In 1998 at a restaurant in Los Angeles, two friends sat together sipping drinks dreaming of the day when they would take over Hollywood. From this point, Myles Sorenson and Grand Valley State University alumnus Clifford Fields went their separate ways in the film industry, but remained friends through it all.

In 2011, Sorenson and Fields came together with an entire cast and crew to begin filming “Plato’s Reality Machine” in New York City. It was a leap toward making that lingering dream come true.

“Independent film is a series of challenges,” Fields said. “You have to climb this mountain, and every time you think you figured it out and that you’re at the top, you realize you’re not at the top yet.”

It took Sorenson a couple of years to write and finalize a film-worthy screenplay. “Plato’s Time Machine” is a 79-minute tale of six people in New York City trying to figure out how to date, live and survive in society.

“I had this idea maybe about five or six years ago about doing a film about the intermingling relationships of six people in New York,” Sorenson said. “I had that idea, and I was working on it and I wanted to have this energy element to it.

“I also wanted this third element to make it more visual. And so a little bit later on, I came up with this idea of having the video game part in the film.”

Before the film’s world premiere at the Oaxaca Film Festival in Mexico, Sorenson went on a little journey with his producers Owen Cooper, Padmini Narumanchi, Christopher Vitale and Fields, along with the rest of the cast and crew.

The journey began with the decision to register the film through the Screen Actors Guild. In order to be a part of the SAG organization, stipulations had to be met.

“There is a lot of paperwork, and there are a lot of hoops you have to jump through,” Sorenson said. “It is worth it because you get access to higher caliber actors.”

One actress in particular was on Sorenson’s radar from the beginning. Trieste Kelly Dunn is an actress from Utah and is well known for her variety of roles. Dunn was cast as Zoe in “Plato’s Reality Machine.”

By meeting the SAG qualifications, the film was able to cast seven experienced actors in the film. Altogether, 18 cast and crew members were involved in this film.

One of the stipulations of a SAG film is good pay and benefits for actors, which meant the film needed a stable budget. Funding for the film came from a Kickstarter campaign, marketing and Sorenson’s savings account.

“(Sorenson) really felt like this was something that could be created on an independent budget,” Fields said.

Once the funding was secured and the actors were cast, the crew prepared for filming.

In August 2011, the cast and crew took over Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn for 10 days to film the movie. For those 10 days, each person involved worked around the clock to complete the film.

“When you are shooting with actors from New York on a New York street at three in the morning, it couldn’t get more real than that,” Fields said. “Hollywood films might have rented a sound stage in Toronto or Los Angeles and fake it all. But that adds to the kind of independent film (feeling) when every single second was on location.”

Uniquely, this film contains not only actors and the real world, but it also includes a CGI element and the digital world of video games.

“(Sorenson) was adamant that there was one piece missing,” Fields said. “He wanted to write about six New Yorkers and their adventures, but he wanted to combine that with reality television kind of confessional interviews, but he still didn’t have the whole story. The film wasn’t complete.

“So about six or eight months later, he came to me and said ‘I figured it out. I am going to do video game animation.’”

The story line of two animated characters is interwoven throughout the film.

“The most important thing for me was how unique it was in its storytelling techniques,” Fields said. “We are aware of one film in Europe that came out maybe five or six years ago that used this video game animation in a film. So this is, as far as we know, the first American film to do that.”

Over the past year, “Plato’s Time Machine” has been shown at over a dozen film festivals, won multiple awards and on Jan. 20, 2015, it will be available to purchase on iTunes.

The road to complete the film wasn’t easy, but Fields and Sorenson agree it was worth it. The experience inspired them to continue to pursue their dream, and to create films in the future.

“To know people are watching it and that people are appreciating it is kind of the reason we do this, because no one makes an independent film thinking we are going to make money,” Fields said. “At the end of the day, being told you won best feature film at the John Hopkins Film Festival or being told you won best Sci-Fi at the Manhattan Film Festival, that just proves we were working for something worth all that effort.”

For more information on “Plato’s Reality Machine” or to pre-order the film visit
platosrealitymachine.com.

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