Sean Mannion

Brooklyn Based Filmmaker

Sean Mannion has been producing films, videos, and podcasts since 2008. His work has screened at The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, The Big Apple Film Festival, Cucalorus, IndieWorks, The New York Television Festival, Channel 101 NY, The Long Island International Film Expo, IndieBoom!, The Ax Wound Film Festival, The DUMBO Film Festival, The Underground Film Festival, The Brooklyn Short Film Festival, The New Filmmaker’s New York Series, ZedFest, and more. Since 2016 he has collaborated with fellow filmmaker Nicole Solomon under the production company name 4MileCircus. In addition to his film, video, and podcast work, Sean is a media educator who has taught media making skills in a wide variety of contexts working with BRIC Arts Media, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, The NYC Center for Media Education, New York Film Academy, The Patton Veterans’ Project, the School of Visual Arts and more.

Select Film and Video Projects

Meme is the first feature film from Sean Mannion. It is available to watch now through AppleTV, Vimeo, and more.

Meme won “Best Narrative Feature” at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.

Synopsis: Jennifer, an independent designer disappointed in her stalled relationship and career, discovers a surreal mashup videotape, labeled “Meme,” among a friend’s VHS collection. She goes in search of Meme’s creator, tracking down people who appear on the tape to gain greater insight into what it is and why it exists. As she pursues the creator of the tape she takes greater control of other aspects of her life including her relationship, difficult clients, and a drinking problem that increasingly interferes with her life.

“Walk of Shame” is a music video directed by Sean Mannion for the band Late Cambrian. The song was used for the opening titles of Meme and footage from the film appears in the video. The video is available on the Late Cambrian YouTube page.

Late Cambrian is: John Wlaysewski, Olive Hui, Matthew Milligan, Ben Weiss, Eric Zeender Future Snacks is out now on all streaming platforms. https://www.instagram.com/latecambrian/

“Beneath the Black Moon” is a horror comedy short written & directed by Sean Mannion as a ‘film-within-a-film’ for his feature film Meme. The full version of Beneath the Black Moon is available on YouTube.

Synopsis: The best parts of VHS horror film Beneath the Black Moon recorded from one bad VHS tape onto another bad VHS tape.

“Reveal” is an animated horror comedy short film written by Nicole Solomon and Co-Directed by Sean Mannion and Nicole Solomon. Reveal is screening at festivals in 2023 and available via the 4MileCircus Patron.

Synopsis: A pregnant woman senses something is amiss when her sister throws her an unwanted baby shower.

“Rubbery Ducky” is a short film written & directed by Sean Mannion. It is available on YouTube.

Synopsis: Tara finds a rubber duck on the street after a fight with Rory.

“It’s Normal” is a horror short written by Sean Mannion and directed by Nicole Solomon. “It’s Normal” is available on Vimeo.

Synopsis: A young woman checks in on a friend from her grief support group and learns that her changing world may be even scarier than it appears on the surface.

“Time Signature” is a short sci fi film crowdfunded and shot in 2014. It is available on Vimeo.

Synopsis: Danielle befriends her favorite guitarist, Astra, backstage at a concert. The two women head out on an impromptu road trip and Astra reveals that she’s a time-traveler who has come back to change Danielle’s future.

“Abel and Cain” is a surreal short film crowdfunded and produced in 2012.

Synopsis: Danielle befriends her favorite guitarist, Astra, backstage at a concert. The two women head out on an impromptu road trip and Astra reveals that she’s a time-traveler who has come back to change Danielle’s future.

For more film and video projects see 4MileCircus.com

Blog Posts

  • Time Signature Update

    It’s been awhile since I did a proper blog update. I have more planned for the next few weeks. So, let’s get that started off with an update about Time Signature, the short film I crowdfunded last year on Seed&Spark about Danielle, a woman who discovers her favorite musician is from the future and has traveled back…

  • Meme Shooting Update

    Well, I was going to update about the progress on Meme on a much more regular basis, but keeping on top of the whole process and trying to stay on top of life beyond that has made that just not happen so much. Well, we’ve got almost 60 pages shot with only about 15 pages…

  • Meme Shooting Update: Tommy’s Living Room

    We picked up shooting for Meme again on Saturday, January 17th. We’re shooting the film location by location as we can get schedules lined up and we decided that the first places we should try and shoot out would be those that had the most pages that needed to be covered. Those are scenes at…

  • Meme Status and the Future

    A year ago I tried to launch my first feature film project, Meme, with a Kickstarter campaign that was a little bit less than successful. After that I was determined to come back to the project, but first I needed to get some successes under my belt. First, I needed to churn out some shorts…

  • I Hate Crowdfunding

    I have some experience with crowdfunding films. The first time I did it was with a PayPal button on this website to fund Modern Prometheus way back in 2009. The most recent effort was our successful crowdfunding of Time Signature this June (2014). I’ve done it 4 times. Three of those times were successful. One…

  • Focusing On Quantity

    Since October 2013 I have directed 8 short films (as of the writing of this in July 2014). Two of those films remain incomplete. Time Signature is currently in post-production and Kitty Ostapowicz’s 600 Steps still has some scenes to shoot before we can enter post-production. That almost doubles my film output of the previous five…

  • 10 Favorite Weird Movies

    I like weird movies. I like weird movies, because they challenge me and make me focus on them. Your standard action blockbuster, Oscar-bait drama, or sophomoric comedy we can all pretty much call the ending of when the opening credits roll. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s entertainment it should be comfortable. Sometimes I need…

  • Making Time Signature (TBD 2014)

    We wrapped shooting Time Signature on June 22nd. I’ve talked a little bit about it on our Seed&Spark page, but truth be told I needed to take a bit of a break from talking about the film. After talking about it pretty much non-stop through May for the crowdfunding campaign I got a bit tired of even…

  • Making Ione’s Date (TBD 2014) and 600 Steps (TBD 2014) Pt. 1

    I was going to write about my Channel 101 NY commercials that followed a long drought of shooting, but instead I want to talk about our shoot on Monday, March 31st. I’ll get the to the Channel 101 commercials next week. On Monday, March 31st, we shot four scenes at 1 Knickerbocker, a great restaurant…

  • Making Pregnant Pause (2009)

      In late 2009, after finishing the screenwriting conservatory program I was in, I started working with my friends Joao Lameira and Mafalda Melo on making films. We were, in general, trying to shoot something every 2 weeks or so. We cycled on whose project we were shooting. I think our third or fourth project…