific vision. This project was a creative exercise for all of us in exploring how AI could be genuinely integrated into filmmaking, but always in service of the story. With Isabelle Kalyn on AI and VFX, she brought this incredible spirit of experimentation, generating a vast amount of images and video clips. My role then became one of intense curation. She would present these amazing visual ideas, and I would work with her to parse through them, directing which elements resonated most strongly with the emotional core of the lm and how we could hone them. It was a constant dialogue, her generating possibilities and me guiding those possibilities towards the aesthetic and feeling I was aiming for. It wasn’t just about accepting AI output; it was about me directing that output, reimagining it through traditional VFX to ensure it perfectly aligned with the heart of the film.
The emotional core stemmed from the script I wrote, and that became the anchor for everyone. So, when Isabelle was developing the visual language, I was constantly working with her to ensure it felt authentic and resonant, pushing to humanise those AI-generated visuals and ground them in the specific story I wanted to tell.
Similarly, with Ramsey White and his score, he’d create these beautiful compositions, and my job was to listen critically and direct him on how those musical ideas could best serve the film’s emotional arc. He brought such warmth and depth, and our collaboration was about finding the perfect way for his music to bridge the digital feel of the visuals with the very human themes of memory and changing relationships. I’d provide feedback on specific cues, how a certain melody might underscore a particular moment of longing. His music truly became that emotional adhesive, but it was shaped through that back-and-forth, with my overall vision guiding how it all came together.
“This project was a creative exercise for all of us in exploring how AI could be genuinely integrated into filmmaking, but always in service of the story.”
You’ve talked about wanting the shoot to feel a bit chaotic — letting the actors take the lead and having the camera just keep up. Was that energy something you planned from the start, or did it grow out of the time and space limits you were working with?
The script felt like it should be like that. It started as a whispered argument happening in a race against time. Then, I did a readthrough with the cast, and I liked it when the lines overlapped each other. There was a genuine sense of confusion. That messiness felt authentic and funny in the context of a story with a high concept.
What's next for you?
Based on the conversations this film is starting, I’m keen to continue exploring and showcasing how AI can be used in filmmaking with genuine intention, a clear artistic vision, and deep emotional resonance.
While there is a significant volume of AI-generated content emerging, much of it risks being categorized into a sub-genre due to a frequent lack of compelling narrative.
My aim is to create films that are simply 'comedies' or 'horrors' or 'dramas,' which might utilise AI as a tool, rather than being defined as 'AI comedies' or 'AI horrors.
Kavin Kapoor
Writer
Kavin Kapoor
Director
Kavin Kapoor
Producer
Kavin Kapoor
Key Cast
Isabelle Kalyn
AI/VFX & Technical Design
Ramsey White
Composer