Jacob Madden

Now showing (almost)

I make films that talk back.

I'm Jacob Madden. I've written software for 25 years and spent the last ten making things you step inside: AR portals, a VR stage for amateur actors, a drum machine you play by nodding. Now I'm making a movie that listens to you.

Atacama dish0/5 found

Somewhere in this static, someone is calling for help.Drag the dial to tune in

401.050 MHz

Five lines from the film are hidden in the band. Headphones help. The static is loud; that part is accurate.

A FILM YOU TALK TOLastSignal10.16.26

In production · premieres Oct 16

Last Signal

A short film you talk to. A stranded astronaut's distress call reaches exactly one person, and what you say decides whether her crew comes home.

Ines Varga, a tired woman in her forties with dark hair tied back, in a grey flight suit with a mission patch
From the character brief
Ines Varga, flight engineer, 41, four hours of sleep, alone and awake on a damaged ship. Dry and steady. Short sentences. Goes quiet when she is scared. She can be persuaded, but not bullied.
How it's being made

Family tree

Every film is somebody's creation.

Last Signal's ancestors, on page, screen, and airwave, and what it borrowed from each.

  1. 1938RadioThe War of the WorldsOrson Welles, CBS radio

    Proof that a voice on the radio can make you believe anything. Last Signal promises to use this power responsibly.

  2. 1949Short storyKaleidoscopeRay Bradbury

    A crew blown apart in space, drifting away from each other, still talking on the radio. The saddest open channel in fiction.

  3. 1961NovelSolarisStanisław Lem

    Contact as a mirror. What you say to the unknown says more about you than about it.

  4. 1967FilmKinoautomatRadúz Činčera, Expo 67

    The first interactive film. The audience voted with red and green buttons on their seats. We swapped the buttons for your voice.

  5. 1968Film2001: A Space OdysseyStanley Kubrick

    HAL taught everyone that the calmest voice on the ship is the one to worry about. ARC took notes.

  6. 1974FilmThe ConversationFrancis Ford Coppola

    A whole movie that happens in the ears. Gene Hackman replaying one tape until it undoes him.

  7. 1979FilmAlienRidley Scott

    MOTHER's Special Order 937: crew expendable. ARC's quiet course correction is a family tradition.

  8. 1997FilmContactRobert Zemeckis, from Carl Sagan

    Headphones, a dish in the desert, and someone who will not stop listening. Our dish is in the Atacama.

  9. 1998Short storyStory of Your LifeTed Chiang

    Language changes the person who learns it. Ines changes depending on how you talk to her.

  10. 2009FilmMoonDuncan Jones

    One worker, one machine, a long shift, and a twist about who the company thinks is replaceable.

  11. 2013FilmGravityAlfonso Cuarón

    Ryan Stone reaches a fisherman in Greenland who cannot understand a word she says. In Last Signal, the stranger on the radio is you, and you can.

  12. 2013FilmHerSpike Jonze

    You can feel close to a voice. Ines would like it on the record that she is not looking for that.

  13. 2018TelevisionBandersnatchBlack Mirror, Netflix

    Choices on a remote. Ines would rather you just tell her what you think.

  14. 2026You are hereLast Signal

    The kid of all of the above. The first one where the voice on the other end of the radio is yours.

From the notebook

Oct 7, 2026

Nine days to make a film that listens

Writing a branching film is mostly bookkeeping. Writing a character who has to answer anything a stranger says is a different job. Ines gets a brief instead of lines: who she is at each moment, what she knows, what she wants from you, and a rule that she can be persuaded but not bullied.

Keep reading

Before this, 2015 to 2020

Ten years of putting people inside things.

Hackathons, startups, and a few installations, mostly AR and VR, back when you had to explain what those letters meant.