Dear Mr. Buchbinder
In your film Traveling Medicine Show, I believe that the protagonist has experienced Dr. Theo’s show multiple times before the actual film itself begins. It seems as if he has had to deal with Dr. Theo’s escapades before, based off of his briefcase and the belongings inside of it. I fell as [...]

Before the travelling show begins, the boy is stranded, this time in a small
apartment. The main character has 3 parents: 2 mothers, and one father. They keep
the boy guarded, keep him safe, and keep him inside. He spends his days and nights
watching the 24 hour local news, or as he calls them, “non-news”, on TV, [...]

1- What happened before the film begins?
The Traveling Medicine Show grants the audience the freedom of interpretation as it does not follow a strict narrative structure. Within the initial stages of the film, the audience is introduced to the protagonist, a teenage boy who floats ashore on a small raft carrying with him a suitcase [...]

It is winter, lots of snow and wind.  The landscape is covered in white.  There is a dark cave.  Inside there is very little light.  The boy sits there without much to do.  He looks around.  He doesn’t have very many clothes on.  He runs outside the cave.  Without getting very far, he trips and [...]

The scenarios that could potentially unfold precursor to this film are as follows. The protagonist escapes from the ordinary “real” corporate-conglomerate world into one of different values. To me I took this film as a metaphor for life. This thought was solidified by the concrete symbol of a tree at the very beginning of the [...]

1.
It is dark, and Doctor Theo emerges from off screen. Only the mask he is wearing is visible.  He looks around and the sun rises. He is revealed to be standing on a beach holding his trunk. Behind him is forest. Dr. Theo turns around, and behind him the people on stilts are standing to [...]

What happened before the movie?
The boy sat by the large fire pit, watching the others talking and sharing stories. The groups were divided into two – the adults, over at one side of the pit, and the ones who had yet to pass the ceremony. One of the girls beside him was nodding excitedly.
“I hear [...]

What happened before?
What happened before is hard to imagine. My imagination went wild. I pictured a boy who wasn’t happy with what is life was offering him. A boy who knew there was more out there for him to find, to discover. So this boy left on a search for the world he wanted, [...]

What happened before the film began?

When the film began, and the young man paddled to shore, it was open to many interpretations. Coming from the sea leaves the question open ended. What happen before the film began? Personally my mind immediately went to “Cast Away”, starring Tom Hanks. Given the situation and that [...]

1.
I interpreted the film as a representation of reincarnation while the protagonist strives to find a sense of identity. Throughout the film, a few elements made it seem like the protagonist has been in this situation before. The rituals, the old suitcase; these are all factors which made me seem like this has happened before. [...]

1. What happens before the film begins?

The main character gets into a fight with a boy at school. His consciousness is
permanently altered as a result of several blows to the head. He goes home and takes
a nap.

2. What happens to the character after?

The character receives the secrets to life and why we’re all here in [...]

Tales and fables of a world parallel to his own could not quench his thirst. Even the endless horizon of water that cradled him on gentle waves would not satisfy his inner drought were he to drink of it. At Home, those who have returned from this foreign world would pledge silence to its many [...]

What happened in the beginning?
The sun was beating down on the open water, where a small, oval boat was spinning slowly. Waves rocked underneath, threatening to tip the only oar right into the water. The captain of the boat had put down the oar and was now staring aimlessly at the sky. A bead of [...]

Before the film begins the boy must have been going from island to island, but these islands do not stand for literal islands.  Each island that he encounters is another situation from his life and the world around him that he is experiencing through illusion.  When I was watching the film I didn’t really have [...]

From island to island as I go,
I stumble up things I don’t know.
Things that I cannot understand
As I go around this world of sand.
Do we really exist?
Are we on the “real” list?
Do we have free will?
Or are we here to fulfill
Our mission?
I feel like each vision
Is colliding with collision.
An maybe the collisions
Are here [...]

Before…
A small boy in an uncharted world has visions of a far away land in his dreams. He confronts the lands cultural elders who tell him that it is nothing more than a fantasy. When he arrives back at his dwelling, his parents have heard that he has been asking questions about a faraway land. [...]

The Travelling Medicine Show: Pre-Sequel
I don’t how long I’ve been paddling. Maybe it has been a couple of days. Possibly even a week.  I’m tired, and hungry, and alone. I’m lost. I don’t know where I am or where I am heading. All I see around me is water. I see no sign of land. [...]

What happens before the story starts?
The whole word is a show, flawless and awe-inspiring in every aspect. Has it always been this way?
The nervous actors impatiently awaited their costumes, all the while going over their parts. The big show was only 7 days away. Everybody had doubts, but tried their best not to let on. [...]

Prequel to the Island
My sweaty face looked down with horror as I saw my first kill in Afghanistan.  A young boy’s brown eyes blankly stared at me.  The Afghanistan boy had been running to the U.S safety zone and I had…mistakenly shot him thinking he was an enemy Taliban soldier.  My comrades told me it [...]

Before:
It burns my face.
Peels my skin.
It’s that goddamn sun
That keeps my bare body ablaze.
That keeps me feverish with ignorance.
Really,
I don’t know the time
Or the date
I don’t know where the hell I am
What country
What continent
As I said,
I am as ignorant as a baby inside its mother’s womb.
Perhaps I am saner when the goddamn sun goes [...]

In the beginning. In the beginning there was a boat. And in the beginning there was a boy in the boat.  And in the beginning, before the boy, before the boat, there was water. And in the beginning before that, (before the boy, before the boat, before the water,) there was light. And there was [...]

Prequel to Travelling Medicine Show:
The boy, though young, was keen of mind, and advanced beyond his years. However, he seldom showed his talent, and to many of his people, he was just a regular boy. But deep down, he felt different, and he knew that he was not just a regular boy; he knew that [...]

I exist.
Why do I say that?  Because I can.  And because I can and because I did, I exist.  How is this possible?  It does not have to be.  How is it not possible?  Well, that is the wrong question to ask.
What is the point to my questions if the answers are never going to [...]

I am,
I am incomplete.
I look for the unseen,
Long for the forbidden;
It is
The search for immortality.
On this journey,
This pursuit of all things
Unearthly,
I look for the Medicine Man,
A god, they say he is.
I must know why
The sun burns so bright,
Why death steals and swindles
And why to this I must comply.
I must ask for
The key to forever,
The secret [...]

I believe what happens before the film begins is the people on the island were from another planet that land on Earth not too many years ago.  To us they are strange beings yet to them, we are the strange beings.  They come from a world where the people believe in unity and peace and [...]

“The Travelling Medicine Show” Prequel

1. The boy was from a first nations group, a descendent from a great warrior. He had just turned 15, which meant he had to prove he was now a man. To be accepted as a man in his village he had to pass a test. The test [...]

The prologue to “The Travelling Medicine Show” is one that is ambiguous and uncertain. I see the film as a boy who is witnessing the creation of the earth. He arrived from the depths of another world. In this world, there are things that do not make sense. The lives of each and every person [...]

Before the Show

A battle, a cry, a lunge.
He couldn’t make it, not quite.
The others were done, why not he?
Fumbling, a loss of concentration.
He throws it down, but wait,
He sees it now. A knot.
SOLVED. He joins them.

Then, the next test.
Simple, yet none are good.
He finishes and waits.
The prize is none but a boat [...]

In the beginning there was darkness and silence. Then there was light. Then water and earth. Then animals. Then came women and man.

The silence shrieked, the light burned, the water dried up, the earth tightened, the animals fled, and man and women were left alone.

Nothing.

Their hearts couldn’t contain all the empty space. [...]

A boy was sitting on the beach. There he could see the coastline but no boats ever passed by, it was deserted and empty. It reminded him of himself, of how lonely he was. He had no memory of his parents or of anyone for that matter. For as long as he could remember, he [...]

The Night Before

He eyed the little white pellet warily.

“Go on. You deserved it.”

“I-”

“Look, if you don’t want it, just say so. I’ll just sell this to someone else,” the dealer pulled the pill away from him.

“Wait, no! I’ll take it,” he dug in his pockets and pulled out forty dollars. He handed it to the [...]

The sun came up with no conclusions. Yet, the boy still searched around the island looking for something to open his eyes to the unknown.

He met the Medicine Man and the world let loose its secret creation. The light now guided him, the water tugged at his boat, the earth opened up, [...]

Prequel
I think that the role of the boy in this film was to act as a bridge between the world of creationism and the earth. His purity and innocence brought him to the attention of a group of searching immortals who’ve come from the future. They find that they are unable to travel in the [...]

Prequel:
Not this again. Not again. It is always the same. I want it to stop. I can not start it no matter how hard I try to. We have no control. I try to start it. I really do. Just so it can be finished sooner, and finished on my terms, and yet. And yet [...]

This boy is stranded on an island, not because he wants to be stranded but because he’s chosen to be. In his possession is a suitcase of unmentionables. Within this case is the circus of his imagination; a flamboyant display of sparkles, dazzles, and frizzle-frazzles. Except now there is a new toy to his collection. [...]

prologue
he rummages through the dimly lit attic
and finds a suitcase decades old.
there’s a thick layer of accumulated dust.
he wipes the grime off with his hands
and realizes what he had found was special.
it has intricate patterns embellished all over
and a hatch that keeps its secrets within.
with fidgety hands, he opens it,
equally curious and afraid of what [...]

What happened before?
Open on the BOY. He is in his boat, just rowing. There is no sky, no sun, and no clouds. There is just a white fog that surrounds the boat. The Boy cannot see where he is going. He can barely see the water that he is rowing in. The Boy comes [...]

Before Creation
Participants stand anxiously in an industrial space. It is empty, except for a lush red curtain that covers one wall. The curtain’s appearance is plastic and artificial; the sign that reads “Dr. Theo’s Travelling Medicine Show” does little to help. In one fluid motion, the men and women strip down and the curtain [...]

Before the film
His long brown hair was blowing in the wind as he ran through the forest. He was being chased by three boys. One was small and husky with short red hair. Another was tall and lean with brown hair, and the last one was tall, muscular and bald. They were each carrying a [...]

A boy woke up floating in the middle of the ocean. The heat of the sun bore down on his face, and waves rocked him back and forth. The boat he found himself in was shaped like a basket with no handle at the top. He sat up and looked around. Everything was an open [...]

The boy slowly paddled away from the island, where he had just witnessed something incredible. He did not understand what had just happened. All he knew was that he just been part of something important, and it was his duty to continue paddling until he reached another island. He looked down again at the [...]

Aiden jumped out of the car anxiously as he arrived at his summer beach home in Nantucket. He couldn’t wait to step inside the home and breathe in the smell of wildflowers; the houses’ signature scent. His mother had already been there waiting for Aiden and his father to arrive. She had already baked [...]

A small plane descended onto a landing strip on a remote island. There were approximately forty passengers on board, one of them a young boy with statuesque features. He had long patches of hair scattered on his head, and sat alone on the plane, seemingly unaccompanied. The passengers, dressed in varying patterns and colors [...]

The sky faded, becoming more and more grey every time the boy’s paddle hit the gently rolling waves. His wooden boat weaved together with deteriorating bark, logs, and twigs spiraled as it floated away from the sandy shore. His pale face was covered with a blank stare, his pointy features appearing statuesque as the wind [...]

The boy was watching the circus show with his younger brother and friends at his town. As he watched the amazing stilt walkers, with such excitement, he got up to quickly go to the washroom. As the boy was getting out of the stall, he found himself being sucked into the toilet, where he shrunk [...]

The pockmarked paddle fit perfectly in the Boy’s hand and he got to work without looking back. The sound of the water swooshing echoed through his body in electronic bytes, distorted by the cupcake in his stomach. Nothing was as it had been. The colours around him, though simply variations of the same blue shade, [...]

Deep in the lush forests of Southern California, the Boy swings on a telephone wire, his shiny Blackberry clutched to his ear. Steel skyscrapers shoot up parallel to the genetically modified palm trees, whose fruit is the size of a small car. Above, robotic magpies race towards glimmering treasures and turn somersaults haphazardly mid-swoop. A [...]

Jeremy Piven arrived from the sea with ripped clothes and an empty stomach. Despite his needs, for food and clothing, he decided to bury the brief case containing the mask and medicine in the sand immediately after his arrival from that nightmare.
Days later, in the middle of the night while Jeremy slept in his fluffy [...]

Before
Johnny walked down the ravine that was located behind his house. It was cold; yet there was a burning sensation of frustration mixed with fear within him that kept him walking. His parents wouldn’t care, they never did. In fact, Johnny much doubted that they would even notice. After Tommy died, they were simply [...]

Before

Johnny walked down the ravine that was located behind his house. It was cold; yet there was a burning sensation of frustration mixed with fear within him that kept him walking. His parents wouldn’t care, they never did. In fact, Johnny much doubted that they would even notice. After Tommy died, they were simply [...]

Prequel
Sweat was dripping down his face as he ran faster and faster.
“I can’t turn back now,” he thought.
They came in disguise as the “Travelling Medicine Show”, but he knew better than that. Every time they put on a show, the Monsters would capture someone, and turn them into one of them. [...]

Prequel
I was surrounded by water; with nothing with me other than my suitcase. Around me there was the silence of the ocean and the cawing of the birds. I sat in the boat I had made and thought about my home. The island I had lived my whole life before I decided to go [...]

1.
The boy rows across the ocean for days. Though, he could not recall the events that led to this situation. All he remembers is that he is escaping from something. He looks around the small circular boat, only to find an old suitcase. Upon the sight of it, he has a sudden impulse to [...]

Before
Trevor was paddling along the lake in a small wooden boat. He was remembering the last place he visited. The town had been very strange and seemed to have a Renaissance theme. Men wore funny tights and frilly shirts while women wore long, flowy dresses in deep hues of red and majestic purple. Trevor didn’t [...]

What happened before the film started?

I am tired of waiting for the dog that will never be bought,
And a blessing whenever I sneeze
Biting my tongue, I cannot speak
I cannot speak of this hurting tongue

Raging hunger within
I take this empty stomach and drift to the island
I feed this empty stomach with fruits of thought, [...]

Before

Sam went to school, he ate lunch, he paid attention in class and then he went home. He played baseball on Saturdays and did homework on Sundays. Every morning his blue plastic alarm clock would wake him up at 6:45 AM, he would press the snooze button, and his alarm would wake him up again [...]

Dear Producer,
Your film, “Travelling Medicine Show” is uniquely filmed with ambiguity. Interestingly, it can be viewed from many angles and perspectives, and be interpreted with dissimilar meanings. On a personal level, I perceive the production depicting a boy’s quest. As part of the necessity to grow up, the boy arrived to the island in [...]

Prequel
It is dark. The boy hears the tireless ocean, the wind rustling through the leaves. An unquenchable thirst burns within him. He opens his eyes, knowing the inevitable.
The water laps softly against the boat as the boy paddles away from the shore. Slowly, the island fades from view, obscured by the thick fog. He pauses, [...]

The boy wakes, for the first time. His eyes open, adjusting to the nothingness.
Eternal, endless nothingness, undescribeable and indistinguishable.
He moves his arms, his legs, hoping for some platform or surface to gain stability.
There is nothing, he floats.
He doesn’t wonder, doesn’t question.
He perceives.
He is able to gain a knowledge of himself. His hands, his legs, his [...]