Farmington Filmmaker Skyler Loyd's Short Wins Two Awards, Streams Globally

An eight-minute home-invasion nightmare from Farmington filmmaker Skyler Loyd has won two awards and moved from regional festivals to a global streaming audience, drawing attention to local arts and mental health issues.

Loyd’s short film, “That’s Not Me,” earned second place and the audience choice award at the Four Corners Short Film Contest and later screened at The Flint Short Film Freakout and Bite Night Presents. The film, which carries the tagline “Looks Can Deceive,” was released globally last week and trended at No. 2 on BloodStream, a streaming service for horror, sci-fi, and thriller fans. It can be viewed at bloodstreamtv.com/show-details/thats-not-me-2025.

The eight-minute piece was written, directed, produced and co-starred in by 25-year-old Loyd, who also composed the musical score. Paul Hamby served as director of photography and Anthony Lujan co-starred. The film opens with rain lashing a familiar home entrance as a discordant score tightens, then escalates from a home-invasion scenario into psychological horror and identity distortion.

“This marks a first for a local independent film to stream alongside big-name features on a curated global platform,” Loyd said in a news release. He described the production effort bluntly: “It takes a village.” In an email, Loyd added that “cloning was the center idea,” and he said the soundtrack grew from a blend of acoustic and digital instruments with the intent of “building the music around the scene.”

Loyd grew up in San Juan County, born in Farmington and raised from age 5 on a Waterflow farm that raised alfalfa and kept horses. He said he was “definitely not afraid to get dirty.” A childhood steeped in music led him from violin to cello and later piano, with early performances at the Totah theater under Tennille Taylor and a recital at Artifacts 302 under teacher Heather Malone. Loyd credited Malone with helping him through difficult teenage years. “Music is a really human art,” he said.

Local audiences will recognize familiar venues and artistic mentors in Loyd’s story. His pathway from area schools to festival screens highlights how community arts spaces - from Grace B. Wilson Elementary School in Kirtland to Artifacts 302 - can nurture talent. Loyd said dyslexia slowed his reading early on, and he credited fourth-grade teacher Nicole Baker with helping him catch up; that classroom exposure also seeded his interest in filmmaking.

Loyd’s creative journey has not been without hardship. He experienced clinical depression in his late teens and described an attempted suicide before turning to film and music as a means of recovery, a trajectory that makes the short’s themes of identity and fear resonate beyond genre thrills. That local context raises public health considerations: mental health supports in schools, community arts programs and county services can play preventive roles for young creatives facing isolation or crisis.

For San Juan County, Loyd’s success is both a point of pride and a reminder that modest local investments in arts instruction and mental health services can have outsized returns. Loyd said a follow-up exploring the origins of the film’s creatures is still on the table, and his move onto a global streaming platform creates new opportunities for collaborations, film screenings and workshops that could expand the region’s creative economy.

What comes next for local viewers is immediate access: stream “That’s Not Me” on BloodStream and watch a Farmington story reach a broader audience, while community leaders consider how arts and health supports can help other local artists turn personal struggle into work that resonates far beyond the Four Corners.