The Story

Teddy and Phoebe are a young, recently split couple trying to survive the last few weeks of their lease together. When Phoebe gets a tip to call a mysterious number written on an arcade bathroom, it sends her on a sprawling, often surreal journey down a series of rabbit holes. In the meantime, Teddy navigates a new love (with the help of the kindly old man living in his closet). With their old lives coming to an end, both Phoebe and Teddy must do everything they can to find new ones.

Genesis of the World

This film was borne out of the anonimity of life in a new city (Austin, Texas), from late night encounters with interesting characters we never saw again, to seeing valued friends we once saw constantly, now only for a night or so as they passed through town onto bigger things. As writers and directors, we’ve pushed each other to be more personal, more precise, funnier, and to make less obvious creative choices. After several shorts and scripts, as well as years of bouncing ideas big and small off of each other, we decided we felt ready to create our own feature film.  We wanted to channel universal emotions, but through a film that took chances and handled things differently than a standard micro-budget feature (such as having about 300,000 locations and a vast array of colorful characters).

Growing the Population

What began as a synthesis of our two voices became something much bigger than the two of us, as we approached other key creatives for the project. We found that others were responding to what we’d come up with, relating to the feelings we’d baked into the script, sizzle reel, pitch slideshow. A line we dropped in our first meeting with our producer echoed something she’d been told a week before at a strange moment in her life. We went to bars with our lead actors and talked about the project, and were moved to see how much they were willing to open up to us to help build it. Our cinematographer even turned down working on the camera department of Martin Scorsese’s upcoming The Irishman, so if an insert of someone’s hand turning a doorknob in that film looks a little out of focus, feel free to yell at us. Our (Ultimate) world expanded as the cast and crew came together.

The Shoot and Beyond

The shoot was an exhausting, exhilarating experience, everyone on set working half a dozen positions to get what we needed, while squeezing in new, important scenes into our already packed schedule because we knew the film would be better for them. We captured things with this film - the talents of a variety of people we’ve met over the years, some of the places that make Austin what it is (including a beloved video store the day before its closing). And since this vision grew beyond the two of us into this, we’re ready for it to grow more in the hands of our friends and other professionals. That’s why we’re here, raising money for post-production. We’re ready for people to experience the extreme specificity of the film, while feeling less alone with the weird transitional moments in life where certain things we’ve taken for granted seem to slip away from us, and we either fight to hold on or to hurry the process up. We hope you can all become a part of this, whether you simply watch it or enjoy it, show it to others, get inspired in some way, or make weird anime fan art (why not - we’d be glad to see it). It’s been great so far, but we know the best is yet to come!

The Ultimate Future

Since we have all of our footage already shot, all we need are those final elements of post production to make this film the best it can be. With your help and pledges we can raise our goal of just under $25,000 to ensure that this film utilizes every penny to pay our dedicated post production staff as well as engage viewers at film festivals across the world and streaming platforms available in your hometown.

Join our pride in this Ultimate World as we seek to expand our community of artists, friends, and viewers across all walks of life!