US premiere at SF Doc Fest

June 12th 7:00pm and June 15th 9:15pm
15th San Francisco Documentary Festival
June 2-16th

From filmmaking to physics, controlling mortality has long been a creative and scientific pursuit. Fixated on the possibility of conquering time, two men find inspiration by bringing facets of H.G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine to life. Animator Rob Niosi has devoted years to obsessively replicating the time machine prop from the 1960 feature film adaptation. Meanwhile, theoretical physicist Ron Mallett has dedicated his lifetime of research to better understanding black holes and their time portal potential. Both are driven by personal tragedies that time won't heal. Quirky and fun, this is an entertaining exploration of the power of film to act as a gateway to the fourth dimension while making a compelling explanation of how science fiction might not be that far-fetched after all.
-Chris Metzler

How to Build a Time Machine will be
screening at AFI Docs on June 25th!

Jay Cheel
Director of How to Build a Time Machine

Jay Cheel is a documentary filmmaker from St.Catharines, Ontario. His feature debut, Beauty Day, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of their Canadian Front programming series. The film was also an official selection at the Hot Docs international film festival and was nominated in the 'Best Documentary' category of the 2012 Genie Awards. Previously, Jay worked for video game developer Silicon Knights, where he directed the short film 'The Goblin Man of Norway', a viral marketing film for the XBox 360 game 'Too Human'. Jay is the editor and founder of The Documentary Blog and is the co-host of the Film Junk Podcast.

Teaser Trailer

.

Director: Jay Cheel
Producers: Kevin McMahon, Kristina McLaughlin, Michael McMahon
Executive Producer: Michael McMahon
Editor: Jay Cheel
Cinematographer: Jay Cheel
Composers: Justin Small, Ohad Benchetrit
Sound: Roman Pizzacalla, Grant Edmonds
Featuring: Dr. Ronald Mallett, Rob Niosi, Don Coleman, Bob Burns

Fast & Scientific Productions
Primitive Entertainment

HotDocs.ca

How to Build a Time Machine
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS | 82 MINUTES | 2016 | CANADA | ENGLISH | WORLD PREMIERE RATING: G

Screened on:
Mon, May 2
6:30 PM Isabel Bader Theatre

Tue, May 3
10:00 AM TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

Sat, May 7
8:45 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

From filmmaking to physics, controlling mortality has long been a creative and scientific pursuit. Fixated on the possibility of conquering time, two men find inspiration by bringing facets of H.G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine to life. Animator Rob Niosi has devoted years to obsessively replicating the time machine prop from the 1960 feature film adaptation. Meanwhile, theoretical physicist Ron Mallett has dedicated his lifetime of research to better understanding black holes and their time portal potential. Both are driven by personal tragedies that time won't heal. Using Niosi's meticulous construction of his replica machine set against archival material where he describes the mechanics of motion pictures, Jay Cheel crafts an entertaining exploration of the power of film to act as a gateway to the fourth dimension. These cinematic visuals entwine with Mallett's compelling explanation of how science fiction might not be that far-fetched after all.
~ Alexander Rogalski

Proffessor Ronald Mallett prior to the premiere of How to Build a Time Machine

Jay Cheel welcoming Prof. Mallett to the stage after the screening

Rob Niosi, Prof. Ron Mallett, Jay Cheel and HotDocs Host

Photo by Joseph Michael Photography

The tfs.ca

HOT DOCS 2016 REVIEW: HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE
Posted by William Brownridge | May 1, 2016 | Canadian, Festivals, Hot Docs 2016
Hot Docs 2016 Review: How to Build a Time Machine

Rob Niosi and Ron Mallett almost couldn’t be any different. Niosi has worked as an animator his whole life, while Mallett has studied to become a theoretical physicist. What both men have in common is an obsession with time travel. As a child, Niosi watched The Time Machine and has been working on a replica of the machine from the film for over 9 years. Mallett was left without a father at a young age and has dreamt of time travel ever since, working through the years to become a theoretical physicist while studying the reality of time travel on the side. They both want to recapture something from their youth, and while time travel could essentially do that for them, would it even be a possibility if they could do it?
How to Build a Time Machine is one part sci-fi film and one part educational video. Movie lovers will enjoy watching Niosi’s prop slowly take shape, while anybody with an interest in the actual application of time travel will be fascinated by Mallett and his work.

Filled with nostalgia and regret, both Niosi and Mallett approach their lives in a similar fashion. There’s something they want again. Whether it’s Mallett mourning the loss of his father, or Niosi trying to capture a moment in time, the idea of time travel offers a solution. It’s more realistic than you would imagine, which makes Mallett’s work so intriguing, but it’s not really about achieving time travel. It’s about two men coming to terms with their place in life and understanding that the past is a part of where they are now.

IS HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE ESSENTIAL FESTIVAL VIEWING?
If time travel fascinates you, don’t miss this one. There’s a sweetness to the nostalgic aspects of the film that you’ll get swept up with, and the science behind Mallett’s work is intriguing to hear. This is an all around wonderful experience.

24News.ca

How H.G. Wells inspired two men to build a time machine in hopes of mending a heartbreaking past

Movies are time machines. All of them provide a window into the past, whether it’s the 16 seconds since you made that iPhone video of your cat, or the 120 years since the Lumière brothers shot footage of a steam train entering a station.

Source
They are also storehouses of the dead. Everyone in that 1896 film – indeed, everyone on Earth that day, all 1.6 billion of them – is gone.

So it is perhaps not surprising that some of our strongest reactions to film come about when the science and fiction of time travel collide on celluloid. In 1960, Rod Taylor starred in a filmed adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, written in 1895. Two little boys discovered the story soon after, and have been working to duplicate the feat ever since.

How to Build a Time Machine is Canadian director Jay Cheel’s look at these men’s stories. In many ways, they could not be more different. Rob Niosi is constructing a perfect replica of the machine from the movie, starting with a barber chair purchased from a Rockefeller estate auction, and adding metal rails, a rotating disc, crystal controls and flashing lights.

Ron Mallett, meanwhile, is a theoretical physicist working on the science of time travel. His device at the University of Connecticut is a stack of super-cooled ring lasers, bathed in dry ice and an unearthly, perhaps untimely green glow.

“It’s about nostalgia and obsessiveness,” Cheel says of his movie, which has its world premiere May 2 as part of the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, before a wider theatrical release this summer. “It’s trying to achieve perfection, and having to get over the fact that not everything is perfect.”

Cheel’s subjects also have very different goals. Niosi hopes his beautiful Victorian device will last for generations, travelling some 200 years into the future, albeit in real time. He imagines his great-great-grandchildren puzzling over what to do with it.

Mallett is haunted by the death of his beloved father, which happened when the boy was just 10. Since then, he has dedicated his life to understanding how time travel could work, with a notion that he might somehow warn his 33-year-old dad of the impending heart attack.

Mallett will have no great-great-grandchildren; he decided to remain childless, lest his offspring love him less than he did his own father. “It’s almost like a curse for him,” Cheel says sadly, “though I don’t know if he would see it that way.”

Cheel’s curiosity is more cinematic: “I had been interested in time travel in terms of storytelling,” he says. Films can compress or extrude time; an unbroken take shows real time, while a jump cut can leap over a minute or a million years. He was also entranced by location footage shot prior to 1979. “Anything filmed before I was born is immediately interesting,” he says. “It feels like you’re looking through a window.”

But in interviewing Niosi he saw additional parallels between time and film. In the ’80s, Niosi was an animation director for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and might spend eight hours creating 12 seconds of stop-motion footage. If a spaceship were to accelerate to 99.97 per cent of light speed, time dilation due to relativity would make 12 seconds for the traveller equal eight hours on Earth. “Cinema as a time machine,” says Cheel.

How to Build a Time Machine isn’t even Cheel’s first foray into the subject. A student film he made in 2005, Obsessed & Scientific – watchable on Vimeo and featuring a cheeky copyright date of MCMLX – shows a younger Niosi hard at work on his time machine.

Obsessed & Scientific also explored the story of John Titor, an alleged time traveler from 2036 who posted on Internet bulletin boards at the turn of the century; his predictions have since been discredited. “There’s a sincerity that would have been annihilated by this John Titor thing,” Cheel says of his decision to leave this part of the story out of How to Build a Time Machine.

He’s much more interested in the twin tales of the craftsman and the physicist. Niosi is driven by a sense of romance and adventure; when he sits in his creation, it’s as though he’s a Victorian gentleman-scientist travelling forward to our age. For Mallett, his research offers a potential solution to a personal trauma.

'It will bring the future to you': Iranian scientist claims he's invented a time machine
How Back To The Future rides its DeLorean through the rich tradition of time travelling fiction
“Smoosh these two guys together and you get one character,” says Cheel. Put a future version of Mallett’s laser-ring device in Niosi’s built-to-last engine, and maybe you’ve got a time machine.

“Science fiction can inspire real science – or art,” says the director. How to Build a Time Machine is itself proof of that.

RPF Pulse

How to Build a Time Machine is a documentary by Jay Cheel which explores the stories of two men who are obsessed with building their own time machines inspired by H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.

The film will be premiering on May 2 at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto and you can purchase tickets here. It will also be screening at the DOXA Festival in Vancouver on May 7. More screenings including at US film festivals are currently in the works. Thanks to Birth.Movies.Death. for all the details.

How to Build a Time Machine follows two men as they set out on a journey to build their own time machines.

Rob Niosi is a stop motion animator who has spent the last 13 years obsessively constructing a full-scale replica of the time machine prop from the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. It's his attempt to recapture the memory of seeing the film in theatres with his father.

Dr.Ron Mallett is a theoretical physicist whose story begins with a tragedy. He was only 10 years old when his father died suddenly of a heart attack. Distraught, he sought solace in science-fiction. After reading The Time Machine, Ron dedicated his life to studying physics. He has since become a professor at the University of Connecticut and is now working on building a real time machine in the hopes that he might go back in time to save his father's life.

TwitchFilm
Hot Docs 2016 Review: HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE Beautifully Mixes Craft And Emotion
by Kurt Halfyard

The famous Serenity Prayer of american theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is as follows: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Jay Cheel's beautifully rendered How To Build A Time Machine tells the stories of two men who are on the verge of that wisdom, and in the act of telling, examines line between our boundless imagination and the rigorous nuts and bolts of acquiring the knowledge required to achieve some measure of it.

Shot over five years, the film follows former Pee Wee's Playhouse animator Rob Niosi who has been building a replica prop of the time machine from George Pal's 1960 film adaptation of H.G. Well's The Time Machine. What started as a fun 3 month project has, through is own peculiar, yet charming, Sisyphean nature, has blown out to nearly a decade. This is a peak into the psyche of a stop-motion animator whose entire working day might yield only seconds of usuable film.

Rob's father took him (and his brother) to see The Time Machine when he was a little boy, where they both became fascinated with the central machine. His father was instrumental in his son moving toward a career in animation, providing tools and encouragement and advice along the way. Implicit in Niosi's recreationf of the time machine is to recapture the pure impression he had of that perfect day at the cinema with his family.

The film juxtaposes magnificent montages of Niosi meticulously crafting each brass or mahogany part for the prop replicate together with the academics of Dr. Ronald Mallett, a physicist at the University of Connecticut whose scientific career has been a pursuit of the hard science of time travel.

Significant is the muse that drives these men, completely different relationships with their respective fathers, which gives the movie a surprising emotional resonance. If father-son stuff affects you as much as it does me, you might want to pack some tissue. Mallett lost his father to a heart attack when he was about the same age that Niosi was in rapture watching Morlocks fighting the Eloi at the movies.

The core motivation of decades of complex theory and practical experimentation is the dream of the possibility to go back and warn his father of his weak heart, and the young boy, who idolized him, that would be left fatherless at such a young age. And yes, Mallett also idolized a comic book version of H.G. Well's science fiction story which he believes put him on the circuitous path to a doctorate degree.

In 2006, Mallett told his story with his autobiography, "The Time Traveler," which Spike Lee optioned to make as a film; Mallett is one of the only black PhD physicists in the United States in the early 1970s. The relationship of Mallett and his father as a boy, and his father's gaping absence as man, is a compelling one. Mallett directly address the camera and in his own words tells the story of his life and his life's work. For a film nerd like myself, who has read Mallett's book, it is notable that his theories of time travel form the basis of Shane Carruth's hard science fiction masterpiece, Primer. You (or, more realistically an isolated sub-atomic particle) can only go so far back in time as when you first turn the machine on, no further.

Masterfully stitching these two narratives together in a way that recalls Errol Morris' Fast Cheap And Out Of Control, Cheel's associations ask many of the big questions of time travel: the grand father paradox, the ethics and social consequences of making changes to (or even being present in) the past, and the desire to know the future. He also delves into the notion that cinema is the best time travel machine we have ever possessed, we can see actors and people that have been dead for decades, we can slow down or speed up time with our photography.

Case in point, we watch five years worth of Cheel's own documentary filmmaking condensed into 82 minutes. More importantly, the movies, book, and comics that we read often provide the fuel for the decades of hard, grinding work (in Niosi's case that is both literal and figurative) to achieve only a fraction of our dreams, and coming to grips the fact that while perfection is impossible, it is the pursuit of it that is the worthy thing.

My favourite scene in the film is Niosi singlehandedly rolling a 10 foot diameter copper-anodized dish up a large hill on his leafy upstate New York estate, so it can bleach a little in the sun to achieve the perfect shade in his mind. The story of Sisyphus and the pursuits of mankind in perfect miniature. A more subtle image of Ron in his teaching office has a small can of WD-40 lubricant just within reach; I like the idea that a theoretical physicist is only a short distance from getting the squeaky wheel into motion.

While Mallett's theories confirm the fact he will never be able, personally, to go back in time to warn his father (and possibly obliterate his own timeline -- again, go see Primer), his life experience yields the wisdom that somewhere out there if his father could witness the man Mallett became as the result, his dad would be beaming. There is a certain serenity in that.

Trailer For HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE Offers Obsession And Emotion

Kurt Halfyard

We are big fans of Beauty Day here at Twitch (full disclosure, I contributed to a commentary track on the DVD) and are happy to see documentary filmmaker Jay Cheel back with a sci-fi inflected documentary, How To Build A Time Machine.

A couple of years ago, we reported on this project, which was originally focused on the Jon Titor (a self-proclaimed man from the future) story, but the documentary has evolved a fair ways since then, and has locked in on two subjects: Rob Niosi, a man who has been building a time machine replica (from the classic 1960s film The Time Machine) for many, many years, and PhD Physicist and author Ronald Mallett, who has been researching the nuts and bolts (i.e. mathematics) of time travel for equally as many years.

Jay Cheel's work tends to be a pretty Twitch-friendly mixture of Errol Morris, John Carpenter, Werner Herzog and Mario Bava. His debut feature, Beauty Day, focused on the complicated personal life of a man who was doing a cable access Jackass-style show years before Johnny Knoxville and company made that sort of thing famous on MTV.

His precise cinematography, music, and film making craft, aim to bring out the truth as much as talking heads and historical record. How To Build A Time Machine looks like gorgeous and compelling stuff. The release date is a while off, but I am certainly looking forward to that day arriving. Oh, if I only had a time machine.

VancouverisAwesome.com

Vancity Theater
May 7, 2016 9:00 pm

Part of our Spotlight on Borders and Boundaries this year, Jay Cheel’s remarkable new film explores what is perhaps the ultimate boundary, the 4th dimension, time itself. Since humans first walked the planet, they’ve been searching for a way to conquer time. Thus far, the only means of doing this existed in the realm of science fiction novels, comic books and, of course, movies. But as Cheel discovers, scientists are drawing ever closer to this fabled quest.

The film focuses on two different men, each uniquely obsessed with time travel. When animator Rob Niosi was seven years old, he and his brother were promised an outing to see the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine. During an afternoon playing by the creek, the brothers lost track of time, and the chance to go to the movies. In desperation, Rob blamed it on the fact that he didn’t have a watch. Their parents relented, the kids got to see the movie, and as Rob recounts, later that week they also received their first time machines — wristwatches. This early experience became the seed for Niosi’s decade-long quest to build a scale model of Wells’s time machine, right down to the last exquisite detail. Physicist Ronald Mallet’s obsession with time travel was also rooted deeply in childhood. When Mallet lost his father at an early age, he embarked on a lifelong quest to conquer both time and death. Mallet’s discovery of Einstein’s theory that time could be altered, started him on his ultimate ambition to build a real live working time machine. He is getting very close to bringing this idea to reality. -DW

Jay Cheel is a documentary filmmaker from St. Catharines, Ontario. His feature debut, Beauty Day, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of their Canadian Front programming series. The film was also an official selection at the Hot Docs international film festival and was nominated in the ‘Best Documentary’ category of the 2012 Genie Awards. In addition to being a filmmaker, Jay is also the co-host of the Film Junk Podcast. How to Build a Time Machine is his second feature documentary.

Doxafestival.ca

Screened on :

Saturday, May 7, 2016 - 9:00pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St)

Monday, May 9, 2016 - 2:30pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St)

How to Build a Time Machine
Jay Cheel | Canada | 2016 | 82 minutes

Part of our Spotlight on Borders and Boundaries this year, Jay Cheel’s remarkable new film explores what is perhaps the ultimate boundary, the 4th dimension, time itself. Since humans first walked the planet, they’ve been searching for a way to conquer time. Thus far, the only means of doing this existed in the realm of science fiction novels, comic books and, of course, movies. But as Cheel discovers, scientists are drawing ever closer to this fabled quest.The film focuses on two different men, each uniquely obsessed with time travel. When animator Rob Niosi was seven years old, he and his brother were promised an outing to see the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine. During an afternoon playing by the creek, the brothers lost track of time, and the chance to go to the movies. In desperation, Rob blamed it on the fact that he didn’t have a watch. Their parents relented, the kids got to see the movie, and as Rob recounts, later that week they also received their first time machines — wristwatches. This early experience became the seed for Niosi’s decade-long quest to build a scale model of Wells’s time machine, right down to the last exquisite detail. Physicist Ronald Mallet’s obsession with time travel was also rooted deeply in childhood. When Mallet lost his father at an early age, he embarked on a lifelong quest to conquer both time and death. Mallet’s discovery of Einstein’s theory that time could be altered, started him on his ultimate ambition to build a real live working time machine. He is getting very close to bringing this idea to reality. -DW

Jay Cheel is a documentary filmmaker from St. Catharines, Ontario. His feature debut, Beauty Day, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of their Canadian Front programming series. The film was also an official selection at the Hot Docs international film festival and was nominated in the ‘Best Documentary’ category of the 2012 Genie Awards. In addition to being a filmmaker, Jay is also the co-host of the Film Junk Podcast. How to Build a Time Machine is his second feature documentary.

Straight.com

DOXA 2016 review: How to Build a Time Machine
(Canada)

by Tammy Kwan on May 5th, 2016 at 1:13 PM

Filmmaker Jay Cheel tells the stories of two men and their obsession with time travel—deriving from pure curiosity in one case, tragedy in the other.

Inspired by the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, Rob Niosi set out to exactly replicate the time travelling prop from the popular movie. Originally a three-month project, it eventually turned into a decade-long work of art that cost Niosi more than just his savings; it took patience, dediction, and self-learned artisanal skills.

Physicist Ronald Mallet made it his life goal to travel back in time to save the beloved father he lost in childhood. Pursuing Einstein’s theories, his studies culminated with a breakthrough discovery, but further research was halted because the funding needed for his ambitious project was unrealistic.

Cheel takes viewers on a philosophical, reflective, scientific journey through a topic that’s more familiar to us as speculative fiction. But How to Build a Time Machine is very much about the real, and manages to explore time travel not only through lighthearted fantasy, but through tangible facts, made all the more intriguing by the film’s crisp and clean visuals.

popoptiq.com

How to Build a Time Machine’ Entertains and Inspires
Victor Stiff May 7, 2016 Film, Film Festivals, Hot Docs

How to Build a Time Machine
Directed by Jay Cheel
Canada

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

-Michelangelo

All throughout history, there have been dreamers grabbing society by the coat tails and dragging them (kicking and screaming) into a world where the impossible exists. Copernicus’ theories on the universe and the Wright brothers taking flight are examples of brilliant men with ambitions that exceeded what was thought possible. More recently, Neil Armstrong’s lunar walk and Apple’s iPhone debut both seemed virtually impossible just a scant few years before they took place. What’s impossible today may be unlikely tomorrow and common place the day after that.

In 2016, time travel only exists in the realm of science-fiction. Ask a physicist however, and theoretical probability leaves time travel’s doorway open just a crack. That infinitesimally small chance is all the motivation a dreamer needs to begin imposing their will on the impossible.

In 1960, a couple of impressionable kids in different parts of the country both watched the film adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine. The Time Machine’s themes would leave an indelible mark on the young boys and affect the men they grew into (Rob Niosi and Ron Mallett). Canadian director Jay Cheel’s documentary, How to Build a Time Machine focuses on Niosi and Mallett and their very different (yet equally obsessive) approaches to challenging time’s passage.

Rob Niosi is building an intricate replica of the machine used in George Pal’s The Time Machine adaptation. Niosi’s construction of the craft eventually shifts from passion project to obsession, and he spends years of his life recreating the machine in painstaking detail. Ron Mallett is a theoretical physicist. As a boy, Mallett lost his father to a heart condition. Since then, Mallett has dedicated his life to understanding the laws of time and space. Mallett’s goal is to crack the mystery behind travel so that he can go back and save his father.

Kudos to Cheel for finding such fascinating subjects to feature in his film. Niosi is a natural on screen and a true gift to documentary film making; he bristles with excitement as he speaks to the camera. Niosi is also a bit of an odd-ball, fortunately his eccentricities add to his charm. Niosi comes off like a favorite uncle, one that always shows up with cool stories and finds enough change in his pocket to buy ice cream later on. Mallett is equally passionate and holds his own on camera, although exudes a calm, stern demeanor. Anyone who joined their high-school’s science club will be fascinated as Mallett explains the technical aspects of time travel. While Mallett does an exceptional job breaking things down into layman’s terms, his segments in the film lack the wide-eyed enthusiasm that Niosi brings.

Both men are looking to attain the impossible; Niosi seeks an unattainable level of perfection for his replication; Mallett wants to live out a Doctor Who-like time travel fantasy. What makes How to Build a Time Machine such a great documentary is that it’s not just interested in watching Niosi and Mallett chase after their eccentric goals. Cheel really keys in on the nature of fixation. While Niosi and Mallett are always moving forward towards their goals, they are actually chasing down moments from their lives that are far behind them. Cheel spends a significant amount of time examining what drives these men to romanticize the past.

When a documentary focuses on subjects as charismatic as Mallett and Niosi, it’s easy to just point the camera at them and shoot — the material would still be riveting. Fortunately, Cheel goes the extra mile and ensures How to Build a Time Machine’s look is as compelling as its subject matter. Cheel has a magnificent eye and he imbues many of hiss film’s scenes with stylish framing and slick camera movement befitting of a music video. How to Build a Time Machine’s polished cinematic look is a real treat to see in a documentary.

Father time is undefeated, but that doesn’t stop people from stepping up and challenging him for his crown. The human spirit inherently wants to test limits, push boundaries, and achieve the impossible. In order to do so, society must produce dreamers and forward thinkers willing to go against the grain, often at cost of personal sacrifice. Mallett and Niosi are perfect examples of the type of knowledgeable and inspired individuals that drive scientific and artistic innovation. How to Build a Time Machine is as inspiring as it is enjoyable, a must see for anyone who ever dared to think outside the box.

jacarandafm.com

Time travel might just become a reality very soon
Can a ‘tunnel’ of laser light really receive messages from the future? It might just be true
Published: May 9, 2016, 11:20 p.m. by The Late Show

If you could send a message to the past what would you say?