Kin Fables

Lore & Background

Kin Fables was originally intended to consist of nine short films but was later condensed to three. The first short film, Kin, was released in 2014, followed by Salvage and Requiem in 2015 after a successful Kickstarter campaign funded the projects. Kin was awarded Best Cinematography in the Quebec Short Film Category at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

The plot of Kin follows a lone knight and a boy who journey through a forest and mountain, encountering spirits, a white horse, and a giant raven that envelops the boy. Salvage depicts a pilot who crashes into the ocean, wakes on a rocky shore, follows a woman in a white dress, and is subjected to a ritual by black-clad men before being led out to sea. Requiem shows a young man trapped in a repetitive cycle of work and nightlife, who eventually encounters an old man, receives a necklace, and rides into a forest where he finds a white horse, a house, and a woman in a white dress, ending with spirits dipping seeds into a river.

A graphic novel is being produced as a companion piece, intended to follow the story after one of the short films. A feature-length film is also being developed by Seb McKinnon and his brother Liam McKinnon, based on the Kin Fables universe.

Reader's Guide

Kin Fables represents a multimedia project that blends short film, music, and planned graphic novel and feature-length expansions. Its significance lies in its independent creation by two brothers, funded through a Kickstarter campaign, and its recognition at film festivals for the short film Kin. The project draws on medieval Scottish legends and personal music composition, resulting in a cohesive narrative universe across different media. The trilogy's themes of ritual, transformation, and cyclical existence are conveyed through visual and auditory elements, with each short film contributing to an overarching mythology. The planned graphic novel and feature film indicate an ongoing expansion of the Kin Fables world, though only the three short films and the music-related short have been released as of the source article. The project's legacy is tied to its festival success and its role as a foundation for further storytelling by the McKinnon brothers.

Did You Know?

• Kin Fables was originally planned to include nine short films but was condensed to three.
• A graphic novel is being produced as a companion piece to the film projects, following the story after one of the short films.
• A feature-length film based on the Kin Fables universe is being developed by Seb McKinnon and his brother Liam McKinnon.

Origins & Creative Genesis

Kin Fables was born from a backpacking journey through Scotland that brothers Ben and Seb McKinnon took together. The landscape struck them as a place saturated with medieval history and folklore, and that impression became the creative seed for the entire project. Around the same period, Seb began experimenting with music production in Logic Pro, which eventually led to him composing under the name CLANN. The convergence of those two impulses—narrative and sound—prompted the brothers to sketch storyboards for what would become their first film. Originally, the plan was ambitious: a cycle of nine short films. That scope was later trimmed to three, but the foundational vision of a connected mythic world remained intact. All of this was produced under their own banner, Five Knights Productions, giving the brothers full creative control from conception through release.

The Films & Production Journey

The first installment, Kin, arrived in 2013, establishing the tone and visual language of the series. The remaining two shorts, Salvage and Requiem, followed in 2015 after the brothers mounted a successful Kickstarter campaign to cover production costs. Kin earned the Best Cinematography award in the Quebec Short Film Category at both the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal and the Cyprus International Film Festival, a recognition that highlighted the brothers' commitment to a distinct visual style. Beyond the three narrative shorts, the Kin Fables umbrella also encompasses Seb McKinnon's musical output under the CLANN moniker, with a dedicated short film titled Kin Fables: The Stolen Child crafted to accompany that body of work. The project thus functions as a multimedia venture, weaving together cinema, music, and storytelling under a single creative identity.

Narrative World & Recurring Motifs

Each of the three shorts follows a solitary male protagonist—a boy in Kin, a downed pilot in Salvage, and a young office worker in Requiem—through a landscape that blurs the boundary between the mundane and the supernatural. Despite their different settings, the films share a dense vocabulary of recurring images. A saddled white horse appears in both Kin and Requiem. A woman in a white dress haunts the shore in Salvage and the forest in Requiem. Necklaces are passed between characters as objects of ritual significance, and spirit-like figures perform ceremonies that seem to bind or release the protagonists. A birdlike figure, whether a giant raven descending from clouds or a dark shape crossing a crescent moon, marks the moment of transformation. Even the act of pulling a small object from water—a toy plane from a pool—ties the modern to the mythic. These threads suggest a single, interlocking mythology rather than three isolated tales.

Legacy & Expanding Universe

Kin Fables was never conceived as a closed trilogy. The brothers have been developing a graphic novel intended as a companion piece that picks up the narrative after one of the three short films, extending the story into a new medium while preserving the visual and thematic language of the screen. In parallel, Seb McKinnon is working alongside his brother Liam McKinnon on a feature-length film set within the same Kin Fables universe, signaling an ambition to scale the project from short-form storytelling to a full cinematic experience. The fact that Liam, a third sibling, is now involved in the feature development suggests the project has grown beyond the original two-brother partnership. Together, these ongoing efforts position Kin Fables as a living, expanding world rather than a completed anthology, with the Scottish folklore roots that inspired the first storyboard still feeding new chapters.