In case you’re one of the many individuals developing a table-size levitation machine in a two-car garage, Shane Caruth has just created the story of your dreams.

For the rest of us, this first-time director has just given the movie-going public a ticket into another world. “Primer,” Caruth’s $7,000 film that took the top prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, opens tomorrow in Chicago, the next stop on its platform release.

The film uses the technical jargon Caruth is so familiar with, especially having been a math major at a university in Texas. Instead of a career in metaphysics, Caruth decided to write a screenplay about a couple of guys working to invent something that will make them tons of money.

They succeed – sort of. Their creation seems to do something, mainly levitate a stationary object. No big deal to these guys, except the weird side effect of time travel.

Caruth’s film is creating a lot of buzz, mainly for its engrossing, compelling narrative – but also for its extremely low cost. Weekender was able to sit down with Caruth and ask him some questions about this complex film made on a college student’s budget.

Weekender: This is an extremely complex film. What has been the audience reaction so far?

Shane Caruth: From discussions with people I’ve had after the film – they want to know that there is an answer and that there is a method to solving the story. Once they are sure that this is the case, I think they would rather figure it out on their own.

WE: Is the information there?

SC: Oh yeah, it was important to me that the information is in there. But I was much more interested in what was going on with these guys thematically.

WE: The first 30 minutes of this film I was completely clueless as to what these characters are talking about when building this machine. Afterwards, it had me wondering if such a thing could actually be built.

SC: Everything that they’re doing is all accurate, up to the point that we say it’s affecting time. There’s a machine in the Netherlands that will actually levitate objects above its superconductor. These guys are finding better and more efficient ways to do this. They wind up doing it so well that not only are they degrading gravity, but they’re severing it. That’s the point where it turns into more of an analogy, because it’s still based on layman’s physics but not any actual quantum-mechanical stuff.

WE: It’s interesting to see a film about everyday scientists seeking invention for the purpose of making a ton of money. Was this perhaps a metaphor for your experiment in the filmmaking process?

SC: No, I didn’t do this to make money, which who knows if it will. While the characters are technical experts, really they’re just kids. When they had this machine, I didn’t want them having philosophical discussions. I wanted them following their gut instincts, so when these ethical situations arise, they are completely blindsided by them.

WE: How did you come in so low [under budget] with a feature, especially your first?

SC: When I went to negotiate prices for everything I had a limit for what I was going to pay – and I wouldn’t go a penny over it. I had a 2:1 shooting ratio, meaning that I could basically only shoot one take. It was storyboarded so rigidly that we only shot the lines that I knew I would need. This worked out great, but it also became a nightmare in the editing process, stretching it to almost two years.

WE: That $7,000 cost really opens the eyes to a lot of student filmmakers who feel that they could easily go that little in debt to make a feature film. Any advice to these kids?

SC: Don’t do it. If I had to do it over again, I would have been more inspired to get a full time producer and gotten some more money. I don’t know what the proper shooting ratio is, but it’s not 2:1, I can tell you that. People think that seven grand is cheap, but spending four years of your life working on an independent film is definitely no small cost.