The tutorial on the DVD and the instructions therein pretty well cover what the four switches do. This page elucidates some of the nuances of the programming, as well as some suggestions on how to do some fun configurations.

Un-Interrupted Mode

If the five hour Quantum Edition is played without setting any of the play modes (i.e. the default modes are played; Dramatic Scenes = On, Total Random = off, Rabbit Hole Random = off, Rabbit Hole Depth = 9) the film plays through without any breaks. As soon as any of these modes are changed, the DVD player has to search and perform logic between all scenes/interviews, resulting in a pause. Setting all the modes back to default then causes the film to start from the beginning in un-interrupted mode.

Total Random Looping

When this is set to On, it automatically assumes Rabbit Hole Random is also on. These two random functions act like “nested loops.” In non-nerd language this means the DVD player randomly “spins the dial” to see which scene/rabbit hole plays. When it lands on a topical rabbit hole, it spins the interviews within that rabbit hole until done with that topic, then pops out and picks another scene/rabbit hole.

5 Hours in 45 Minutes

A favorite play mode is setting Rabbit Hole Random = on, and rabbit hole depth = 1 or 2. This significantly reduces the running time to about 45 minutes. What’s neat about this is the way that as it goes from rabbit hole to rabbit hole, the interviews stack up in a different order, which often gives the topic a different slant / meaning. It also allows you to get a TV show length version of the film. And because it’s random, it’ll always be different.

Time Shifts

The dramatic part of the film was written to be “modular”. I.E. the scenes could go forward or backward in time. (We thought we were being clever and giving ourselves options, but it ended up driving us crazy in the edit room.) However by turning Total Random = on, the film actual utilizes this. Setting the rabbit hole depth = 5 gives a good flavor of all the topics, while moving along at a quicker pace (3 hour instead of 5 hour movie).

Interviews forever

Drama = off, Total Random = on, rabbit hole depth = 1 or 2. With this you’ll just bounce around to interviews in a pretty much random order. How much is your consciousness affecting the order of the interviews??????

All the Way Down

With rabbit hole depth = 9, rabbit hole random = on, it’s all the way. It’s interesting after watching the film in default mode (the order in which we edited it), to see alternate ways of linking these related interviews together.

Roadmap of Interviews