Six months ago, in the face of tragedy, Zack Snyder stepped away from the upcoming Justice League movie. While the director and his wife dealt with the death of their 20-year-old daughter, Autumn, Joss Whedon stepped in to finish the film—and changed the conversation around Justice League considerably. Almost immediately, questions of how this one movie would perform shifted to speculation about how Snyder's departure would affect DC Entertainment's overall cinematic future (and how the arrival of Whedon—previously a Marvel man—might do the same). What was never asked, and never announced, was what Zack Snyder would do next.

Recently, though, the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director started dropping hints. And today, he finally unveiled just what it is: a short film he shot entirely on an iPhone.

Creating the four-minute-long short, Snow Steam Iron, which just premiered on the somewhat obscure social networking app Vero, was what Snyder says he needed to do once he left Justice League behind. He wanted to be around family and friends; making a movie was the easiest way to do that. His daughter, Willow, a makeup artist, helped. His son, Eli, brought along friends from UCLA to be set PAs. He enlisted friend Samantha Jo (who played Amazonian warrior Euboea in Wonder Woman) for the lead role. They shot the whole thing the last weekend of April in and around Snyder’s office on the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles.

“It was a cathartic experience for all of us in a weird way because when we all get together it’s easier for us to make a movie than talk,” Snyder says. “There was a heavy air around, as you can imagine, but this film gave us this way to be with each other that was nice.”

Nice in a way that directing a nine-figure superhero movie sometimes isn’t. After Snyder left Justice League, speculation ran rampant as to the status of the movie and Snyder's status in the DC Extended Universe. The film reportedly needed extensive reshoots and Whedon ended up getting a writing credit on the film for his script work, leading some to question how much of the film would be Snyder's when it hits theaters in November. According to the director, after his daughter’s suicide he tried to “bury myself” in the DC film to get through it, but he couldn’t. Making a smaller movie became a much better way to cope.