Will (Bill Hedges) and Penny (Penny and Judy Hedges) are enjoying a clear evening on a distant planet. Will reminisces about how the atmosphere reminds him of a movie they recently saw and how the night reminds him of the opening of the movie. Will is looking at the stars through his telescope when he sees that one of the stars appears to be going supernova. As he walks forward toward the star, he feels an inexplicable change in the atmosphere. Suddenly the supernova is the light coming from a movie projector. Will is on a stage in a theater and behind him is a movie screen. On the screen a film is showing. The film is of the planet he was on. Penny is there on screen, but he is not. Will touches the screen. It is solid.
Completely baffled Will begins examining everything around him. Upstairs he finds the projection room and a projectionist, Oly (Tom Lombard). Oly calls Will, Mr. Schrodinger. He explains to Will how the showing of films works and tells Will that he is currently showing Schrodinger’s film and that it will be over in 20 minutes. Oly then tells Will that if he has questions about the film then he needs to go to the soundstage and talk to the director.
Will leaves the theater and finds that he is in a deserted main street of a small town. He finds the building where the soundstage is. Inside everyone is bustling around and calling him Mr. Schrodinger or Ed. A trainer (Nikki Naldi) is working with Penny’s stunt double Judy (Judy Hedges) and going over her lines. He finds the director, Jean-Luc (Steve Bosserdet) and his assistant Carol (Shelby Hagerdon). They try to convince Will that he was acting as a character in a film and that he is really Erwin Schrodinger.
Something about everything isn’t right. Something is unreal. Will begins to believe that the supernova opened up a portal and that he ended up in another dimension and that someone or something is tapping into his memories and creating an alternate reality. Will instinctively understands that time is of the essence and if he doesn’t return to the theater screen and go back through the portal that he will be stuck in this alternate place forever.
“Schrodinger’s Cat” was released in 2023 and was written and directed by Bill Hedges. It is a 24-minute short and episode 9 of the “Cosmic Cat” series. Along with all the other “Cosmic Cat” stories, the film was lovingly created by Bill Hedges and features his cats, Penny and Judy.
As Will mentions in the film, this psychological Thriller has a Twilight Zone feel to it. Bill explores the question “What is our state of existence?” “Can we exist in two places at the same time?” The character, Will, must figure out what is real and what is not. Bill takes the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment and gives it a new twist.
Shout out to Shelby Hagerdon as the French director’s assistant. She was perfect. I’m also impressed with the music that Bill chooses for his films. They add a lot of dimension to the stories. Also, the transition from one reality to another through the movie screen was done wonderfully. This is probably my favorite episode so far.
Will includes some easter eggs that reference the plot of the next episode. Find them if you can.
Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment about quantum physics. Erwin Schrodinger suggested it in 1935, in reaction to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. In simple terms, Schrödinger stated that if you place a cat, and something that could kill the cat, for example a radioactive atom, in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box. Until you open the box, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead. This is used to represent how scientific theory works. No one knows if any scientific theory is right or wrong until the theory can be tested and proved.
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