Originally published in The Memory Palace by Nate DiMeo, Distance is a short-animated film that tells the story of Samuel Finley Breese Morse. His years as a painter, his personal story, and the path that led him to help shape one of the most important inventions in modern communication. This project began as one of Ordinary Folk’s earliest passion pieces in 2020. It went through multiple visual explorations and experiments, guided by a long list of talented collaborators. The final film contains more than 900 hand-painted frames moving together to “create illusions of space and distance, to learn how to conjure the ineffable through the mere aggregation of lines and dots and stretch canvas.”

Distance (2026)

October 22, 2026 3 min

Animation

Director: Ordinary Folk  ·  Writer: Nate DiMeo

Originally published in The Memory Palace by Nate DiMeo, Distance is a short-animated film that tells the story of Samuel Finley Breese Morse. His years as a painter, his personal story, and the path that led him to help shape one of the most important inventions in modern communication. This project began as one of Ordinary Folk’s earliest passion pieces in 2020. It went through multiple visual explorations and experiments, guided by a long list of talented collaborators. The final film contains more than 900 hand-painted frames moving together to “create illusions of space and distance, to learn how to conjure the ineffable through the mere aggregation of lines and dots and stretch canvas.”

Director

Ordinary Folk