Hollowed Out is an intimate and experimental short film script centred on Jesse, a World War II veteran institutionalised in a psychiatric ward. The story told entirely through monologue immerses the audience in Jesse’s fragmented mind as he shifts between raw confession, and hallucinatory delusion.

The setting is stripped back to a single consultation room with minimal props. Against this stark backdrop, Jesse’s world is expanded through projected ghostly visual sequences of flickers of memory, apparitions, hallucinatory images. These projections serve not as spectacle, but as psychological landscapes, pulling the audience deeper into Jesse’s trauma.

At its heart, the script is a meditation on memory and silence, PTSD and personal family tragedy and how these elements follows a man slowly dismantling his mind.

Christopher Morley will bring both gravitas and emotional depth to his portrayal of Jesse in Hollowed Out. A seasoned actor, Christopher began his journey in theatre with early performances at the Solihull Dramatic Society and the Birmingham Midland Operatic Society, later honed at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and through formal Theatre Studies at A-Level. On screen, he’s taken on commanding lead roles in numerous shorts and features including an award nominated performance showcasing his prowess in intense, character-driven narratives

Christopher’s intellectual rigor, theatrical roots, and on-screen empathy make him an ideal vessel for Jesse’s haunted journey making him not just a performer, but a collaborator whose presence will elevate every scene.

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These concept artworks bring Jesse to life in three moments — standing at the graveside, holding a gun in private despair, and confined within the asylum. Created with the help of AI generative tools, they aren’t polished production designs but part of the early creative process, helping me capture the atmosphere, mood, and emotional depth of Hollowed Out. AI gives me the chance to explore ideas visually, experiment with tone, and establish consistency in Jesse’s appearance before cameras roll. For me, these images are about making the character real early on — giving audiences, collaborators, and supporters a glimpse into his world and the raw humanity at the heart of the story.