Private Project

A Day in the Life of the Passenger

Evan is unstuck in the multiverse. Every night when he falls asleep, he wakes up in an alternate reality. Making matters worse, the older Evan gets, the greater his unstickiness grows. Now in his early 20's, continuity between days has all but vanished and Evan has settled into an unusual routine. But as Evan tries to go about his day, he finds himself pulled back into the recesses of his memory, reminded of what this unstickiness has taken from him.

"A Day in the Life of the Passenger" was produced as an undergraduate honors thesis project at UC Berkeley.

  • Tyler Milles
    Writer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor
  • Ryan Bettencourt
    Key Cast
  • Ayesha Siddiqui
    Key Cast
  • Quan Zhang
    Assistant Director
  • Avi Ballo
    2nd Assistant Director
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Drama, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Romance, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 43 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 29, 2016
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.39:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
Director Biography

Tyler Milles is, in nearly every sense of the phrase, an independent filmmaker.

First and foremost a screenwriter, Tyler has spent the past few years honing his abilities as a director, cinematographer, editor, and low-rent colorist in order to bring his works to life.

Upon graduating with honors from the film and media department at UC Berkeley, Tyler was given the William Nestrick Award for his outstanding leadership and community service within the filmmaking community. In his years as an undergrad, Tyler wrote and directed seven short films as well as shooting and AD'ing on numerous others. Additionally, he wrote a spec pilot which one Blcklst reader described as, "an extremely difficult sell in Hollywood in its current form."

Tyler is passionate about telling small-scale, human stories with whatever resources are available to him, and he won't stop until he's literally dead.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

"A Day in the Life of the Passenger" is an exploration of the in-between. Structurally, this short is essentially stranded in an eternal second act, gesturing towards an inciting incident and taking place long before a meaningful resolution. And that is by design. With this project, I wanted to explore the awkward reality that we live most of our lives in the second act, with no beginning nor end in sight. By being unstuck in the multiverse, our protagonist Evan is a man for whom each day does not carry on to the next. Evan lives in a nexus of possibilities wherein the moment he shuts his eyes he is literally torn from any beginnings he may have incited or any resolutions he may have created.

When we pick up Evan's story, he has already figured out what is happening to him and is long past trying to fight this unstickiness. Instead, he's just trying to take things moment by moment, struggling to make his days feel worthwhile as he is constantly reminded of what this unstickiness has taken from him. And by the time we leave Evan, not much has changed. That was my intention. With "A Day in the Life of the Passenger," I wanted to depict just a snapshot of what life is like for a man unstuck in the multiverse, aiming to honestly depict the never-ending process that is coming to terms with life in the in-between.