TLC DVD Video Manual

Watch what you wish for

Created and Developed by Aftermath Media LLC
Published by DVD International
DVD Authoring by DVant Digital
Credits

You are about to experience a fantasy quite unlike anything you've ever seen or felt before - a fantasy built from the very stuff of your own mind. Tender Loving Care is not just a finely crafted suspense story; it’s an exploration into your innermost perceptions, opinions, and attitudes. The unfolding story is shaped and changed by your responses to it, so that no two people will experience Tender Loving Care in exactly the same way. The variations in the way the story unfolds are seamless and transparent to the viewer.

Starring the acclaimed British actor, and 2-time Oscar nominee, John Hurt (CONTACT, LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND, ELEPHANT MAN), TLC is a feature-length film combined with computer game-like navigation and interactivity. The player is voyeur, detective, judge, and patient all in one. Between each variable scene, Dr. Turner enlists the viewer's help in assessing the behavior of each of the film's characters - Turner's beautiful, deluded patient, her dangerous husband, and the mysterious, seductive psychiatric nurse enlisted to provide what may, or may not be, TENDER LOVING CARE. The viewer's answers to Dr. Turner's questions shape the course of the action and the final outcome of the story. The viewer, too, becomes one of Dr. Turner's patients, taking a series of Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs), the results of which create a progressively accumulating personal psychological profile, and a complete psychological analysis by the end of the movie.

Created by the makers of THE 11^TH HOUR, and THE 7^TH GUEST, TENDER LOVING CARE, is an outrageously innovative interactive experience created specifically for DVD.

If you are a return patient, you will be presented with the Resume Code sheet. Follow onscreen directions for entering your code.

Insert the DVD disc in any standard DVD player. Use the direction arrows and "select" button on your remote control to interact with the story. The disc also works on a properly equipped PC DVD.

From the moment you enter the world of Michael and Allison Overton, your interactions with Tender Loving Care follow a four-phase cycle that repeats many times as experience progresses.

1 - Story Episode In the first phase, you'll view a segment of the story, in which you gather information about the disturbing secrets being kept in the Overton household. These story Episodes are generally 5 - 10 minutes long and may vary according your answers to the Exit Poll and TAT questions.

2 - Exit Polls After the story segment ends, you'll have the opportunity to chat with Dr. Cecil Turner of the Chrysalis Institute. Dr. Turner will conduct a sort of "exit poll" in which he'll ask you several questions about what you've just seen. Some of the questions are quite personal and intimate; please be assured that your answers are confidential, and try to answer as honestly as you can.

3 - Exploration When Dr. Turner has finished interviewing you, you are free to wander the Overton home and grounds, and search for information that might help you unravel the mysterious web of events that is strangling this family. Nothing is out-of-bounds to you during your explorations: feel free to read any books or diaries, or to listen or watch any taped media you may find. You may also encounter members of the household one-on-one, and learn more about their private thoughts and feelings. Use the Map to travel from room to room.

4. - TAT's and Return to Story Exploration is purely elective. When you feel you are ready to return to the story, you must go to the object that contains the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - the same kind of test described by Dr. Turner on the previous page. You are told where the TAT is at the start of each interactive episode. If you forget the location, Dr. Turner will remind you. The location of the TAT is also indicated on the Map. The TATs used in Tender Loving Care were developed with the assistance of David Oas, a professor of clinical psychology at Southern Oregon University.

These tests are designed to uncover your unique style of thinking and feeling, as well as your motivations and desires. While Aftermath cannot accept any medical or legal responsibility for the results of these tests, their design is based on three decades of clinical research. Again, please be as honest as you can: your responses to the TAT, and to the questions Dr. Turner asked you earlier, determine the direction the story will take in the next cycle.

At the end of each cycle, you’ll have an opportunity to glimpse Dr. Turner's clinical notes, in which he records his thoughts and observations about you. (See Reality Check section) Though you may feel uncomfortable, shocked, or a bit disturbed by his perceptions, we urge you to keep your mind open wide…and your imagination open even wider.

When you have completed the entire Tender Loving Care experience, Dr. Turner will have compiled a complete psychological evaluation of you. In addition, you will have created your own unique version of the story, based on your own perceptions and feelings. You can replay this version any time you like. Or, you might return to the beginning and create a new story - perhaps working with a close friend or intimate partner.

When in Exploration mode, you navigate through the Overton household - and the Tender Loving Care experience - by manipulating a variety of on-screen icons. This section is a directory of the icons you'll encounter in Exploration mode as you move through your TLC sessions. Use the following onscreen icons to make your way around the Overton house, and unlock the secrets that await you there. Use the direction arrows to highlight an icon and press the "select" button to activate your choice.

Side Arrows - Select to turn 90 degrees right or left. When you're reading, select the right arrow to page forward, and the left arrow to page back.

Map - Select to go to a map of the Overton house or Turner's office. Selecting the Menu button on the remote control is a shortcut to the Map and has the same effect as selecting the Map icon from the screen.

In addition to your responses to the Exit Polls, your answers to the Thematic Apperception Tests offered by Dr. Turner at the end of each story cycle determine how your personal version of the TLC story will unfold. The location of the test changes with every cycle, and is indicated by a Swirling Spiral icon. When you have finished your wanderings for this cycle, and are ready to move on, there are three ways to find the test.

Select on one of the highlighted rooms, and you'll automatically move there. Select the Motion Camera icon to toggle the house navigation animations off and on. When the icon is off, you will transport directly to the selected room and to selected objects within the room. Select the Butterfly to go to the Reality Check.

Everybody needs a good reality check now and then - and especially after they've been guests of the Overtons for a while. Select the Butterfly at the bottom of the screen when it's time to get your emotional and intellectual bearings.

Resume - Select this button to return to TLC. You'll be right where you were when you left, and things will be no less crazy. We promise.

Quit - Select to leave TLC. A warning prompt gives you the chance to change your mind and back out, if you wish. Always use the Quit button, which will take you to the Sign Out screen where you will be given your Session code. The next time you play TLC you will use your special code to continue the story from the point you left off. Never use the DVD player's Open/Close or Power buttons to exit TLC.

The Virtual TAT
An Interview with Cecil Turner, M.D., Ph.D.
From MODERN PSYCHOLOGY:
A Journal of Thought for the New Millennium

Cecil Turner is the head of The Chrysalis Institute, a psychiatric treatment in The Rogue River Valley of Southern Oregon.

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY: You've always been on the cutting edge of psychiatric treatment. I remember in the sixties, you were one of the first medical doctors to seriously study Eastern Mysticism and try to utilize meditation and holistic medicine in your therapy.

CECIL TURNER: Yes. As a child I was always fascinated by the mysticism. In college, I became an avid reader of Hermann Hesse. His books, especially Journey To The East, inspired me to go to India and study with a yoga teacher.

CT: Yes. I've always been interested in computers. Always knew they would have a huge impact on our world society.

CT: Not yet. (laughs) But now there are these things called Synthespians - synthetic actors. I wouldn't be surprised if someday there were synthetic psychiatrists.

CT: Well, the original TAT or Thematic Apperception Test was invented in the mid-thirties by Morgan and Murray. It was called "A Method For Investigating Fantasy." A method for eliciting story constructions from patients which are susceptible to interpretation by the psychiatrist.

CT: Terribly sorry. The patient is shown an image and asked to tell a story based on what he sees.MP: How is this different from a Rorschach test?

CT: Oh, it's very different. With a Rorschach, the patient is asked to describe what he or she sees. "I see a rat. I see the devil. My mother." Et cetera, ad nauseum. But with a TAT, they are asked to tell a tale. The TAT is much richer. Much deeper. The responses are more intricate.

CT: Yes. Good example. A drawing of a little boy with a violin. A Rorschach response for this image would be the same for everyone: "I see a little boy with a violin." That's it. There is nothing more. But the TAT responses are extraordinarily different and compelling. For example, "The boy is sad. He wishes he could play baseball with the other kids," or "The boy loves daydreaming about being a concert violinist," or even "The boy hates his mother for making him play the violin." Very telling, that response.

CT: We tell stories to ourselves every day. When we drift off into daydreams or fantasies, we are living out little plays in our minds, with ourselves as the protagonists, or heroes. Simply put, the TAT is a brilliant way of finding out what people are thinking on an unconscious level. How they view the world. How they see themselves in this world. And that is how we gain insight in treating the many ills which plague the human mind.

CT: The Virtual TAT, or V TAT (computer people love acronyms) is something that I am developing. I'm also working to integrate it into a CD-ROM experience with a company here in the Rogue Valley. It's a way people can experiment with a version of the Thematic Apperception Test in their own homes, while exploring the delta between reality and desire. It's the kind of thing you'd share with someone you'd like to make love to.

CT: Psychiatrists have made the study of the mind boring. But it doesn't have to be that way.