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We have talked about this before,
but do bring us up to speed: Your new movie It Came Out of the Sky - in a few words,
what is it about?
It’s really about missing persons mixed with alien abductions. In a nutshell
it’s about a disgraced police detective who, after having his own UFO
encounter, has been demoted from an undercover detective to being put on
missing persons. Detective Jensen meets Barney, who claims to have been on
an alien ship after missing for 6 days.
With It Came Out of the Sky
being about alien abductions and the like, what can you tell us about your
research on the subject prior to making your film, and wbat are your
personal thoughts on aliens, UFOs and the likie? Missing persons in New
Mexico is a real problem, particularly missing and murdered indigenous
women. I’m employed as an video editor at a TV-station and at work is
really where I noticed it being a problem as we often report on that. As
far as my personal views on aliens and UFOs, I am absolutely a believer
and have had two pretty crazy encounters. One of which I was with another
person, so we both saw something unexplainable. (Other)
sources or inspiration when writing It Came Out of the Sky? I was heavily influenced
by the television show The
X-Files, the film really plays out like an
episode of the show. I was also very influenced by Travis Walton’s story,
whose book The Walton Experience I read when I was like 12 or 13 years
old. Subsequently, the film adaptation Fire in the Sky scared the shit out
of me when I was young. There are also elements taken from the Betty and
Barney Hill abduction, which is a pretty crazy true story as well. In
fact, I named two of my characters Betty and Barney in homage to their
story. If you’re looking for a good abduction story rabbit hole to go
down, look into their story and listen to the audio of their regression
hypnosis sessions. One more thing to note, the title the film It Came Out of the Sky
is taken from a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, my all time
favorite band. The song takes place in Moline, Illinois where a farmer
sees a UFO and tells his story. I’m originally from Northern, Illinois,
where I’ve seen two UFOs, so the song has always resonated with me. Do
talk about It Came Out of the Sky's
approach to the science fiction genre!
The film really is a science fiction-thriller. My normal genre is horror
so there’s some elements of that in there as well. I wanted the film to
feel organic and plausible, you know, something that could have happened
to anyone, including you.
What can you tell us about your directorial approach to your story at hand? My directorial approach in this film was
to pick the right people to back me up as far as the production crew and
actors goes. I feel finding the right people is half the battle. Having a
solid script helps as a blueprint of how you want the film to end up
feeling. I hand-picked everyone who was involved in the film and we had an
amazing shoot. Everything went smoothly as I had meticulously prepared
everything myself from pre-production to production. You
of course also have to talk about It Came Out of the Sky's cast, and why
exactly these people? When writing the script, I wrote parts for people I knew and had
worked with before. I wrote Detective Jensen specifically for Stuart
Wahlin [Stuart Wahlin
interview - click here]. I kind of wrote the character as a mix of him and myself. We both
look pretty similar with long hair and beards. Stu and I have become great
comrades over the past 15 years or so, having worked in various capacities
on our own films respectively. We first met on set of my vampire film,
Afraid of Sunrise, where he played a murderous vampire. We became fast
friends and I have worked for him as a cinematographer and as an actor. I
originally wrote Luna, our suspect who is a ride-share driver, for a
German friend of mine, Daniela, but she had moved back to Germany leaving
me to hold auditions for that role and the others. Randilynn Landberg’s
audition went very wel,l and after she read for the part of Luna, she asked
if she could read a journal entry she wrote in character as Luna. I was
blown away by not only the content for the entry, but also the dedication
and initiative to the part she took. The role of Barney, our UFO abductee,
was found while at the audition, but not through an audition. To explain:
I held auditions at an acting studio and I wasn’t happy with the
auditions for his role. They just didn’t have what I was looking for.
Since I was looking for a black male, I asked the owner of the acting
studio if he knew anyone and he highly recommended I talk to Lambert
Maddy. Myself and my cinematographer, Steven, met up with Maddy, and to our
surprise the two of them already knew each other from working as
background extras on Oppenheimer, which was shot here in New Mexico. After
meeting Maddy, I was intrigued by his West African accent. His reading for
the part went really well so I asked him if he wanted to be our Barney and
he said he absolutely loved the script and wanted to be involved.
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We found
our Betty (Barney’s wife), played by Mya Twyeffort, through our
auditions. She came in and read for both Luna and Betty. I had another
actor lined up to play Betty, but after some schedule conflicts, I had to
replace her. I remembered Mya’s audition and her unique look and asked
her if she wanted to come on board, and to my delight she did. Lastly, the
role of Chris was also written for someone I have a history with. Actually
I wrote it with two people in mind. First, my buddy Chris who once had a
recurring role on i-Carly. He had retired from acting, but I wrote the
part with him in mind as he said he would come out of retirement for me. I
wasn’t sure the role would be meaty enough to justify him coming out to
New Mexico from Seattle, so while I was writing the role I also had James
Liakos in mind to play Chris. He and I had worked on a couple projects
together, two of them were 48 Hour Film Festivals, one of which I
co-directed with Eric Thelander, who came on to It Came Out of the Sky
as our special effects coordinator, while on hiatus from a Disney Channel
show he was working on. He just happened to be free as the making of the
film took place during the writers’ strike. A few words about the shoot as such,
and the on-set atmosphere? The shoot, as I said earlier, went
very smoothly. I had planned everything out during pre-production hoping I
had all my bases covered. Since I hand-picked the production and acting
team, there were no big egos on set, and my vision from script to screen
came out pretty much exactly as I planned. As always on my sets, we had a
lot of fun. I like to keep my shoots light and fun; after all, we’re
playing pretend. I find it important for the cast and crew to feel open to
making suggestions and trying their own thing. Doing this allows me to
take from their background. While not all suggestions are used or even
considered, I find it beneficial to me as I know I’m not the only
creative mind on set and their input could absolutely help the story.
The $64-question of course,
where can It Came Out of the Sky
be seen? It Came Out of the Sky
is currently starting its film festival run. We are
submitting to known festivals as well as sci-fi festivals. So, for now,
you’ll have to see it in film festivals across the nation and even
internationally. After about a year long run it’ll be available online
or DVD/Blu-ray or maybe even streaming. My hope is actually to sell the
film through the festivals and find a distributer. Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of It Came Out of the Sky
yet? I
have only shown the film to close friends and family and to some of the
cast and crew. They all have good things to say about it, but friends and
family aren’t as critical as others. So far the only public review
available is from you, and you had kind words for the film. From what I know,
It Came Out of the Sky
is the first of an intended trio of movies on the subject - so what have
later entries in the story in store for us? And/or any other future
pjojects you'd like to share? I have already
written the second and third installments of the movie. It Came Out of the Sky
ends on a cliffhanger and everybody is left on the edge of their seat
as the film wraps up. I had an idea of where I wanted the films to go and
once the film finished post-production, I kind of got a feel for the
zeitgeist of film and I was able to sit down and pound out the subsequent
scripts within a couple days. The story gets pretty crazy in Part 2 while
Detective Jensen gets close to finding the truth, and Part 3 wraps up the
series with some closure to the mystery Your/your movie's
website, social media, whatever else?
You can check out my film company’s website at
http://www.gadflycinema.com - there you can get updates of the film and festivals it’s going to play
at. You can also check out some of my past projects, some of which have
won multiple awards. There’s also a merchandise store where you can get
your own Gadfly Cinema or
It Came Out of the Sky
swag. The film’s
Facebook page is:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094196266213
Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
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We are looking to fund the next two installments of the film. We plan to
shoot them at the same time so we don’t have to go through the time and
funds of having two separate shoots. If anyone is interested in coming on
board as an executive producer, please contact me. It’s going to be a
hell of a great time, and the people involved are amazing at their craft.
Most characters from the first will show up in the other two. I can be
contacted at gadflycinema@gmail.com
for any questions about the upcoming
films and for anyone interested in helping fund them. Thanks
for the interview!
Thank you Michael, as always it’s been pleasure.
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