FEATURE: Digital Physics

[jdkhanlian]

Hey DVX Users,

I wanted to share the trailer for my feature film that has just gone through post production and will hopefully be playing film festivals in 2015. I'd be happy to share any of my experiences that may be helpful to others. I know I have learned a lot from the DVXUser forums, so I'd like to give back in any way possible.

I bought Barry Green's DVD on sound after reading all of his helpful posts on DVXUser. I research which camera, lens adapter, and lenses I wanted to use at DVXUser. I got advice on how to remove a car from a scene from DVXUser. There are many things I learned here by just reading encouraging and informative discussion, asking questions, and getting support from the community. I can without a doubt say that this website was the single greatest internet resource that helped me in my film education. I did not go to film school, but it is communities like this that allowed me a great education.

Synopsis:

Set in a hostel in the 1980s, 'Digital Physics' follows Khatchig, a man searching for truth in mathematics, physics, logic, and life. As Khatchig monopolizes the sole computer in the hostel to make sense of a counter-intuitive result, he has an epiphany: We may be living in a computer simulation.

Khatchig sets out to find the program that will be the code for our universe while trying to avoid being kicked out of the hostel. As his theories take him deeper into a questionable mental state, Khatchig must deal with the derision from those around him, unrequited love, and his own self-destructive nature.

The concepts explored in 'Digital Physics' are based on the works of Gottfried Leibniz, Alan Turing, Stephen Wolfram, Gregory Chaitin, Albert Einstein, Ed Fredkin, Kurt Gödel and many other mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, and philosophers.

A few Tech Specs about the film:

SAG Ultra-Low Budget Agreement
20ish shooting days over a 4 week period with a big cast and a small crew + (pick-up shots on nights and weekends after I needed to return to my job to get the last 25%)
HPX170 + Letus + Nikon AI lenses
Premiere and After Effects

Website:
http://www.digitalphysicsmovie.com

There's a lot more information I'd love to share, but too much to put in an initial post. I'll do my best to get back to people's questions, but since I have a full-time job, it may take a day or so. (Somebody's got to make some money to squander it all on a film)

Viva la cinema!

 

[combatentropy]

Looks like fun. It seems like some kind of mix between Woody Allen and Darren Aronofsky.

I actually have been interested in digital physics, information theory, etc., for some time now.

Production looks pretty good too. Writing, acting, camerawork (except for, what's up with that shot of the girl chewing him out in the middle of the trailer where she's mostly turned away from the camera?).

Let us know when we can watch it.

 

[jdkhanlian]

Thanks for your kind words, Combat Entropy. With a name like that, if you weren't interested in "Digital Physics" there'd be no hope for the movie. Who is your favorite digital physics scientist? Or who do you think has some of the most compelling ideas?

I do see some similarities with Aronofsky's "Pi", but I wasn't expecting Woody Allen... but I'll take it. As for that one profile shot of the girl, I see what you mean. I guess I didn't mind seeing just her eyes and the rest of her face only briefly. Her hair did sort of fall in the way during the shot and there was a little less of her cheating her performance towards the camera then when the scene started.

I'll hopefully have some film festival news in the next couple months, and then after that hopefully there will be a place to watch it on the world wide web. There is a email list sign-up on the movie's website if you want to get my infrequent news updates.

 

[combatentropy]

I signed up for your mailing list. Thanks!

I'm interested in digital physics and related fields like relativity, quantum mechanics, information theory, and string theory, but in all of them I'm an amateur. I enjoyed this article, God Is the Machine.

I also hope to read Einstein's theory of relativity, which I've heard was written in pretty easy-to-understand words. I've also heard of Richard Feynman and that he likewise puts physics in plain English. Did you know that his lectures and videos are on the web for free?

Besides all that I've enjoyed some quotes attributed to Claude Shannon, and I hope to study his writings some day too. I'm just a bit burned out by work and all, and when I come home I don't feel like reading.

 

[jdkhanlian]

Thanks for signing up for the mailing list! I think I had read that Wired article before at some point, but it had been a while, so it was nice to read it again.

I am a armchair physicist/scientist as well. In some sense, Feynman was too, in that I think a lot of his learning came from independent analysis of the world, questioning conventional wisdom from academic authority figures, and pursing knowledge for "the pleasue of finding things out." Khatchig, Digital Physics's main character, definitely has a little of Feynman in him... although Feynman was much better articulating complicated ideas in layman's terms.

I see you are from Austin. Did you see Computer Chess?