Creative Producing a Space Opera with Marlene Lacasse 🐈

How do you take a seedling of an idea and turn it into a full-fledged original short film? That’s what our Creative Producer Marlene Lacasse found out how to do, shoot for the stars and land among a space opera. From photography to producing to leading an intergalactic band, Marlene knows a thing or two about finding the light in the dark of the creative process. During our conversation, she shared the details of her own journey that might help our readers take a step out into their dream themselves.

Nice to sit down with you, Marlene! You’re the Creative Producer for Out of This World and you also have a “Story By” credit on the film. Tell us, what inspired you and the Director, Elia Petridis, to make this bright retro-futuristic sci-fi world?

The concept for Out of This World started as a music video for a different track. When we didn’t get awarded for that artist, we decided that we absolutely loved the concept and wanted to make it no matter what. Finding the song “Lonely Star” by Ariana and the Rose really helped to refine the story from its original iteration. Elia Petridis, the Director, and I work together sort of like “art” and “copy”. Once we come up with the concept and story together, I’ll build and design the visual world while he writes the script and the story to live in the world. It’s a super collaborative process. The story itself is a reflection of my youth and I think it’s a story that most people will be able to relate to.

A film of this magnitude tends to be very collaborative. What other artistic influences did you have in making this world?

We knew we were making a sci-fi alien film, but I wanted to design an alien world in a way that we haven’t really seen before – since it’s been done so many times in so many iconic ways. For the Nebby character and spaceship concepts, my design was largely influenced by water and aquatic themes. I thought about how little we know about the ocean and how it’s just as mysterious as space. I imagined that a spaceship coming into the atmosphere is kind of like a submarine going into the ocean and kind of ran with that.

I am super inspired by retro-future space vibe aesthetics. I wanted this world to feel super timeless, like you can’t put your finger on when it happened. I pulled influence from a lot of different eras and wanted to make sure nothing in the film could be “dated”. So lots of 60s mod influences, 90s grunge, but also some things that feel more futuristic.

Since we’re on the subject of influences, how do you view light as an influence on the world of the film?

As a photographer, light is everything to me. It was another way we could differentiate this world from other alien tropes. An alien that controls light and can see auras!? I like to always think about bringing light into the world, so for Nebby to do that in a very visceral way really spoke to me.

Tell us more about where the character of “Nebby” came from. What about them speaks to you as an artist?

Nebby as a character is honestly inspired by any adolescent that has ever felt lost, alone, and misunderstood – I think it is safe to say, pretty much any adolescent has felt that way at some point. Nebby is an entity, a being and their experience is fairly universal. I have seen so many teen girl or teen boy movies, so I was excited to put a character on screen who is just a teen! Plus, LGBTQIA+, in this case, non-binary representation is so important especially for youth who are settling into their identity.

A little backstory – Nebby’s name and catlike mannerisms are inspired by my one-eyed cat, Nebula!

Talk about a cool origin story. Even though you were mostly behind the camera, you do show up in a band poster in the film for the fictional band “Starstruck”. Tell us more about that!

That was so much fun!! The poster is a huge theme in the film and I don’t want to give it all away. Honestly, I was just so excited to be styled and costumed by Orchid Satellite and Elias Martian. It was the most rockstar I have ever felt.

What is your favorite easter egg or prop from the film?

Hands down the Golden Record. Definitely do yourself a favor and look into the history of this incredible artifact! Basically, they created a literal golden record with sounds, music, and cultural representations of Earth. It included diagrams of humans and maps indicating the origin of the record – just in case any aliens ever find it! It was attached to the Voyager spacecrafts and launched into space. So, in the film, we imply that Nebby was the one who eventually finds it. I have a tattoo of one of the maps from it as well! Double easter egg!

Well we’re not sure whether aliens found the Golden Record or not, but we have to ask – do you believe in aliens?

Oh, of course. I think I know a few.