EPISODE 1
A lone pilot embarks on a dangerous, desperate mission to stop an unrelenting alien foe.
One more day until the premiere of CHANCE OF STORMY SKIES!
A genre bending anthology series of weird tiny films. Often darkly comedic, always high concept, occasionally genuinely upsetting. Sometimes, there are spaceships. Created by Ted Hogeman and Sudeshna Mukherjee.
The first episode, SPACE INVASION THE MOVIE FILM, is going online TOMORROW, January 10, 2024, at Noon!
Available on YouTube, Threads, and TikTok (on a related note, laughing with the storm has a TikTok now(?), apparently?)
Catch more episodes of Chance of Stormy Skies each Wednesday at noon over the next several weeks!
Looking back on a few projects this year, wanted to highlight some of the other filmmakers I’ve been lucky enough to work with outside of official Laughing with the Storm projects. Here’s a peek behind the scenes at the production of Operation: Wet Paint, directed by Thomas and Curtis Nishimoto, produced by Jack Strayton.
OPERATION: WET PAINT is a comedy short about a group of kids who decide to hatch a complex, heist-style plan to get revenge on the bullies that have been tormenting them.
Here’s a peek behind the scenes at the production of Operation: Wet Paint
The protagonists test a secret weapon for their plot in Operation: Wet Paint
Directors Thomas and Curtis Nishimoto stand at the monitor for a scene.
Director of Photography Daniela Mileykovsky stays out of the sun with an umbrella as she operates the camera.
The Sony FX9 that was the primary camera used to film Operation: Wet Paint
DP Daniela Mileykovsky and Production Sound Mixer Raven Jackson prepare for a key sequence with actors Sean DiGiorgio and Isaiah Owens.
Actors Isaiah Owens and Sean DiGiorgio prepare for a scene while the rest of the crew uses umbrellas to stay out of the summer sun.
Gaffer Berlin Waechter takes a behind the scenes still as Directors Thomas and Curtis Nishimoto demonstrate the blocking for actor Jaeden White.
Producer Jack Strayton stands at the monitor as Gaffer Berlin Waechter brings additional supplies to set.
The short story Shrimp People is now online as the latest episode of Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast!
The Flash Fiction Podcast has been one of my favorite quick hits of science fiction short story goodness over the past year, so it was quite an awesome experience to hear narrator CB Droege’s dulcet tones reading words I’d written.
The Flash Fiction Podcast logo, by Manawaker Studio
In the short story, a woman deals with unexpected cross-cultural issues when she takes her two alien crew-mates out for lunch to her favorite lunar restaurant.
And, as a bonus, here’s one of my concept sketches that I made while first writing the short story, of a Yutu Spacer (aka Shrimp Person):
So, pretty much every character in the Star Wars universe, no matter how brief or small an appearance, has a name, a detailed backstory, and a dedicated entry on Wookipedia. Take, for example, the famous Cantina scene in the OG Star Wars (aka A New Hope, if you’re an utter revisionist philistine)
See this guy?
Why that’s Hem Dazon, an Arconan Scout, of course! Here, you can learn all about him here, on Wookipedia:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hem_Dazon
What about this raffish wolfman gent?
That’s frequent bar patron and Defel fortune hunter Arleil Schous, duh!
What about this rando?
Danz Borin, bounty hunter, pilot, and Wookipedia page subject.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Danz_Borin
I think you get the point, but literally, almost everyone in this relatively quick, dense scene has a whole life explored in the Star Wars expanded universe.
https://sites.google.com/site/starwarswhoswho/home/who-s-who-in-mos-eisley-cantina
Almost everyone.
There’s one guy who has no history, no known name. An anonymous figure in a 1960s era yellow pressure suit, casually walking through the background of the bar. Known only by the cryptic moniker Cantina Spaceman.
(Technically fan made on Etsy but hey, I’ll count it)
…but no backstory.
Until now.
Click me to learn the true truth behind the Cantina Spaceman!
Okay, so a little more background on this story; some of my favorite random details when researching this whole crazy thing.
The suit Cantina Spaceman dude wears is called a Windak Pressure Suit, and it’s British in origin, from the 1960’s:
https://everexcollett.wordpress.com/windak/
This led to the idea of a Cold War era teleporter experiment done by the Royal Air Force, in partnership with the United States Air Force. My personal headcanon is that the USAF didn’t want to test a potentially unstable technology on American soil, and that they partnered with the British to do it ‘safely’ across the pond, in case things went wrong.
RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge are real military bases in the UK, both had some level of involvement with the USAF as well, and they really were referred to as ‘The Twins’. They were involved in some spooky stuff in real life; both bases were the sites of UFO sightings, RAF Bentwaters in August 1956 (the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident), and RAF Woodbridge in 1980, with the Rendlesham Forest incident.
But what really sealed the deal for me as the setting for this story is that RAF Bentwaters has a structure with funky, retro-futuristic brutalist stylings affectionately known as ‘the Star Wars Building’:
From Bentwatersparks.com
So there you have it, one possible answer to the mystery of the Cantina Spaceman, and a little peek into the mad glee that goes into these kinds of short stories. If you enjoyed the story and/or this blog entry, consider joining our mailing list here! And thank you for reading!
PS: One final note, I hope anyone who reads A Spaceman Walks Into a Bar will have a very different take on this classic sound effect from 2:05 the next time they watch Star Wars…