NEON and TheaterEars, Inc. today announced the Director’s Experience release of It Ends, giving theatrical audiences a chance to listen to writer-director Alexander Ullom’s audio commentary in real time.
Beginning Friday, August 28, audiences at participating theaters nationwide can listen to Ullom with producers Carrie Carusone and Evan Barber’s commentary track synchronized to the film as it plays, using only the TheaterEars app on their own phone and a pair of headphones.
In It Ends, a group of recent grads heads out on a late-night drive for grub, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before their paths diverge. Instead, they accidentally turn onto a never-ending, two-lane hellscape surrounded by untold horrors and cosmic forces beyond their understanding. Cramped together inside a Jeep Cherokee and with the miles stretching infinitely ahead, they face a choice: embrace their new existence or fight to escape it.
Akira Jackson, Phinehas Yoon, Mitchell Cole, and Noah Toth star.
As for how the Director’s Commentary experience works, moviegoers download the free TheaterEars app, select It Ends and their showtime to get the track on their phone, then press play when the movie starts. The app synchronizes the filmmakers’ commentary to the projected film and works across all formats including RealD and 4DX.
The app is free to download from the App Store and Google Play and is free to use (ad-supported) for the Director’s Experience during any standard showtime at participating locations, providing the moviegoer with premium audio experience without an additional ticket upcharge.
“I made a movie that takes place almost entirely inside a car, so I spent a year thinking about what four people say to each other and what they don’t. Getting to sit next to an audience while they watch it and tell them what we were actually doing — in a theater, while it’s still in theaters — is not something I thought was possible when we were shooting this in twenty days,” Ullom said in a statement.
“Commentary tracks have always arrived after the fact, months later, on a disc or a stream, to an audience that has already moved on. It Ends is a film built out of conversation, and Alex is a filmmaker whose audience found him online and then showed up in theaters. Putting his voice in that room, while the film is still on screens, is exactly the thing we built this for,” Dan Mangru, Founder & CEO, TheaterEars adds.
Alexander Ullom is already a filmmaker to watch; the newcomer was recently tapped to helm 4 X 4: The Event, which is being described as Battle Royale meets Saw meets Climax.
