Phaseland

GENRE: Science Fiction.

STATUS: In distribution. Phaseland is available for viewing on YBS’ own online movie platform, Serenergy, and the Roku TV channel All Hawaii TV, and was also accepted and screened in the 2024 Toronto Lift-Off Global Network Online Film Festival, the 2024 New York Lift-Off Global Network Online Film Festival, and the 2024 Los Angeles Lift-Off Global Network Online Film Festival.

LOGLINE: A man coping with the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic suddenly finds himself facing an even greater crisis when he wakes up in a world of animation and finds that he is the only man who exists in this “phase.”

COMPANY NOTES: Immediately on the heels of wrapping the production of Covid Release, it was decided to make another movie in which once again the actual production is done completely without any of the participants ever having to gather together. Phaseland was derived from four sources of inspiration.

The Trailer For Phaseland – Edited By T.C. Smith

IMDb: Phaseland

Inspirations

PhaselandFirst, on the successful “filming” of another YBS LegacyVision feature, Covid Release, done entirely using the recording functionality of Zoom, that during this ongoing pandemic (and even if severe lock downs were to be lifted, it was presumed that life as everyone used to know it would continue to take longer to return) another “film separately” movie could be produced. But unlike this prior production, where actors were filmed together in Zoom, it was envisioned that upon the writing of a script, those cast could be responsible for filming themselves using their own means of recording.

PhaselandSecond, on February 15, 2020, frequent YBS actor Thomas Smith (photo right), also known by his stage name of T.C. Smith, invited YBS producer, Eric Nemoto, to watch a performance of “The Last King Of Bali,” at Kennedy Theatre on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus for which he was helping to run tech. The Wayang Listrik Production was a shadow play, which is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment utilizing flat articulated cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. The production featured puppets, shadow actors, dancers, and live “Gamelan” music, which is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. While the shadow production also featured actors performing on stage and not in shadow, afterwards both talked about the innovative shadow images and how it would be interesting to stage a production that would predominantly rely on actors performing in shadow.

Third, upon the successful final editing of another YBS/LegacyVision FilmSo Close Shig, in which editor, Rebecca Lea McCarthy, utilized an editing technique in the movie to depict the unstable mind of the central character, Horace “Shig” Shigematsu (a screen shot appears below), it was thought that, similarly, some kind of alternate look could be achieved through editing to represent Phaseland.

Phaseland

While the intent was not to use the same method that was used for Shig, it was felt that something could be done during post-production to affect some kind of alternate look. It was believed that by using some of the special effects of the editing software, something could be attained that could serve as the shadow world of this story that involves an alternate reality. In effect, through trial and testing, it was later discovered that this “look” could be achieved by utilizing a combination of two separate effects – ‘watercolor’ and ‘edge detect’ – in the editing program, DaVinci Resolve. This process can generally be referred to as adding an effects filter. Examples of these appear in some of the test scenes that follow.

PhaselandFourth, a mid-1990’s television mini-series, Stephen King’s The Langoliers, which was about sleeping passengers on a red-eye flight of a jet from Los Angeles International Airport to Boston Logan International airport, who awake to find most of the passengers and flight crew have disappeared. When they land at a military airport they find that no one else exists and everything is dull and lifeless – they cannot light matches, and food and drink are tasteless – and they deduce that they have entered a time rift, sending them a few minutes into the past and out of sync. They proceed through the series through a number of adventures including encountering “The Langoliers,” creatures that feed on time which has passed, and they lose members of their party along the way. Eventually they realize that their only hope of returning back to normality is to return through the time rift to reverse everything. But as they do, they recall that they had survived their first trip into the rift because they had been asleep, and could disappear if they pass through it awake. One of them volunteers to stay awake to reduce the cabin pressure, which will knock them unconscious, and remain awake to fly the plane on course. The plan works. While the man who volunteered to stay awake disappears, another awakes shortly after to land the plane safely in Los Angeles. But upon disembarking they discover that no one is there and presume that they are still in this void of time. But then, noticing the return of sound and their sense of smell, they conjecture that they may be a few minutes ahead of everyone else and they will shortly catch up to them. As they watch, they see other people start to blur into view, before they suddenly snap into the proper time stream. Only the onlooking children spot their appearance, calling them out as the arrival of “the new people.” They run happily through the airport, having returned to their world.

Script Concept

What follows is the original concept prior to writing the actual script. A man talks to a friend on his cell at home after returning from a hard day’s work. Their conversation lets us know that we are continuing in the COVID-19 restrictions of the worldwide pandemic. He speaks of meeting up with his friend for a beer later but he wants to catch a few hours of sleep. They hang up and the man goes to his bedroom and lies in bed and falls asleep. When he awakens his world has changed. In his grogginess it takes him time to realize that everything around him looks decidedly different, weird, maybe even other worldly (an example of a possible look is this shot from the movie, A Scanner Darkly, which appears inset). Even he – as he checks himself in the mirror – appears as if he is from some kind of graphic novel. He calls his friend and leaves a message that something weird has happened and he can’t figure it out and despite his pleas throughout a number of other calls he makes, he gets no response. The man seems to be in a different dimension, a different “phase” of existence. He realizes, however, that in this surreal world everything that is material seems to continue to exist. The supermarkets are stocked with fresh food, people’s homes seem to be normal, bars with cold beer from the taps still operate and even the television programs appear. Everything in the world is what one would expect except for two things. The world appears all in this different phase-like appearance and there are absolutely no other people. The man seems to be the only human in this realm. He goes through a period of fear and depression in which he recalls people in his life, who appear as they did in the “real world,” because they reflect his remembrances of his past. Somehow, the man will figure out that he has been transported to this world through some kind of cosmic shift in time and upon this belief he researches what he could do to get him back to normality. Ultimately, through possibly a quirk of fate, he will find his way back, waking up from his sleep to find that (he believes) he was just having a nightmare. But in the end he will find something from the “Phase” world that will make him realize that it was actually real after all.

Production Concept

Thomas Smith has been cast as the man. Eric Nemoto completed the script in April 2021. Much of the movie, given the man is totally alone in this brave new world will have Thomas voicing over the thoughts of the man as he deals with his new found existence. Thomas will be responsible for filming his own B-Roll of shots of his character strolling the world he sees alone with his iPhone. Shots of other characters who appear from his past in flashback or in his dreams will be recorded by each actor (e.g. using iPhones) who are cast in the movie according to the characters eventually developed in the script.

The Initial Working Title Poster For Phaseland

Script Treatment

We open our story with the sight of Wyatt Smith sound asleep in his bed in a weird type of existence where he and everything else seems to have a kind of semi-glow to it. He mentions that the look is not our imagination and starts to tell us what happened. He calls his predicament “Phaseland,” for as the literal translation of the word phrase is that it is a temporary condition, something he hopes is true.

We transition to how it all began. It’s a Friday afternoon on the island of Oahu in Hawaii during the great pandemic and Wyatt, a landscaper, has decided to start the weekend early. He gets out of his truck and notices that the sky is looking weird. It starts to show the beginnings of the “phase look” that will dominate his world. But it goes away and he continues inside his house.

Inside, Wyatt gets a call from Daniel Mochizuki, another landscaper, who asks him about a past employee of Wyatt’s, Cameron Santiago. Wyatt tells Daniel that he fired Cameron but ultimately advises to hire him as who knows it might work for Daniel. Daniel thanks Wyatt but also asks him about the Federal PPP loan and Wyatt says he’s applied for it. After the call, Wyatt calls his girlfriend, Racine, and leaves a message for her to call him. He then goes to his outdoor “man-cave” area and begins playing a home made instrument he calls a “Smitar.” After playing one of his musical pieces, Wyatt is interrupted by his neighbor, Arthur Plank, a simply ornery man who always dresses in a black suit, who tells Wyatt to stop playing his “monkey music.” Wyatt ‘gives back as much as he takes and Arthur tells him, “I’m going to get you, Wyatt!”

Arthur (Steven Dillard) Complains To Wyatt (T.C. Smith) – Filmed By T.C. Smith & Steven Dillard, & Edited By Solomon Smith

Wyatt then gets a call from Dew Mansheer, a friend, who invites him over for some end-of-the-work-week beer. Wyatt says he has to hold for now as he’s waiting to speak to Racine. Dew asks him what did he do now, and Wyatt intimates that they had a talk about their relationship. A knock at Wyatt’s door interrupts their conversation. It is Alice Plank, Arthur’s wife, who brings some cookies as a peace offering for her husband’s behavior. Wyatt asks her why does she stay with him. Alice responds that it’s a long story and tells Wyatt that she hopes he enjoys the cookies. Wyatt assures her that if they are anything like the brownies she brought the day before he’s sure he will.

Alice (Leslie Brown) Delivers Cookies To Wyatt (T.C. Smith) – Filmed & Edited By T.C. Smith

Wyatt returns to talking to Dew and he mentions his clash with Arthur and through their ensuing conversation we learn that Arthur and Alice used to work for NASA and that Arthur is either eccentric or totally insane. He’s seen every day walking the streets in his black suit and carrying a suitcase. Their talk is concluded when Wyatt receives a text from Racine to call her. Before signing off, Dew tells Wyatt that if he’s still able to come over that they could watch the original black and white version of “The Thing” on television.

Wyatt calls Racine and they both apologize for apparently a bad lunch they shared during which each other’s flaws were pointed out. Racine tells Wyatt to join her at the park where she, too, has left work early and wants him to join her for an impromptu Frisbee toss. Wyatt agrees but tells her he’s going to shower first. He does so and upon coming out of the bathroom is mysteriously overcome by a need to sleep. He makes his way to the bedroom and plops face down and is out. We hear birds chirp in the background.

Wyatt Awakes In A Brand New World – Filmed & Edited By T.C. Smith

When he awakes the world has changed. Everything we see now has this “otherworldly” look to it. Wyatt notices that it is dark and anguishes over the fact that he didn’t meet Racine in the park. He rushes into the bathroom to douse his face with water and then realizes the new world he finds himself in. In growing panic, Wyatt calls Racine a number of times and only gets her message recorder. He goes outside and finds that he is the only person in this realm of existence. He continues to call Racine and also Dew, and leaves messages for both. But he gets no return call. Wyatt drives to the park where he was supposed to meet Racine and finds what he expected to see, a lonely, devoid-of-life open expanse in the dark. We get a flashback of his luncheon with Racine and find that he showed disinterest at a poetry reading that Racine arranged for her book club, which served as the starting point for their argument.

Racine (Cathy Roberts) Laments To Wyatt (VO By T.C. Smith) – Filmed By Yukio Uchida & Edited By T.C. Smith

Later, Wyatt lets himself into Racine’s apartment and like the rest of his world it is empty. He utters to himself that if he ever gets out of the predicament he now finds himself in, that he’ll read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass,” cover to cover. Driving through the night we hear Wyatt’s voice in his head as he talks to himself, trying to rationalize that there must be a simple explanation to all of this. He then notices that while there is absolutely no humans around, that many house’s lights are on. He screeches to a halt, gets out, and visits a house he picks at random and finds that the door is open and the a pot of boiling water is on the stove with a eggs inside. It seems that the people just vanished in the middle of a typical night at home.

Later, in his bed, Wyatt comes to the conclusion what he feels is the simplest, most logical of answers. He must be dreaming! So all he has to do is wake up from his dream. He wonders aloud about whether one ever literally realizes that they are in a dream, but no matter, being in a dream is the only logical answer. In fact, Wyatt falls back asleep and in a real dream, recalls a moment with Cameron, his since fired employee, which demonstrates how Cameron was always thinking up ways to do his work more efficiently, at the expense of efficiently just doing his work. Wyatt does wake up from this dream to a brand new morning but he is still in his phaseland. He utters to himself, “I am in some serious shit.”

Trying to get his mind to focus on some type of normalcy, Wyatt goes to the house of his most recent client, John Carter, where we get a flashback of their visit. John, who has a large property, tells him that he could do the work himself but figures if they can work out an arrangement where he can get periodic landscaping service without breaking his bank account, he would be willing to employ Wyatt’s services. They agree that Wyatt will periodically check on his property when he’s in the area, in between other jobs, and this way the bill will be something manageable. We return to the present and Wyatt does work around John’s property and after finishing leaves an invoice inside the front door on John’s porch.

Phaseland

Late at night, Wyatt is fast asleep and he gets a vision of Arthur who tells him that he’s placed Wyatt into this world he finds himself in, and that it was possible because he finally got the resources through the passage of the federal economic stimulus package. Arthur laughs and proclaims that this world is really the result of a miscellaneous line item buried deep in the stimulus budget, an inference to the notion that this is a clandestine government operation. Wyatt wakes up in a state of panic and through his continuing narrations we hear him say that he was only a couple of days into this predicament, but already he felt like he was going mad.

As the ensuing day is a Sunday, Wyatt decides to drive to the North Shore, something that he has been doing regularly for 10 years. As expected, he is the only man, seemingly, on the island. He spends time sitting on a tatami mat on the beach looking out to the ocean and just contemplating. As he drives home he realizes that he forgot the tatami mat. As he gets closer to home it is nightfall and he stops to look at the house he visited. Its lights are once again on as it was the night before. He processes this and drives on.

At home Wyatt boils some pasta and the boiling water further makes him think. After dinner he finally checks to see if the television works and he is shocked to find Arthur appearing on the screen. Wyatt asks Arthur what he wants and who is he? Arthur tells him that he’s basically an implant in Wyatt’s brain and that he can control all of Wyatt’s reality. Wyatt rages and asks Arthur why is he doing this? Arthur retorts that he wants Wyatt to stop his monkey music! Wyatt then awakens at night from what appears to be a dream. He later goes over to turn on the television and while Arthur does not materialize this time an equally strange thing occurs. He finds that every channel has a frozen image of the content on screen, indicating that all programming seemed to stop at a single point in time. In particular, he sees that the movie, “This Thing,” is frozen mid-scene.

The next day Wyatt works on the property of another client, a Mrs. Craft. Like at John’s place, he leaves an invoice inside the door on the front porch. As he drives to yet another client he passes John’s property and in the distance he notices that the invoice he left is no longer lodged in the side of the front door. He turns around and returns to John’s property and goes to the front door to search for the invoice that can’t be found. He calls out for John and peeks into the windows but gets no response. He then notices that all the work he did the other day doesn’t seem to have been done. It is as if he had never worked there.

Wyatt drives back to Mrs. Craft’s house and finds the situation the same. There is no invoice and the yard looks like he was never there. He then goes to his truck, checks the glove compartment, and looks through for the copies of the receipts he wrote for Mrs. Craft and John and can find nothing. He then notices that the tatami mat which he forgot at the beach, is rolled up to the side of the passenger seat.

Wyatt then rushes to the house with the boiling water where he finds, in spite of the fact that he turned the stove off, that the burner is back on and the water is still boiling. Nothing that he did the previous time he was there has changed what is happening in that house.

Later at night, while lying in bed, we hear his thoughts as he tries to piece things together. A thought arises. He checks his television again and sees, once more, the still shot of “The Thing” on the screen. He later returns to the house with the boiling water and this time clicks the remote to check the channels of the television there and sees the same image of a scene from “The Thing” that he saw at his house.

Back at his house, he frantically sifts through old newspapers to find the week’s TV Guide and searches for when “The Thing” played on television. He then checks his email account to find that the last email he received, for which he cannot open, was at 6:43 p.m. on the night that his new world began. Just as he is deducing that whatever happened, had to have happened after 6:43 p.m. and at a time when “The Thing” was playing on television, he encounters the image of Alice, who tells him that she will try and get him out of this predicament. But before he can get all the answers from her, she disappears. Wyatt wakes from yet another dream. Or was it? Frantic, Wyatt rushes out of the house and runs over to the front porch of Arthur’s and Alice’s house. He knocks on their front door and calls out for them but they are nowhere to be found.

Despondent, having no idea of how he’ll break from this realm, we see Wyatt living his days as the only man, seemingly, on the planet. He puts gas into his truck at a service station, walks around an empty mall, buys a papaya in a super market where he’s the only shopper, and walks back to his truck in a parking lot that has cars but absolutely no one in them. As he gets home, he methodically tries to go over the possible occurrences for how he got into this world, which includes the possibility that he is dead, and what a terrible place heaven really is. But then he reasons that maybe this after-life is terrible because he actually is not in heaven, but rather is trapped in hell. Later, in the depths of his despair, Wyatt sits in Racine’s apartment and reads a poem from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass.”

But miraculously, when he awakes the next morning, Wyatt finds he no longer is in phaseland. He is ecstatic and rushes outside to look around. But what he finds continues to be unsettling. For though the world looks normal again, he still seems to be the only man in existence. As Wyatt re-enters his house, he now encounters the image of Arthur, who explains that after 30 years he had finally discovered how to manipulate time through understanding how to control parallel worlds. He explains that the desserts that Alice brought over served to plant a micro chip into Wyatt which Arthur uses to control his time (the brownie), and also a sedative that knocked him out (the cookie), a requirement for the eventual transition to work. Arthur reiterates that this was all possible because he was finally allotted enough money to get all of the needed resources by being a line item in the government’s stimulus bill. This enabled him to create a type of time machine that literally fits within a suitcase which is solar powered, and which is the reason for his daily walks throughout the community.

Arthur boasts of how his invention is greater than the works of all of the great minds preceding him, men the likes of Einstein, Tesla, Newton, Gutenberg, Galileo, George Van Tassel, and Edward Leedskalnin, and declares that the “Ogattans” will put him into their hall of fame. As it becomes confirmed that Arthur is the culprit behind all of this, Wyatt again asks why? Arthur explains that basically Wyatt is his lab rat, and his world is his beta test site, but also because he doesn’t like Wyatt’s monkey music. Wyatt is incredulous (“Really”), and pleads for Arthur to release him from this prison. But it is clear that Arthur is stark roving mad.

Arthur explains that there is still more to do. Yes, he’s succeeded in taking away the phaseland effect, but there are still things that don’t add up, like why in Wyatt’s world he can do things which then appear like they’ve never been done once Wyatt revisits a place. But Arthur does provide a glimmer of hope to Wyatt when he mentions that maybe sometime in the future, once he gets all this figured out, he can return Wyatt to his normal world. But before he can expand on that, Arthur starts to cringe in pain. He calls out for Alice and then collapses and his image vanishes. Wyatt stands dumbfounded, a combination of confusion, anxiety, and depression.

But then Alice returns in an image. She explains to Wyatt that she has just killed Arthur by lacing his danish with cyanide, as he wasn’t well, and not the man she fell in love with 30 years ago. She explains that on their honeymoon they were in the process of driving to Palm Springs when the Ogattans – aliens who hailed from five planets in another galaxy, Ogatta, Arshan, Arka, Mennon, and Tchowvie, collectively referred to as the Ogattans – froze their car and them, and that Arthur was taken aboard their space ship and implanted with visions. She further elaborates the Ogattans are but one of many types of extraterrestrial visitors, and that aliens taught the Egyptians how to build the pyramids, the Mayans how to chart the skies, inspired Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Gutenberg, in fact, most of history’s greatest minds and philosophers.

Alice confesses that she stuck with Arthur because she knew that the obsessive maniacal genius he had become was a product of the Ogattans’ influence. It wasn’t really him. So she stuck it out for the hope of one day being able to go back in time, and now that Arthur had discovered how, that’s exactly what she’ll do. She tells Wyatt that she’ll go back to the day they decided to pick a destination for their honeymoon, and instead of driving to Palm Springs, she’s going to insist that they go on a Mexican cruise. Alice bids her farewell to Wyatt, who frantically tries to first ask her if she can get him out of the world he’s stuck in. But Alice disappears, and Wyatt screams, “What about me!”

We then hear the sound of a cell phone ringing and see Wyatt face down on his bed. It is in the afternoon and birds chirp in the background. Wyatt suddenly awakes and his eyes tell us he has no idea whether what he just experienced in fact happened, or, whether he’s awaking from yet another dream. But as he continues to hear his cell phone ringing it dawns on him that this is a sound he has not heard for a long time. He rushes to answer it and finds that it is Dew, asking him if he’s able to come over. Through Dew’s conversation, Wyatt realizes that it is still the day when he first fell asleep before attempting to meet Racine at the park. So he tells Dew that he won’t be joining him, for he needs to find out if Racine is all right. But before he signs off, he asks Dew, given he is a science fiction nerd, who exactly is George Van Tassel and Edward Leedskalnin?

Dew explains that Van Tassel built a building called the Integratron in Landers, California, which he claimed was capable of rejuvenation, anti-gravity and time travel. Van Tassel claimed that he was given the blue prints by visitors from the planet Venus, started its construction, but died before completing it exactly the way he was supposed to. Leedskalnin was the creator of the Coral Castle in Florida in the Miami-Dade County, which is a property with numerous carved megalithic stones, mostly limestone formed from coral, that weigh tons, which supposedly Leedskalnin built with no help from anyone. Dew further explains that some suggest Leedskalnin knew the properties of reverse magnetism, which he claimed was what the Egyptians used to build the pyramids. The information of both men, which curiously confirms portions of both Arthur’s and Alice’s conversations, leaves Wyatt standing in stunned silence.

Wyatt next calls Racine and finds that she is still waiting for him to join her at the park. He apologizes for taking long as he had fallen asleep. She tells him that is no problem since she broke away anyway to pick up some sandwiches and wine for them to have a twilight picnic dinner after their Frisbee toss. Wyatt closes his eyes and murmurs to himself, “Thank God.”

As he later readies to leave in his truck, he glances over to Arthur’s and Alice’s house. It beckons to him. He sees a woman in the front yard watering her plants. The woman, Amy Sanders, asks what she can do for him. Wyatt asks to speak to Alice, but is told by Amy that no one by that name lives there. Wyatt nods and gets it. He realizes that Alice Plank, and her husband, nemesis Arthur Plank, have never lived next door, which confirms that Alice succeeded in turning back time.

Wyatt (T.C. Smith) Meets Amy (Christine Tsuzaki) – Filmed By T.C. Smith & Christine Tsuzaki & Edited By Christine Tsuzaki

Later, Wyatt checks his computer. It is now working and he Googles “Arthur and Alice Plank,” and finds their Facebook page. There, he sees Arthur and Alice smiling in a recent portrait, along with other photos of their family. Wyatt smiles and says, “Way to go, Alice.”

We end our story with a shot of Wyatt and Racine tossing a Frisbee in the park.

Casting

Scheduled to participate in this project and play the characters are (see the montage of photos below), in order of appearance starting from the top left and proceeding left to right from the top row to the bottom row: Thomas Smith as Wyatt Smith; Lance Motogawa as Daniel Mochizuki; Steven Dillard as Arthur Plank; Maseeh Ganjali as Dew Mansheer; Leslie Brown as Alice Plank; Cathy Roberts as Racine Watters; Maka Bailon as Cameron Santiago; Michael Carter as John Carter; and Christine Tsuzaki as Amy Sanders.

Production & Post Production

Phaseland had two members of its cast – Cathy Roberts and Maseeh Ganjali (see inset photo) – who were in the actors union and as such, YBS applied the project as a Micro-Budget Production with SAG-AFTRA. Director Thomas Smith, was himself a member of SAG-AFTRA for years. However, in August 2023, he opted to become Financial Core, and because of this was thus able to work on this project without SAG-AFTRA approval. Thomas filmed all of his solo scenes from late August 2023 through January 2024 and edited the movie as he went along. The other non-union actors – Steven Dillard, Leslie Brown, Lance Motogawa, Michael Carter, Maka Bailon, and Christine Tsuzaki – if they had scenes with Thomas’ character of Wyatt Smith, had either filmed them with him during this time span, or, had already filmed their individual scenes prior to this period. In actuality, by the time of the projected Micro-Budget shoot date of April 1st, the only scenes left to film were the ones involving Cathy (as Racine Watters) and Maseeh (as Dew Mansheer) and these were shot on three days during the first week in April, 2024, with Cathy working for three days, and Maseeh working for one. As part of the Micro-Budget rules, YBS and the actors were free to negotiate all terms of their employment as SAG-AFTRA did not set forth any minimum terms and conditions. Hence, while all the non-union actors agreed to act pro bono, YBS negotiated that it would compensate the union actors, Cathy and Maseeh, at a daily flat rate for each day worked and were paid accordingly. Given that Thomas has literally edited all of the other scenes (aside from the Racine and Dew scenes), it is anticipated that final picture lock will be achieved very quickly after the production shoot was completed on April 6th, 2024. The goal is that by April 20th, 2024, Phaseland will be completed in full and will be ready for online distribution on free-to-consumer new media platforms where: 1) the consumer does not pay for access to the project; and 2) the producer (YBS) has not received compensation for the right to distribute or exhibit the project. NOTE: These were the specific uses designated by YBS’ approved SAG-AFTRA Micro-Budget production.

A Sneak Preview

Give talented Thomas “T.C.” Smith (see inset photo) a camera, an iPhone, his own edit bay, and of course his ingenuity for capturing images of his character, Wyatt, coping in a world where he is the only human being on the planet, and you get a wonderful peak into his filmmaking style. This includes innovative camera angles, effective jump cuts, his singing and songwriting using music created by instruments he created himself, and the use of innovative special effects. The following preview scenes are taken from the rough cut. The first scene shows our hero, Wyatt Smith, on a typical work day as he leaves his house and drives off to do the yardwork for one of his clients on a beautiful sunny Hawaii day. The second depicts Wyatt waking up to a world where everything seems different, where what seems real is beginning to feel unreal, as he starts seeing things. Is what he sees actually there, or is Wyatt having some kind of mind-bending breakdown? The third scene shows Wyatt, well into the new world which – whether real or a figment of his imagination – has settled for living within his isolation, during which time he thinks back to his time with Racine Watters, the girlfriend he could have supported more. In the fourth and final scene, after already discovering that mad Arthur Plank is responsible for his dilemma, he finds himself being somehow transported to the beach where Arthur, the arch villain of our story, appears in a portal in the sky to tell him what his fate is. He’s a lab rat.

“Taking Care Of Business” – Wyatt (T.C. Smith) On A Typical Work Day – Filmed & Edited By T.C. Smith

“Just Before The Storm” – Wyatt (T.C. Smith) Suspects Something’s Amiss – Filmed & Edited By T.C. Smith 

Wyatt Alone With His Memories And Trying To Make The Best Of His Time In Phaseland 

“Fever Dream” – Wyatt (T.C. Smith) Sees Arthur (Steven Dillard) – Filmed By Steven Dillard & T.C. Smith, & Edited By T.C. Smith

For information on other movies produced by Yellow Brick Studio / LegacyVision Films click HERE.