About 1000 years ago or 2010, I wrote and produced what would become an award winning short science fiction film called “White Room: 02b3” While producing at Roddenberry Entertainment (Yes, the family that created Star Trek), I was introduced to a strange and new technology, and asked if I want to write a short film for said technology. I’ve been writing for as long as I could remember, so for this to literally fall into my lap, was an amazing thing!

Starring one of my oldest childhood friends Breckin Meyer, Tamlyn Tomita, David Blue and Rachel True, as well as Internet icons Tony Janning and Milynn Sarley, White Room: 02B3 is a film short about six strangers who wake up in a white room to find out they are part of an extraordinary experiment that could change the face of humanity forever.

This was such a weird project to write as I had to write it for a brand new technology that no one had ever written a narrative film for, 360 degrees.  White Room: 02B3 is a first-of-its-kind film. It was shot using a cutting-edge 360° camera system. Sitting in the middle of the single-room set, the camera captures 360-degrees outwardly in high-definition panoramic video with no gaps or distortion during filming. With a 360° camera, all actors are filmed simultaneously, presenting a unique challenge for myself, the actors and the director, my dear friend Greg Aronowitz. The script had to incorporate relevant information for characters that would normally be off camera, and every actor in the room has to be in character while the camera is rolling with no opportunities to cut until the end of a scene. It was like filmed theater in the round.

Above is the one sheet for the film, it is kind of simple, and blah. Greg and I both liked the first version which is below, but we lost the battle to our executive producers. There were also a couple other awesome takes on the one sheet. Check them out!

We had three days to shoot the film and an insanely small budget. The film is 15 minutes long, so we took the first two days to shoot the traditional version of the film, this also gave the actors a chance to really warm up to their parts, as on the third day, it would be none stop madness. Day three came, and once we had the actors sealed into the set, there was no turning back, once the 360 rig started rolling, and Greg literally yelled, ACTION, the were off and running! With a couple hiccups out of the way, these actors were amazing! Each one a master of their role, and it was like watching a symphony. We got through about three complete takes, non-stop, then decided to break it up into segments lasting as long as the next person was alive. Each time a character disappeared, it gave us a chance to stop and take a moment before moving on to the next actor.

One of the coolest things to happen for us, Greg happened to be really good friends with one of the sweetest men any human could ever meet, the one and only Doug Jones! With a little asking and lots of fingers crossed, Doug agreed to be in our little film, and he was simply AWESOME! Fuck! What a great dude!!!

The funniest part about this whole thing, we were a few years ahead of our time. The 360 rig we used was pretty massive, and today, I have a full blown 360 camera that I carry in my pocket that shoots 4k! Ha!

The film was submitted to a few film festivals and was selected into these: