Presented with Pendant ce temps sur Terre
July 22, 2024 6:35 PM Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
Not to be confused with other movies bearing the same name, AstroNots is a hilarious Australian short film set to screen at Fantasia Film Festival 2024! Not only has it been screened at the Hollywood Comedy Shorts and Durban International Film Festival earlier this year, but also it got honourable mention at Inner West Film Fest. With this impressive list, director Andrew Seaton and cinematographer Matthew Samperi believe they got a hit.
What I enjoyed from this work is that it pays tribute to many fond sci-fi classics in subtle ways. And to learn more about what they have planned, I got to communicate with them:
For our readers unfamiliar with your work, can I please get an introduction?
MS: Andrew and I grew up together—our parents were friends before we were born. As teenagers, we loved making short films together as a creative pursuit and a way of gathering our school friends together for some fun. This fuelled our combined passion for filmmaking which lasted throughout high school and into our university years. Eventually, when our hobby started to become our profession, we started the company Mint Films together and have since grown it into one of Australia’s top commercial production companies. We produce both commercial and creative work, and over the coming years plan to push into the long form and narrative space.
What would you say are your best examples of your work that’s available to see?
MS: We have done lots of projects that I am proud of, and I believe are worth watching! Our comedy action short film Manos Arriba (video link) was incredibly fun to make and had great success with audiences worldwide.
Our music video ‘Lay Low’ for Dominic Breen starring Australian actor Richard Roxburgh was a labour of love; it’s a beautiful and engaging piece. In terms of our commercial work, Spitting Symphony for Single O was incredibly fun to make, and was quite a feat—one of the most un-COVID safe ads we could have ever made, which we managed to produce in the height of Sydney COVID-19 lockdowns.
When did the idea come about to make AstroNots? (and whose idea was it to come up with this title?)
MS: At the start of 2022 our team sat down together and decided we needed to produce some creative projects. We got our friend Adam Dunn to come into the office to share some of his short script ideas with us. He almost forgot to share the idea for AstroNots—it was an aside as he was getting ready to leave the meeting—and we immediately knew that this was the film we wanted to make.
Adam and his friend Aaron Glenane had written a first draft of the script, and we immediately fell in love with it. They developed it further, and ended up both starring in the film.
AS: What totally struck a chord with us was the simplicity of the premise. I knew I wanted to direct another short film, but knew all too well the time, effort, and money involved. I wanted something impactful that we could make quickly and cheaply. Two guys sitting in one location chatting felt achievable…well with custom set builds, bespoke 3D printed helmets and over 115 VFX shots later, I realised just how wrong I was.
I get the feeling this work is partially inspired by Interstellar. Is this correct?
MS: Whilst the script and story weren’t necessarily inspired by Interstellar, we definitely used that film as part of our visual inspiration. Personally, Interstellar lists in my top 5 films—I am a huge fan! Other significant references that Andrew brought to me as visual inspiration were Apollo 13 and the Netflix film, Stow Away.
AS: I love that you mention Interstellar here. My goal was to create a film that looked and felt like a familiar Space genre film. Think Apollo 13, Space Cowboys, First Man, Interstellar—I wanted the audience to be lulled into believing that what they were about to see was like all of those films, competent people doing what they trained hard to do.
That’s why we start in the bar with the very tropey News Report, that’s why the buttons and controls in the shuttle feel dated because I wanted it all to feel familiar and then pull the rug out from under the audience’s feet when they realise our characters are far-flung from those other films in the genre.
What would you say to people who might want to compare this to the Amazon Prime comedy, Space Cadets?
MS: I had honestly not heard of it before you mentioned it—the plot does have similarities to our film for sure! I haven’t watched Space Cadet, but from the trailer it looks to be an easy-going comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I think our film definitely has similar comedic ties. Without having watched this film I can’t comment on how it plays out, but all I would say is that our film very intentionally plays with a false opening, the building of tension and tries to make the stakes as high as possible. This not only creates a very engaging story, but also helps the comedy to land harder.
AS: I agree, obviously there are similarities in the set-up here, but I feel our comedy styling is much darker than the brand of comedy Space Cadet is aiming for. I haven’t watched the film, but I can say that we were looking to make a darkly comedic film with some deep themes attached to it.
Were there any challenges in making this pilot?
MS: As filmmakers there are always significant challenges we face. First and foremost, we decided early on that we wanted our film to look and feel as real as possible, and so we decided that we needed to shoot this on a real set—not on a green screen.
We knew that having a physical and tactile world for them to inhabit would greatly aid the end product. This was a huge challenge, as we then needed to build and dress a cockpit set, as well as travel and store it in the studio. Whilst Mint had a budget available to commit to the film, we sought external funding and were fortunate to get the non-alcoholic beer brand Heaps Normal on board to sponsor the film. Their contribution really helped get the set build off and away.
AS: As Matt says, we wanted there to be a certain quality to the final film, and we believe that having gone down a fully CG set route, whilst it may have been easier, wouldn’t have yielded the same results. Another big challenge we faced was the costumes. Finding convincing astronaut costumes in Australia that didn’t read like cheap Halloween costumes on camera was a battle. We ended up designing, 3D printing, assembling and painting our own custom helmets and our costume team were able to put together something that on camera looks really convincing.
Since the plan is to turn this into a series, would it be a web series or something else?
MS: We’ve been developing the series of AstroNots with the writers and stars of the film, Adam Dunn and Aaron Glenane. We would love to see the story take off on one of the streaming services. We have series outlines in development for at least the first two seasons, exploring themes of humanity’s environmental impact, class warfare in society, and the concept of identity and what it means to be human.
Was there any ad-libbing done during filming to get the best out of the talent’s comedic skill?
MS: Andrew worked with Adam and Aaron extensively in pre-pro to ensure the comedy of the script was flowing well, especially since almost the whole film is a two-hander and plays out in the same location.
With this in mind, we were very intentional to nail the script on the shoot to ensure the beats landed and that the film remained engaging throughout. In the same breath, some of the best comedy comes unexpectedly, and so we definitely had ad-libbing moments throughout the shoot. Some of these moments made it into the final cut, and have become some of our favourite moments in the film.
AS: For me, comedy is a living breathing thing and as such I welcome ad-libbing on set. As Matt said, there wasn’t a huge amount of room for going off script on this one—with two actors, and in one location there wasn’t much room to “hide” but we found moments for improvisation.
For example, when Adams pretends to fly the Mars bar like a spaceship, Collins almost under his breath remarks “I bet you’ll crash that too” to which Adams responds, “I would never, I would never crash a Mars bar.” All totally ad libbed by the wonderfully talented comedic performers, Adam Dunn and Aaron Glenane.
After Fantasia 2024, what’s next?
AS: AstroNots will continue to do the festival circuit, and we are hopeful that it makes it into a few more festivals so that we get the opportunity to watch it with even more audiences. There is nothing like watching your work with an audience, as a filmmaker the immediate feedback you get is so valuable. We will then forge ahead with developing AstroNots into a longer format. We feel there is more of a story to tell with these two characters.
In addition to this, we have a dark comedy action thriller feature in development and a crime fiction psychological thriller that we are developing into a feature as well. We are working hard to get these projects off the ground so that, along with our ongoing commercial production, we have a slate of fresh projects being released over the next couple of years.
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