Logline:

Art, an introverted technophobe is a dying breed. He owns a record store and sings in a folk band. His neighbor invents a revolutionary way of emailing 3D attachments so he could sell the same record over and over again. He makes a mistake and attaches himself to an undeliverable email address. He wakes  up in an alternate reality where he makes a fortune re-recording the hits of his generation as “originals”, but he finds his only true satisfaction comes from a fading connection to the real world

Synopsis:

A vehicle for concept comedy and causality

Art is the owner and operator of Art’s Record Store. The store is failing and he makes ends meet by busking in front of the nearby mobile phone store. He wants to change the world. He is a frustrated writer that pulls together the bleak side of life. He has three trilogies of the soul, that remain unpublished even though they have circulated extensively in the publishing industry. He has something that everyone recognizes, but he doesn’t know how to connect with his audience. His girl, Mary, is a modern dancer who is far too good for him. They are waiting until he is satisfied before they get married. She has come to recognize that he will always only be her boyfriend, and she’s not sure if she can live with that.

Another crushing rejection from the world of publishing coincides with a Dear Art letter. He is about to sacrifice his laptop, but his neighbor develops a means to send 3D attachments. This is a business changer. He can sell the same record over and over again.

However, he makes a mistake and emails himself as an attachment – who can print him out? The email address is undeliverable and Art wakes up in an alternate reality.

He wakes up to find his own name is on the grave and his driver’s license bears his brother’s name. But he hasn’t changed. The world has. Everything after his date of birth is different.

He finds that Elvis is still alive, but the Beatles never broke through, and struggled. The Internet is there, but Microsoft is completely unheard of. Every institution that has a creative component has changed. It almost seems random who gets chosen to Art. He feels better about his own struggles. His computer is still connected to the Internet in his reality and he gets emails from Mary. He has disappeared of course. It doesn’t phase him, he’s got an entire world of publishers to reject him.

He dangles his work out to the world and gets the same interest, but no breakthrough. He listens to his ipod while writing revisions. He goes to the record store to find some new music. None of the bands are the same. He buys the Bandanimals – the most popular band in the world – their greatest hits and puts the CD in his computer. He listens. They’re good, really good, but he misses some of his favorite songs. Then he realizes he can download them from the Internet.

He gets the idea to supplement his income the way he did in his reality. He sings in front of his store. He sings the songs of his world. He becomes an overnight sensation. Then he branches out and starts publishing popular books. His ideas that rock the world. His company becomes a goliath churning out patented ideas from his connection to an alternate world. He becomes so powerful that when his actual book is published the reviewers refuse to criticize it.

This shakes him. He tries to get in touch with Mary in this world and finds her taken. No amount of money or fame shakes her devotion. This kind of commitment, he discovers, is what he wants. There is nowhere he can go to be anonymous, everything he does is public. The crowds and the adoration become a different kind of prison.

He gets an email from his own world’s Mary, she’s giving up on him and she’s moving on. She plans a date with someone, and she’s going on it, unless she sees him. He recreates the attachment but the undeliverable address doesn’t work. It is only when he decides to email himself to Mary that things change.

He wakes up on the bench where the first met. She walks by on her way to her date, stops, and sits beside him. He finally realizes the true meaning of wealth as he has lost everything he ever wanted and found something real in the world. He is experiencing happiness for the first time.