The Multiverse Syndrome

The origin of this film began when I once stumbled upon this wild theory that what if schizophrenia was really just people experiencing other parallel universes. Of course, the flipside of that is more likely, where people who think they're experiencing alternate realities are actually just suffering from the symptoms of schizophrenia, a serious mental illness that affects around 1% of the population worldwide.

The scientific and philosophical concept of the multiverse has long fascinated me, having read into the research on quantum mechanics and its existential implications. I also wanted to portray some of the experiences and symptoms of those diagnosed with schizophrenia to shed light on such a misunderstood condition, which has often been portrayed negatively in media in the past.

The choice to shoot it on an iPhone rather than cinema rigged cameras was a last minute decision when the production schedule kept getting delayed due to various factors. With a deadline looming, I opted to use my iPhone 14 Pro as the camera of choice as well as my 11-inch iPad Pro M2 as a wireless remote and monitor.

Shooting on a smartphone allowed me incredible agility in the production where I was able to accomplish principal filming within a single day. With the ability to shoot in the industry-standard ProRes codec as well as in an equivalent Arri Alexa Log-C colour profile via a paid professional camera app (Protake+) I didn't have to sacrifice quality while achieving efficiency in workflow.