Trivia / The Wizard of Speed and Time

• Acting for Two: See Self-Deprecating Humor on the main page.
• Development Hell: Most of the movie was filmed in 1983, but it was not completed until 1989.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Fans have been distributing copies of the film online since it came out. The story of how Mike got nearly immediately screwed out of the rights to his own movie is depressing. Many of the tapes have been n-th hand VHS copies of an extremely-rare laserdisc copy owned by someone who was probably single-handedly keeping laserdisc repair shops in business. As of now, though, there are a couple of unofficial (but endorsed by Jittlov) high-quality DVD transfer "releases" floating around the net in download-and-burnable formats, which will hopefully allow the owner of the laserdisc to finally retire and move up to newer technology.
• Life Imitates Art: The film's real life producer, Richard Kaye, played the role of the film's Evil Producer, Harvey Bookman, and then went on to swindle the real Mike Jittlov out the real film's profits. Mike has still yet to be paid any sort of residuals, and the rights dispute is one reason the film has not been released in any form since.
• No Budget: The original short had no budget and was created entirely by Mike.
• Technology Marches On: The special effects techniques used by Mike Jittlov have become completely antiquated thanks to digital composting and computer generated imagery (along with all the other analogue motion picture production methods). However seeing everything being done by hand shows what independent filmmakers had to go through before advances in technology made motion picture production more accessible.
  • Who needs evil producers and bureaucratic studios when you can just fund your work on Kickstarter?