Great news! Alone in the Universe will be playing in two venues in October!

First, the movie will be showing at Celebration! Cinema Woodland in Grand Rapids, Michigan! The one-week theatrical run begins on Friday, October 2nd! Check the theater's website for showtimes.

Second, the picture will be screened at the Made-in-Michigan Film Festival in Frankenmuth, Michigan, at 2:00 PM on Saturday, October 17th!

Come support our Michigan-made independent film at these great venues! And please help us spread the word! The more tickets we sell at Celebration! Cinema during the opening weekend, the greater the chances of the film's run being extended to a second week! Small films like this only succeed with the help of our awesome audience!

Well, that's a wrap on production on ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE! Saturday was our final day on set, and it was a bittersweet finale. Our entire cast and crew worked really hard, and I had the privilege of developing deeper personal bonds with many of my collaborators. I appreciate all the blood, sweat, and tears they invested in this project more than they will ever know. I'm thrilled with the work we all did, and as good as it feels to be moving into post-production, I'm sad that the production phase is over.

There are so many extraordinary people who worked on the film, but in particular, I have to thank our lead actress Dana Blackstone. I probably wouldn't have even written the script in the first place if not for her, and her performance on set has more than validated my confidence in her talent. She is amazing.

I already have a good chunk of the rough cut edited, and I'm charging ahead full-steam. Thank you all for your continued support!

The big day is almost upon us. Production on ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE begins tomorrow morning -- August 12, 2014. It's been a long journey up to this point, and I couldn't be more proud of the work my cast and crew have done so far.

We finally have all of our locations booked, and after a few upsets, our cast is in place. Yesterday, I spent some time with members of the art department furnishing an apartment where we'll be shooting for several days. It's going to look great.

This project means an awful lot to me, and I'm very excited to be moving into the production phase tomorrow.

I don't know how often I'll be able to post updates during production, but I'll get to it whenever I can. Stay tuned. And thanks for all your support so far!

I emerged this morning from a long, restless night of serious reflection. I suspect that all artists ask themselves at some time or another why they do what they do. I mean, I'm not solving world hunger or curing terminal illnesses. I make movies. So what?
 
I'm a huge fan of Chuck Jones's Roadrunner/Coyote cartoons from the 1950s. I was recently looking at a screen grab of Wile E. Coyote poised to run headlong into a tunnel he himself had painted onto the side of a cliff face. You may be familiar with the gag. The Roadrunner runs through the painted tunnel, thwarting the intended death trap, but the Coyote flattens like a pancake when he hits the rock. And I thought, that's filmmaking. We paint a tunnel on the side of a cliff and charge into it at full speed hoping against all logic, all probability, all hope, that somehow we'll find ourselves on the other side of the mountain. Some make it, some don't. So why do we put ourselves through all that irrational misery? 

For me, the answer is multifaceted. 

For one thing, I can't help it. I have to tell stories, like a shark that must keep moving forward lest it die. It's what I'm called to do. If I don't make movies, or at least tell stories of some kind, I'll shrivel up and disappear. It's that simple. It's what I'm here for. 

For anther thing, and perhaps more importantly, I've gotten to spend my days with some of the coolest people in this industry: Scott Merriman, Robert William Ford, Diane Kowalski, Ryan Leeder, Rachel Higgins-Bernhardt, Elizabeth Merriman, Phil Worfel (grumble), Charly Lee Bivona, Anthony E. Griffin, Chris Porter, Evan Koons, Jason Lowe, Cort Langeland, Alexie Schneider, David J Gries, Joseph Scott Anthony, Jack Michael Findley, Alicia Deven Clark, Lynn Kay Montgomery, Jess Rogers, Richard Raphael, Alicia Humphrey, and my most recent muse, the magnificent Dana Blackstone. There are so many more … far too many to list here. To these and all my other filmmaker/actor friends and muses, I say thank you. It has been an honor and a privilege working with you. You make me a better artist and a better person. 

I mean, seriously, we create art together. We merge our collective creativity to form something beautiful or funny or sometimes both, and really, isn't that enough? Isn't that why we do what we do? It's the collaboration that truly gives it meaning. At least, that's what it is for me. And I'm going to keep doing it no matter what. Because I have to keep moving forward. 

Now let's charge into that painted tunnel and make some more movies. It's what we're here for.


So that Roadrunner/Coyote metaphor I mentioned … Yeah, that's what I've been going through over the last few months. There have been times I wanted to simply give up. But somehow, for every step backwards, my team and I have managed to take a couple steps forward. And as we make our final plans to charge into that painted tunnel, I am confident that we'll make it through relatively unscathed.

It's been a wild pre-production phase, and I'm eager to get into actual production! Stay tuned for more updates over the next seven days!

Production for ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE begins two weeks from today! We're moving forward quickly. We have almost all of our locations locked, and we're still looking for a couple more crew members and actors for bit roles. I'm confident everything will be ready by the time we start filming.

A couple weeks ago, we pre-recorded a brief scene featuring Julian Newman as a preacher. The scene will appear on a computer screen in the film. It felt good to get some footage in the can, as they say, but it will be even better to begin principle photography.

On Sunday, I met with Anthony E. Griffin (the director of photography), Phil Worfel (the first assistant director), and Sabrina Petkus (the second assistant director) to go over the shot list and work on our daily schedules. We made great progress, and we'll be continuing Wednesday evening.

We have a great team assembled so far, and I'm very excited to begin shooting this film on August 12!

Pre-production is charging ahead for ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE! We staged a script read-through with the cast about a week and a half ago, and rehearsals begin tonight! It's exciting to see these talented actors bring the characters to life. The chemistry between them is fantastic.

We also launched our Indiegogo crowd funding campaign this week. We're raising money to help pay the cast and crew and to go toward various supplies. Please contribute if you can. Any donation will help. And please share the project with your friends.

Well, here I go again. I'm Joshua Courtade, and I'm currently in development on my third feature film: ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE!

ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE will begin production in August of 2014. My pal Robert William Ford is co-producing, and Alexie Schneider is our line producer.

We already have a great cast shaping up. The amazing Dana Blackstone is playing the lead role. She's appeared in both of my previous features (BLACK PAPER and TWENTY YEARS LATER), and she's absolutely incredible. I'll be acting in this one, too. Robert William Ford and David Gries will also be appearing. To keep up on the casting, check out this page. I'll post updates as more actors join the team.

I made a short film called ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE a few years ago, but it's only peripherally connected to this feature. Originally, I wanted to do a straight adaptation of the short, but that didn't seem to be working, so I scrapped it. Then I started working on a completely unrelated story. But there were holes in the story, so I incorporated a handful of elements from the short. Both films work separately from each other. If you're interested, you can watch the short film here.

I'm very excited to be making another feature film and to be working with the talented folks who are already attached to the project. Over the next few months, I'll be filling positions in both the cast and crew, raising funds, looking for locations, and rehearsing with the cast. It's a complicated process, but there's nothing I'd rather be doing.

Thanks for checking out ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE! This blog is a place for me to give you, the audience, updates regarding the progress of the project. So please check back often and tell your friends about the movie!