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I know we've talked about this
before, but do bring us up to
speed: Your short It Came Out of the Sky - in a few words,
what's it about?
It Came Out of the Sky started
with a dream of wanting to make an alien film when I was about 9 or 10
years old. I grew up watching films like
The Thing and
Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, and when Fire in the Sky came out in
1993, I had already read Travis Walton’s book The Walton Experience.
The book was insane and his account of what happened to him is
unbelievable and the movie had some terrifying scenes. I was hooked
on the lore that surrounded his experience. What I find most
fascinating about it is that it’s not the tale of his word of what
happened but it largely was experienced and witnessed by his
co-workers. They all saw the light/craft, and Travis got out of the
truck against the wishes of his workmates. They all saw the same
thing, and then a blast of light leveled Walton and his co-workers
split. They did come back after realizing they couldn’t leave him
there, but Walton was gone. He was gone for a few days and showed up
later with a wild tale to tell. My movie mirrors his experience,
Barney was missing for 6 days and also has a wild tale to tell about
being on a craft. His wife Betty, urges him to speak with law
enforcement, and he does so reluctantly (the names of those characters
come from the Betty and Barney Hill incident, which is also a well-known encounter in the UFO world). Enter Detective Jensen, played
heartily by Stuart Wahlin of Rockford, Illinois. The film goes on
from there, more missing people, a suspected Ride Share driver, who
may or may not be of this world. I wanted Stuart to play Jensen as a
mixture of Fox Mulder and Columbo. He nailed the role, and I’m not
just saying that because he’s one of my best friends, but he really is
an amazing actor, and also a filmmaker in his own right. This project
couldn’t have been possible without him. He was the first person to
see the script, well, he even was the first person to read the first
act. After reading it, he was more than excited at the opportunity
for he and I to work together again. Over the years, we have worked
on each other’s projects and have become a pretty close tag team.
What are your personal thoughts on
UFOs, alien abductions and gouvernment conspiracies behind them, and to
what extent are they mirrored in your movie?
I’ve been a believer since I was very young. I sort of figured, we
aren’t as special as we thought we were, there’s no way, in the
vastness of space that we’re the only life out there. There’s upwards
to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The analogy that there
are as many stars in our galaxy as there are grains of sand on the
Earth is fitting. The enormity of that is hard to comprehend. That’s a
whole lot of stars. Each star has at least one planet circling it.
It’s rather ignorant to look at that and believe there isn’t life
elsewhere. I mean to further my point, there are about 200 billion
galaxies in our observable universe. So, that leads me to the recent
revelations of whistleblowers, former government agents, scientists,
that are all saying not only are we not alone, but we have proof,
they’ve seen proof, not just of craft, but also what they’re calling
biologics. We have alien beings in our possession right now! I’ve been
keeping a careful eye on the whole thing, and a couple years ago, I
decided I was going to make my alien movie, and I did, just as
disclosure was starting. I’ve been joking with my friends that I beat
Spielberg to it, his new alien flick comes out this summer! I don’t
know exactly why the government has been hiding UFOs and aliens from
us, but it’s all coming to a head. I live in New Mexico and I’ve been
to Roswell, three times, I’ve spoke with Jesse Marcel III, he’s the
grandson of Jesse Marcel, who is seen in the photographs with the
Roswell debris. He has a great story about his grandfather and his
father. Supposedly Jesse brought home some of the wreckage and showed
it to his wife and son, Jesse Marcell jr, including a piece that had
what looked like hieroglyphics on it. He was then forced to change the
story and pose with other supposed debris. It’s a fascinating history.
So, I think that the 1947 Roswell coverup might have been linked to
Orsen Welles’ broadcast of The War of the Worlds. A lot of people
believed what they were hearing as real and that we were under attack
by extraterrestrials. That broadcast was just about 10 years before
Roswell. My biggest guess, is the government changed their story as to
avoid public panic. And I imagine that’s what they’re still doing. I
read recently that Trump is planning to disclose that UFOs and aliens
are in fact real sometime this summer. That would be huge and also
challenge a lot of belief systems in the world. I really hope I live
long enough for that revelation, I really do.
Steven Bullard (cinematography), Justin, Lambert Maddy (Barney) |
It Came Out of the Sky
has just finished its festival run, right? So what can you tell us about
your movie's showings and audience and critical receptiion of the film?
The film did pretty well in the festival circuit, it garnered 4
awards, including Best Special Effects and Best Science Fiction Film.
I haven’t heard too many bad things about the film, pretty much
everyone has said they enjoyed the film. The one thing that did come
up quite a bit is that they wanted to see more. I left the ending on a bit of a cliffhanger.
With the film being done with festivals, any idea regarding a
digital or physical release yet?
I haven’t looked into selling copies either digitally or physically
quite yet. I’m actually hoping to sell it to a streaming services and
maybe make a couple bucks off it. From what I know,
you're planning to extend It Came Out of the Sky
either into a series or into a feature film - so what have you got in
store for us in that respect? I’m glad you asked. So, with everybody wondering what happens at
the end, I felt obligated to write a sequel. I had originally planned
to just have it as a standalone film. But, particularly those involved
with the project, I was asked multiple times if we were going to
continue the story. So I actually wrote a part 2 and a part 3.
Additionally, I showed a cut of the film to indie film acting legend
Bill Oberst jr [Bill
Oberst jr interview - click here]. I’m not only a huge fan of his, but he’s also become
a dear friend. He loved the movie, so I forwarded the sequel
scripts to him and he thought they were fantastic and said he wanted
to be in the film. So, with that in mind, I figure, if I’m going to
get Bill, I need to give him something meatier than what I wrote in
these sequels. So came the idea of expanding it as a feature, letting
part 1 work as the first act. I’d have to add some pages to do so,
but it’s definitely doable. Any actors and
actresses logged in for the feature version already, and why exactly them?
So, as I mentioned, Bill Oberst jr wants to be in it, and also
friend and legendary actress Debra Lamb [Debra
Lamb interview - click here] has expressed interest. Her and
Bill are also friends, and while they’ve been in the same films, they’ve
not shared screen time yet. So, getting those two involved is a pretty big
deal. The only issue is that I’m still trying to make a decision to
continue with the feature or move on. You know how sometimes you eat
something over and over and you get sick of it? I kind of feel that way
about It Came Out of the Sky. I lived and breathed the film for the past 3
years and I think I may be done with it. Making a movie isn’t easy, even
one on a small budget like this was done. I will say that our shoot went
swimmingly, we had zero issues on the shoot, no drama, everyone had fun
and ultimately that’s what I like on my sets. If you don’t enjoy the craft
of making a film, you are in the business for the wrong reasons.That being
said, if there’s a producer out there that thinks they can aide in getting
funding for it, I’m all for doing it. It’s just that to make it into a
feature, the production will cost about $20,000, and that’s just for
production and doesn’t cover post-production. If you’re reading this and
are a producer, or have some money to throw around, contact me and I’ll
let you read the sequel scripts.
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If all goes well, when are you planning to shoot?
Since it’s kind of up in the air, there is no set time schedule
yet. But if we find interested parties, I could probably shoot by the
fall. (Other) future projects you'd like to share?
A friend and filmmaker friend of mine, Eric Smigiel, just started
shooting one of his films and one of the locations he used has a
particularly interesting locating within the house. I’m not going to
say much about it, but this location kind of fell into our laps and
has potential for an amazing film. As of right now, it looks like
It Came Out of the Sky’s cinematographer Steven Bullard will be shooting
this one as well, and I’m doing my best to get Stuart Wahlin back on
set. I’m sure as writing goes on, I’ll find a place for my other
actors as well. We’re meeting in a few days to discuss and I’ll
likely start writing that project post haste. So, stay tuned!
Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
Our Facebook page is:
https://www.facebook.com/p/It-Came-Out-of-the-Sky-100094196266213/
My website is:
https://www.gadflycinema.com
And for anyone interested in emailing me regarding producing the
feature, I can be reached at
gadflycinema@gmail.com.
And right now the film is available to screen for free. If I do get it
to a streaming service, it will no longer be available for free, so watch it while you can!
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https://youtu.be/a0Gkjy_K0S4?si=OdcRdD6Fv91z4-CB
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten
to ask?
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Not that I can think of other than to tell the audience to help
keep indie film alive but supporting other artists. Most of us don’t
get paid for our work on our projects, I usually always defer my pay
to go to my actors and crewmembers. I make movies because I thrive
on set and that rush is worth it for me, the reward is a finished film
that all involved can be proud of. I was able to pay my cast and crew
something, albeit not a lot, for their work on
It Came Out of the Sky. That always makes me feel good. They were paid, fed well, and we
had fun. So many of my projects are passion projects, and I’ve made
quite a few that had zero budget, but for the others, I always try to
pay people for their time. Thank you Michael for another interview,
you’re a true champion of the arts!
Thanks for the interview!
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