Sundance Film Festival 2023 – Interview with ‘Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out’ Director Jake Van Wagoner and Screenwriter Austin Everett
Director Jake Van Wagoner and screenwriter Austin Everett speak with Script about how the story idea came to light, their creative collaboration from development to post-production, writing emotional beats and so much more.
Teenage aspiring journalist Itsy is miserable when her family moves to the small town of Pebble Falls. Among the new challenges — a fixer-upper house and unfriendly high schoolers, to name a few — Itsy meets Calvin, her strange, space-obsessed neighbor and classmate. Itsy befriends Calvin in hopes of writing an exposé on the oddball for a summer internship back in New York City, but she soon discovers that the amateur astronaut has an out-of-this-world secret. Calvin believes his parents were abducted by aliens, and it’s his mission to find and join them in outer space. As they endeavor to uncover the truth, the pair of outsiders foster a surprising and heartwarming friendship.
A lighthearted yet touching family narrative set against the backdrop of the beautiful Utah landscape, Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out is a story about embracing what makes us different, finding belonging, and staying true to yourself. Suitable for kids (and aliens) of all ages
Director Jake Van Wagoner and screenwriter Austin Everett give audiences a fantastical movie with a lot of heart for the whole family. And for those that grew up on Spielbergian-like films, this is a film worth adding to your rotating movie-watching list.
I had the recent great pleasure of speaking with the two filmmakers about how the story idea came to light, their creative collaboration from development to post-production, writing emotional beats and so much more.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
Sadie Dean: Austin, where did the story idea come from?
Austin Everett: The story, honestly, it came from the title. The title was the first thing that popped into my head. And it was basically, I had the title, I was like, ‘I would love to write a movie, called Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out’. And it was kind of like, ‘OK, who feels left out?’ Well, this boy who believes that he saw it. And he's not even mad about, he's just bummed that he didn't get taken with them. And it was like, ‘OK, who meets this boy?’ All right, well, there's this girl who's from New York City. And she's bummed that she has to live in this small town and she wants to get out of there. So, they kind of have this mutual goal, where they're like, ‘OK, let's try and figure out how we can both do this thing.’ And then the story just kind of took off from there. But really, it came from a place of, I think I know what this movie is because of the title. And who are these characters? And that's kind of where it started.
Sadie: Was it always a conscious decision that they weren't going to be teenagers?
Austin: That really came from what Jake and I had discussed as the kind of movies that we grew up watching and Jake, specifically, when he called me and he was like, ‘Let's make a movie together. What do you have?’ He was very clear in that he wanted that kind of Spielbergian, kids going on an adventure, something that his kids could watch. It was always going to be skewed a little bit younger about these kids that are trying to figure out who they are. But also go on this adventure that has a little bit of that sci-fi magic in it.
Sadie: And for you Jake, what was your immediate connection as a director to this script?
Jake Van Wagoner: Well, honestly, it happened even before I got the script, because I went to him and said, ‘Hey, I potentially have some money to make a movie from an investor. Do you have anything?’ He didn't and then he came back a few months later with the title. I remember I was super sick and he was pitching it to me over the phone. And he told me the title and then I was like, just from that moment, I was so excited. And that's kind of very fun, because everyone we've talked to so far is like, ‘This title is insane. And I want to see what is this movie?’ That's what it was like for me. I was like, ‘Gosh, I want to know what this movie is’. And he sent over a treatment and it was all of that; it was the heart, the adventure, and the humor that comes along with it. And so, all those things checked the boxes for me. And like he said, those 80s movies that we grew up on, I feel like there's still a place for that in the world. We don't see it at a ton, but we all relate to it. And it's like, that's what we grew up on. And it's nostalgic, but if you do it right, then it's really fun to watch. And so that excited me a lot.
Sadie: Yeah, definitely. And going into that the world of the 80s, those kind of movies, and what you're shooting on, the aspect ratio being anamorphic, using the film camera as a lens for the emotional build up for these kids too, it really does add to the world building. Jake, how did you come to that visual decision with your DP Jeremy Prusso?
Jake: Well, we didn't want to set it in the 80s, because that's been done a lot lately, but we did want to have a kind of a throwback feel. And so, for those early Spielberg movies, and those late 80s to early 90s, those were in that aspect ratio, they were anamorphic. And it gives you a more vast feeling. And it also, when there's just one character alone, on an anamorphic lens, it's like they're very alone. I wanted to accentuate that. And so, in talking to the DP, we talked about a bunch of different lenses and what our options were, and we both decided to just do anamorphic to give us that feel. We're also filming outside, so we wanted these landscapes to be vast and to be wide open. The more tests we did, the more we're like, ‘Yeah, it kind of does needs to be that.’
Sadie: Without giving away too much for this movie, and my readers, you have two really important emotional story twists in this, how were you both able to keep the tonality consistent without being over the top cartoonish. Let’s start with what was on the page.
Austin: That was probably the hardest part about writing the script is that those are two very big emotional beats. And I would like to tell you that I nailed it on the first time, but it was really just going over it and over and over and over, and just really trying to just hit that emotional beat as center as you can. But, I mean, honestly, even then, it didn't really start feeling like we had nailed it until the actors started performing it, and then it was still, ‘Let's try it again, with a little bit of nuance here. Let's try it again.’ And Jake can attest to this, it was the same thing in the edit where it was like, ‘Let's try cutting back here. Let's try adding this reaction here.’ And so, it was a lot of massaging both on the page, on set, in the edit - I think that’s just indicative of how important those moments are, is that it was just such a razor thin edge of getting it or not getting it. I guess we'll see if it resonates.
Sadie: From a writing standpoint, were are you breaking that emotional arc through a characters specific point of view?
Austin: Well, I think it's two different things for me when I'm writing it, one is our emotional point of view. And so, us as an audience, we need to be with Calvin, but also with Itsy, and so we need to be able to empathize with our two main characters are feeling emotionally. But then of course, in order to make it feel grounded and real, we also need to know where his parents are coming from. Or where they've been, what they've seen, what they're planning on doing next, what their plan is. And so a lot of that I had to, obviously not write in the script, but I had to know, so that her responses were put through that filter, or his responses were put through his filter as well, without going into the specifics. [laughs]
Sadie: And for you Jake, taking the script, keeping the tonal consistency visually, without it feeling like a comic book?
Jake: Yeah, luckily, Austin and I collaborate really well together. We've been buddies for a long time. And this is the first thing that we've done, purely creatively together. But we have such a similar sensibility for things and we both kind of know, like, ‘That is good. That is not good.’ [laughs] And that's even during the writing of a script, Austin was very open to me being like, ‘Yeah, I feel like this is too much, or this is not enough.’ And he just nailed that tone so much. But we massaged it in the script enough to get it to the place where once it was in the actor’s hands it was so amazing. Elizabeth Mitchell plays the mom, and she was very good at being like, ‘OK, I know that I can't be at a ten the whole time, we got to figure out how to work in a little bit more nuance.’ And so that was also very helpful to work with the actors, and to know when we did need to kind of come back down and when we didn't need to go back up.
And having been on the project for the whole time it was good for me with that vision to know, ‘Yeah, that doesn't quite fit,’ or I need Calvin to be a little bit more reserved in this moment, and less openly crying or whatever. Having Austin be there and keep it in check, like, ‘Hey, maybe we need to pull back a little bit here,’ was very helpful to make sure that we just kept it right, were right in that line, so that it wasn't like a comic book. And it wasn't like a soap opera, but it was just heart wrenching and real and people could relate to it, but be like, ‘I do not like this.’ [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, I remember talking to Elizabeth on set, because that scene, especially her character, that scene is just so important to the journey of Calvin, but also Itsy, I remember talking to her on set, and just after watching her do the scene, and this being so important in my head, I thanked her for putting so much into this character. And she said the nicest thing where she was just like, ‘I love her.’ She obviously has had a very different life, but she got it, she understood who this character was and what her motivations were and where she came from, and her desires, and just hearing her just get the essence of the character to the point where she's like, ‘I love her,’ it was very reassuring. And I think it shows.
Sadie: I'm so curious about your guys' filmmaking journey’s to this moment having your film premiere at Sundance. What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Jake: I am kind of one of those kids that just always was like a natural performer. I grew up in plays and musicals, playing the guitar, and in the choir, and making movies with my friends in high school and making them oftentimes by myself, like setting up the camera recording me do a take, press stop, go and do a different character.
When I was in high school, Lord of the Rings came out, and really as funny as that is, I watched The Fellowship of the Ring, and it blew my mind and the storytelling and the special effects and the acting, I was like, ‘Man, I really want to figure out how to do something like this.’ And so that's just kind of carried me through into film school and I've worked my way up from a PA to a director to a producer. I put in time learning all the different aspects of production. And I feel like that's given me a good foothold on how to do this in a way that's good for everyone on the crew, but also to have a vision and see it through to the end. I've been fortunate to see a lot of really good examples, and some not amazing examples, but taking from all those experiences helped me know what I want to do and the kind of stories I want to tell and be able to do them as good as I can.
Austin: My first experience on set was, I was born in Japan, and I was a child actor on some made for TV movies. And I grew up thinking that I was going to do that again - I was going to be an actor. But when we moved from Japan to Utah, there wasn't as many film acting opportunities that I thought living in the middle of nowhere. [laughs] And so I started making stuff with my friends. And initially, I started acting in them. But I became very aware that I was extremely particular on what the shot was. And so, I stopped wanting to be in front of the cameras to watch the shot from behind the camera. And then it was just from there. It was just ‘OK, what can I make next?’
As far as writing goes, I always just thought that that was a part of the process of making a movie I didn't even consider, this is kind of embarrassing to admit, I don't know why, I started so I'm gonna finish [laughs] but I didn't realize that I could write something and not direct it until I had sold a feature script to a studio. And I was like, ‘Oh, wait, am I directing this?’ And they were like, ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ [laughs] And I was like, ‘Oh, OK. I guess I'm just the writer now.’ And it's been great, because I've been able to write for a living since then. But that was the first time that I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I can write stuff for other people.’ And yeah, Jake and I both grew up kind of in production and learned our way through that. And so, when we met each other on set, we had very similar goals. And when he called me about doing a movie, it was a no brainer - of course, I was gonna write something for him.
Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out premieres January 20, 2023, 6pm MST at Broadway Centre Cinemas - 6.
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Sadie Dean is the Editor of Script Magazine and writes the screenwriting column, Take Two, for Writer’s Digest print magazine. She is also the co-host of the Reckless Creatives podcast. Sadie is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, and received her Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute. She has been serving the screenwriting community for nearly a decade by providing resources, contests, consulting, events, and education for writers across the globe. Sadie is an accomplished writer herself, in which she has been optioned, written on spec, and has had her work produced. Additionally, she was a 2nd rounder in the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and has been nominated for The Humanitas Prize for a TV spec with her writing partner. Sadie has also served as a Script Supervisor on projects for WB, TBS and AwesomenessTV, as well as many independent productions. She has also produced music videos, short films and a feature documentary. Sadie is also a proud member of Women in Film.
Follow Sadie and her musings on Twitter @SadieKDean
