Jaxon Whittington’s Pink Wings

Text by Julianne Carroll

Have you ever had a dream that felt more like a memory—one that leaves you yearning for a time or place you can’t quite recall? A dream so rich with emotion that waking life feels foreign and confusing? This concern is central to the protagonist of Jaxon Whittington’s Pink Wings. The film follows a wistful cowboy, played by Tommy Midnight, who meets his buried past through a series of recurring nightmares. Alarm quickly turns into dire obsession, as he parses the terrors for purpose. It’s as though some disembodied being is reaching through time to relay an important message, but why now? Once relying on his camera to preserve bits of life often discarded by the brain, suddenly his memory becomes too big to capture in an image. Turning to faith and family, the man uncovers the dark underbelly of his own grief, urged forward by the mantra “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Pink Wings is ultimately an exercise in surrendering to the unknown, finding love on the other side of fear, and striking a balance between holding onto memory and letting go of pain.

Whittington manages to multiply a microcosm of human experience to angelic proportions by experimenting with light, color, and perspective. The camera becomes an omnipotent being, flying through sun-streaked forests or resting on the dash of an old pickup truck. Each frame, no matter how tightly focused on its subject, suggests a world beyond itself—every moment of stillness serves to amplify its most dynamic scenes, which gives the film a sense of balance and cohesion that only follows meticulous planning and imaginative foresight. Pink Wings excels in its ability to represent intense emotions and complicated scenarios from various angles, breathing new life into old wounds so that something more beautiful may exist. 

Watch Pink Wings below.

This film is dedicated to Jaron Baker. Written & Directed by Jaxon Whittington
Starring: Tommy Midnight, Hirakish Ranasaki, Victoria Davidoff

With: Susan Louise O’Connor, Simon Viramontes, Jaron Baker & Drake Jazz Brown. Director of Photography: Harley Astorga, 1st AD: Wynn Oliver,2nd AD: Julianne Carroll & Brett Vaio, Edit & Color Grade by William Sipos, Production Sound Mixers: Frank Pelligrino & Patrick Baigrie, Sound Mixing & Editing: Sean Campos

Original Score by James K

SFX makeup by Jazzmin Oddie

Script Editor: Julianne Carroll

Jacket & Eye Patch Designed by Elliott Evan

Special Thanks to: Lee, Barrett, Stacey, Shawn, Marco, Wyatt, Ashley & Creston