Somewhere in the Skies - Star People: Adam Finberg on UFOs, Humanity, and the Cosmic Mystery

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

In this episode, we sit down with filmmaker Adam Finberg, writer and director of the new movie, Star People. Growing up in Phoenix, Finberg shares how the legendary Phoenix Lights Incident of 1997 sparked his fascination with UFOs and influenced his work as a storyteller. He breaks down what each character in Star People represents, humanity’s search for connection, the mystery of otherworldly visitors, and the deeper questions about our origins and destiny. He also takes us behind the scenes of the research and filmmaking process for Star People, from studying UFO experiencers to weaving their stories into a thought-provoking narrative. We dive into his theories on UFOs, why the phenomenon matters today, and how films like Star People challenge us to see the UFO mystery as part of a much bigger human story. Watch Star People on Amazon, Youtube, and Apple TV ANOMACON 2025: http://www.anomacon.com Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Email: [e-mail] Discord: https://discord.gg/NTkmuwyB4F Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ryansprague.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomewhereSkies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somewhereskiespod/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryansprague51 Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U Proud member of SpectreVision Radio: https://www.spectrevision.com/podcasts Read Ryan’s articles at: https://medium.com/@ryan-sprague51 Opening Theme Song by Septembryo Copyright © 2025 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #StarPeople #AdamFinberg #PhoenixLights #UFOs #UFODocumentary #AlienContact #UFOCommunity #Paranormal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Anomicon kicks off at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and runs all day and night. Subscribe to the Somewhere in the Sky's YouTube channel or visit Anomicon.com to learn more. Once again, that's anomicon.com. Anomicon. Getting to the heart of life's mysteries, one discussion at a time. Spectre vision radio. While our government's official position is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other possibilities.

To use our imaginations, for if we consider that astroscientists agree on one point, that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some feel that is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. I'm Ryan Sprag, and you are now Somewhere in the Skies. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I am your host, Ryan Sprague. Today we're going to be talking about a brand new movie called Star People, which is set amongst the backdrop of a very famous mass UFO setting, that of the Phoenix Lights Incident. You remember when we were little kids, the night I saw the lights. I heard this whispering voice.

Claire. I never heard it again until yesterday. You're going to get yourself killed with this ridiculous obsession. People saw the lights, and I did too. There's a reason we're here. There has to be. And joining us today is the writer and director of the film, Adam Finberg. Adam, thank you so much for joining us today on Somewhere in the Skies.

Hey, Ryan. Thanks for having me today. Absolutely, man. Now, I had the opportunity to watch an advanced screener of your film, Star People. And, you know, anytime a quote-unquote fictional film comes out in the UFO world. The UFO community gets very critical and defensive on how the topic is portrayed in a fictional world. But what I really appreciated about your movie, which we're going to talk all about tonight, is you did blend your story with actual events. And that's the Phoenix

Lights incident, a case I'm quite familiar with having personally investigated it, my been to some of the areas where you've filmed, which we'll talk about. But of course, the first question that I'm sure everyone asks you about this movie is what was the impetus for it? What inspired you to want to make a film about UFOs, the Phoenix Lights specifically? And what is your connection to the Phoenix Lights, if any? That's a great question because I, so I grew up in Arizona. and when the Phoenix Lights happened, I was in high school.

And I did not see them, but I remember very clearly. I think I was a senior in high school when it happened. And I had a family friend who witnessed them, who would later go on to write books about it, and, you know, Lynn Ketai, who you've spoken to. And I remember I would hear quite a bit about the Phoenix Lights, but also experiences that people had seen them, because it wasn't always,

exactly the same experience that people had, you know, it's moved kind of across the state. And it just had always stuck with me through the years. I mean, the incident has been covered by TV on, you know, I know you were involved with, with an investigation into it, but multiple different shows through the airs, documentaries. There's been books written about it. There were several features that sort of featured the Phoenix lights in a in a sort of horror element abduction, you know, sort of space. But I had always felt like the impact that the citing had on people from a personal perspective had never really been explored or how it connected to someone's sort of personal experience because, you know, like from my familiarity with what you've

researched and written about just that people's experiences with UFOs are very personal, are different, they vary, but people are often very changed by what they experience. And I've always been just, I've always wanted to tell a story that that also sort of tapped into this bigger idea of our understanding of the universe and things that are just beyond our grasp. You know,

I grew up in the era of Carl Sagan and, you know, Cosmos, I mean, that sort of era, it really influenced my sort of want of discovery. And as I became a filmmaker and through the years, there were other things that influenced me in the journey. One was this documentary I did about 10 years ago called The Business of Recovery, which was about the addiction treatment industry, had nothing to do with the UFOs, but it was a documentary where I spent several years with independent documentary. interviewing and following individuals and families in the throes of addiction and treatment and

for you know life and death situations relating to it and a lot of what I learned during that experience influenced my writing when I was putting the story together as well so I think all those all those experiences in my life sort of came together when I was developing the story you know I know being from Arizona, I really wanted to tell a story set in my home state that also really featured my home state. And for some reason, it just, the Phoenix Lights was such an Arizona story and also such a visual story in the sense that it really gave me an opportunity to, you know, feature the, the beauty of the state, the expanse of seeing a starful skies, you know, in a, and it just, I guess, all those elements kind of came together for me when I was developing this.

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kudos to you and your cinematographer. I mean, I've been there. I've been to Superstition Mountain. I've been out in that desert. I've looked up and, you know, being from New York City, I didn't even know what stars were, to be honest, until I went to Arizona. And I was just, it hit me so. hard when I actually saw. And you can even see like, God, like the, almost the galaxy out there. It's crazy.

Oh, you totally. Oh, you can see the guy. You can see Andromeda with the naked eye on a clear night. You know, it's crazy to think that like, even growing up, you grew up in New York City, it's like if you shut off all the lights and everybody looked up, I mean, that is what you'd see.

I mean, it's there. It's above everyone. But yet we can't in the modern day. it's almost, it feels exotic because we're so accustomed to these dark and dark skies above us where the stars are, you don't even notice them. You know, most nights, if you live in any sort of big city, it's very, you really have to look, oh, there's a couple of stars there. But I mean, really, there's just an ocean of stars above you at any given moment, even during the day, they're there.

So I think, you know, I love. I love camping in Arizona. I love getting into the mountains and having those moments out under the stars. And those, I wanted to bring that feeling in about being, about that experience of the natural world, of our natural place in the universe. So that was also a part of why I was so just, I guess you could say, driven to have these moments where our main character was, was alone with the universe, kind of. Right. And, you know, I do want to kind of cover a few of your characters because each of them sort of play a pivotal role in the different themes of the movie. But before we get there, Adam, your research process. Now, you know, you mentioned the name Lynn Katai. I'm quite familiar with Lynn interviewed her several times. But what was that research process like? Had you looked at any other UFO cases, talked to any other.

witnesses of the Phoenix lights, looked at like the documents on this thing. Like what was the research process like from a UFO sample, if any? Well, it was very Phoenix Lights centric because, you know, I was very familiar. Like there is some archival footage in the film. In the opening of the film, there's a sequence where you see a bunch of real archival shots from 1997 of footage of news of real witnesses talking about the lights. And, you know, Tom Brokaw reporting in 1997 about the Phoenix, I mean, all these things were,

I guess you could say part of the research to kind of gathering people's descriptions of the lights because the footage didn't, I mean, you've seen everyone that knows anything about you have seen the Phoenix Lights footage. And on a screen, it's not, it's nothing. It doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, it doesn't, it's, it's, DHS technology, you know, I mean, but you have to pair that with. what people described that they saw. And I'll tell you, Ryan, what's crazy is I had people that worked on my film who had seen the lights.

And even after I was making the finish the film, people who were working in post, who had their own experiences. Crazy. Oh, yeah, they go right over my yard. It was the craziest thing I ever saw. I mean, that had seen them. And I'm like, I feel bad. I was like, oh, I wish, where was I? Yeah, right.

But, no, I mean, I never saw that. But as far as research goes, you know, I watched as much as. All of the accounts that existed, I mean, there's limited, even though thousands of people saw it. I mean, not people didn't have phones in their pockets back then. So just, but there was a deal of footage and kind of because there wasn't a universal description of people's experiences. I mean, it was very like how many lights, the formation varied depending on where it was seen because it, it apparently had moved across the state to some degree. I mean, and it sort of been, the footage most people have seen was like right over, kind of just south of Phoenix, actually in an area where we were shooting part of the film. But just being familiar with those accounts was a really big part for me.

And just reading about how it had impacted people who had seen it was a big part. And also just trying to craft what they actually looked like. I mean, I just had to understand how people described them. And it's crazy because people that came, when we were in the theaters, we were in the theaters in Phoenix here for two weeks. And I did some Q&As, and both of them, there were witnesses that showed up with this greeting. And like, you know, one woman described her experience saying that they didn't look like lights.

I mean, yes, you could see them, but she did not equate them with what you would say that oh that's a light source I mean she saw something in the night sky but she said it didn't look like a light so there were a lot of you know there were a lot of accounts to kind of take take into consideration when we were sort of

crafting the visual you know and then we had to make a decision about all right how are we portraying it because it's like clearly we can't portray it in a way that's going to satisfy all accounts of witnesses but this is what Claire our main character saw So that was just what I decided to go with.

Yeah. Yeah. So Claire, the main character, is sort of this amalgamation of all these people. I love that. And let's talk a little about that character, if you don't mind, Adam. Claire was played by Cat Cunning's. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Now, what was that like working with Cat in being a UFO experiencer? So Kat was an incredibly talented actor on the film. And, you know, part of Kat's work on preparing was to connect with the obsession, like finding that common, you know, as an actor, you're trying to create a real experience. And I know that Kat tapped into their own experiences, you know, with obsessing about things. I mean, I, you know, my role in it wasn't so much to tell Kat like how to, how to be obsessed with it as much as it was to facilitate these sort of real emotional experiences, creating a space where we could get real performances. A lot of our, I remember our discussions, I think I sent Kat like, I think I sent Kat like witness videos and just things to, just to see what had been filmed back from the 90s and just to be familiar with the event. You know, I mean, I don't know the exact prep that Kat did to, to, you know, get their mind into being obsessed with this event.

But, I mean, a lot of it was just, you know, I mean, they weren't familiar with the event. I mean, it's now it's been close, it's coming up on 30 years, but yet it is the most significant. mass sighting in North America. So I just sort of had to get Katberry familiar with what happened. And to tap into what some of the viewers, you know, that had seen it, had to say, like, interviews with people back from 1997. I mean, it gave you a real experience. You know, I think, I mean, it's like, as much as I will, I think my role as a director

on this for all of it, we have an incredible. incredible cast in it, but it was really just to, it's kind of a most of trust-building exercise, I think, when you're trying to get real moments to happen in front of the camera, as opposed to sort of prescribing to your actor, like, this is how you need to be like, you know, they're all professional. Everyone's bringing their, their talent and their angle to it, you know, when we start rolling. Right. And, you know, that obsession really stuck out to me. because, you know, at this point, I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of Clairs at this point.

And in real life, these people's lives are dramatically affected by these events. And they all have baggage going into it, too. You know, you play a lot with trauma in the film. And I definitely want to dive into that a little bit. But the actor, Kat did such a good job of how these people become obsessed. They're going out there every night and looking for it again, looking for what they felt that night. And most UFO witnesses tell me I felt more human in those brief moments,

have seen those things than I ever felt before, like more back in my shoes than I've ever felt. And I often wonder if whatever these UFOs are, that's the point. Like they want to make you remember and feel human and feel scared, feel inspired. I don't know. I don't know. It's just a theory,

but I like that one. So yeah, I thought Claire was such a well-crafted character. Trauma. That is a big part of the movie, whether it's Claire, whether it is her brother as well, Taylor. He's dealing with his own stuff,

which has a lot to do with your documentary that you made. Talk a little about him, if you don't mind, his kind of role in all this? Yeah, his, so Taylor's character was the other side of the coin, I guess you could say, of Claire, of Claire's character, because they both experienced an event as children and went about how to process it in different ways. And his experience of dealing with abandonment.

and this sort of event that blew up their family life, you know, was sort of self-medicate and become isolated, you know, from his only remaining family member, you know, from his sister. You know, I felt like there had to be kind of a mirror for this event. And also to sort of reflect the memory aspect of what happened when they were kids. You know, because, like, our memories of being of children are, are colored through the years, you know, they can change, even though we think we have a grasp on what happened, but they can sort of morph. And, you know, Claire's character is in kind of an

addict's character in the sense that she had this event, didn't know how to process it as a kid, and never had any way to figure it out as she grew up. So she just was stuck on this. moment that, you know, had, she had to, like, reconnect with her, with her brother in order to have any, any closure, but also to reconnect with, with, with another person. Because that was really what her character was all about being isolated. And her only way forward was to kind of grow from this isolation in order to, in order to, you know, use this event to, um, to, um, to, to, to, define growth. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, the fact that she is and was an addict in her own way. Yeah. And also, like you said, the other side of the coin, Taylor being a little bit more on the skeptical side, you know, you always have that believer or skeptic, that Mulder versus scully sort of thing. And I loved that kind of dynamic they had, not just as brother's sister, sort of estranged, but also, you know, I don't think it was a UFO, but you clearly. think it was. Yeah, I mean, we don't want to give away too much. But the other sort of big theme was

immigration, which I thought was very interesting. You know, you don't think about that when you think of, and you should, when you think about something that might have to do with aliens. I mean, it's literally, you know, what some people would call those who are immigrants in a way. So what made you want to kind of tackled that through the characters of you had Ricardo and his daughter Gabby. And yeah, what made you want to go down kind of the immigration route with all this? Well, it's interesting that, you know, this script was written just, I mean, I started working on it a few years ago. And it's interesting, the lens that some people watch the film through that may get triggered, that feel that it's some political statement, but I don't see.

anything political about what happens in the film. Because it's just, it's a fact of life in the Arizona desert that there are people that have been struggling to cross the desert for many years for a variety of reasons that just die out there. I felt that it just, there was a certain thematic element that made sense, you know, with the whole connectedness and fear of the other. I mean, that's a theme that goes back, you know, throughout human history. But in this country, I mean, you can just look to the early 20th century.

I mean, people were afraid of immigrants and blaming immigrants for everything in the early 20th century coming from Eastern Europe. You know, back then it was, I mean, they were the boogeyman. They were everybody's, you know, problem. They were treated poorly. The, you know, Italians, Jews coming in from Eastern Europe. You know, I mean, it was just, and it's just shifted. I mean, it's not a new, it's not a new sort of scapegoat, I guess you can say.

But the reason it came into the story for me was that I always felt that this was a human story about human connectedness. And I needed to have a character who felt kind of alien in a sense that they were coming from another place. and had there was this sort of, it just felt natural that they'd be in the desert during a heat wave and that they would have to sort of deal with this situation out there. And it's, you know, it's just a truth out there. I don't know. I mean, it's just a truth in the Arizona desert. People are coming across it all the time.

I just, and it's just weird how that topic has become. like hot button for some for some people out here because it you know the humanity that we sort of have lost sight of our shared humanity I think often at least in this country and that is sort of one of the themes of the film was and sort of embracing you know embracing our humanity in order to move forward I mean that's really the only the only path forward and you know because they're stuck out in this house. And the only way they can get out of there is to sort of embrace, embrace those around them instead of continuing, you know, their isolation.

I mean, you have lost souls in the desert that are physically lost in the desert. And then you have the Claire and Taylor characters who are emotionally lost, I guess you can say. So they're sort of stuck in this purgatory and they kind of have to get out of it together. Yeah, I like that. And again, without giving away too much, the lights are sort of what they all eventually have in common. That even goes for, you know, you mentioned humanity and out in the desert.

You have a character who doesn't really see the humanity in these quote-unquote aliens, these immigrants. And that's your character, Felix, kind of the last character will touch on here, Adam. You know, sort of this survivalist kind of sort of feel. I love the character, the actor. was great. But he brings something unique to your story that has kind of been a big story in the UFO world lately, and that's drones. I mean, if I tell you how sick of hearing that word I am in the UFO world, you know, we had a drone invasion here in the UK, and then it shifted over to the U.S. And then the New Jersey drone invasion was just crazy. You know,

the fact that like the FBI got involved, the president had to remark on it. And you do talk about this. And look, let's be honest, a lot of UFOs in today's modern world are probably drones. A huge portion of them are. So I love that you kind of tackled that in the movie, these being like drug smuggling drones and stuff like that. So yeah, what made you want to kind of tackle? that whole aspect. You kind of put your skeptics hat on

on that one. I liked it. I liked it. Well, I wanted to, I felt like the story needed to have a possible earthly explanation that you're sort of going back and forth between. You know, but also I think the drones represent

the conventional explanation of sightings. Oh, a craft with like, navigation system and little people behind little green men behind a cockpit. I mean, my personal feeling on sightings that are unexplainable is that there is something, I would say, not mechanical about what we're seeing, about what is witnessed out there. And I guess I just felt like, I mean, I don't think when I put the drones in there, I was trying to make some huge statement, but it just sort of naturally worked out that like, in a modern day, like, yeah, drones are,

drones are a perfectly reasonable explanation for a lot of things that people might see, you know, in the night sky moving around because people can, it's crazy what can be done with them now. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, the Felix character also, I think, was interesting for me to write. Because he, Bradley Fisher did a great job that our talent, our actor in it. Just because he was able to tap into making, him a bad guy that wasn't exactly how you'd expect.

Like he was kind of scary and like a kind of like he would he would kind of almost come off nice, but he was scary at the same time. So yeah, I know drones just seemed, did you like that line? He's like, I'm sick of these where he's, uh, ranting about the drones. Yeah, I mean, that was me. That was me, man. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I know you've entered a lot of a lot of people who have witnessed things, but yeah, I think that that what interests to me about sightings that have where people have had sort of deeper experiences is that there is these interesting connections between near death experiences and UFO sightings for some people. You know, and we do have to today, I mean, it's like we have to separate these physical.

physical flying toys that are out there from sightings that are truly, you know, unexplained. And it's hard to do because at night, at night, it's very hard to determine what you're seeing, you know, how far away something is, how big it is. But, yeah, and we did use drones in the shoot for filming some of them, the aerial stuff out in the desert. So we got, we had some, a few different drones that we were using to, to fly out in which, we almost lost one out of the desert. Oh, God.

Well, because you're out, we were out in the superstitions, and we were trying, I mean, all those shots of them out there are footage that we got. I mean, they weren't like stock footage shots. We went out in the desert and filmed it. But, you know, you kind of lose them through the valleys of the superstition mountains. Luckily, they found their way back to us. Yeah. It's a dicey area. I'll tell you that. I hiked up it with a 70-plus-year-old Zuni tribe elder who went to show me like petroglyphs that are actually up there in mountains. And, um, You know, and the Zuni tribe actually believed these are the star people, which, you know, when I saw the title, I'm like, I like where this is going. Clifford Mahoudi was the name of the tribe elder. And the dude had like an organ transplant six months before he hiked this mountain with me. And I'm not kidding you, he made it up there before me. I was so like puffing and puffing to get up this thing. And here's the 70 plus year old Oregon recipient. recovered organ recipient who made it up there before me.

It was just hilarious. But I do want to touch on that, if that's okay, Adam D. Star People. Why did you decide to call the movie that? And yeah, what kind of role did that play in the overall themes of the film? Well, that name, I mean, like I had read about, you know, Native American interpretations of UFOs. and they had called them star. I mean, the term star people had kind of come through that.

Because, you know, there are petrogryphs and there are sketches about lights in the sky through the years and people have called them star people. And it's something, for me, the name is more, is kind of referring to the humanistic connection that UFOs might have to us and how we kind of are the star people in a sense. I mean, it's like the, you can interpret it to mean the people, the lights in the sky or the beings that might be associated with them or the people that are on the ground, you know, doing, you know, sort of being the star people, I guess you could say, like being, connecting to those, helping others. I mean, just these sort of, I guess you could say moral, people that are sort of advancing humanity, I mean, in a sense, because humanity's always.

sort of on this march forward, but it's like two steps forward, one step back. So it's like, there was for me, I guess, a connection both to the sky and us here on Earth, you know, because it's like people is obviously referring to humans. I mean, really, that's what that word is. So they call them the star people, but like, I guess that just is supposed to raise a little bit of like, what is our connection to what's in the sky, whether it's something spiritual, perhaps, you know, we don't know. Yeah, good point. I mean, David Bowie played it best for all made of stars, you know, star dust at the end of the day. Yeah.

Yeah. I like that, man. I like that. Interpretation. I found this really interesting in the film where Claire sort of saw the lights as one thing, where Ricardo saw it is something differently. And, you know, without sort of giving that away, what do you think about that? What role does interpretation play in a UFO? citing like you know i've had people who i had a mother and a daughter that i interviewed who

saw the same black triangle ufo in michigan and they were looking at the same object presumably and the mother said it was completely silent and her daughter told me that it was unbearably loud uh the mother said it was burning white hot the daughter said it was pitch black and the mother felt euphoric when she was looking at it and the daughter felt into tense fear. And I was just like trying to make sense of this. I'm like, are you guys sure? You were looking at the same thing and they're like, absolutely. And it was because the mother was very spiritual and saw this as like a kind of a miracle to use that term. And the daughter saw it is like something threatening, something evil almost. So I found that really fascinating,

the different perception and interpretations of a UFO saying. So yeah, well, made you want to tackle that? Well, that, I mean, that is exactly, I think that highlights the subjectivity of reality that is easy to lose track of that. The idea that we all experience the world the same is just not true. And it would make sense that two people could see the same event and have very different interpretations of it, experience of it, you know, feelings from it. you know, our emotions color our experience of reality. And, you know, reality is something that everyone sort of creates for them in their own mind, in a sense. I mean, there are, like, events can have positive feelings for one person and negative for another.

I mean, that was partially in this story that why, you know, we had people, we had characters that were experiencing something that was coming from some similar source, but having slightly different experiences with what happened. I mean, also with the climates of the film without giving anything away, but, like, Claire's experience of it was very personal to her, you know, in what is sort of revealed, you know, at the end of the film. And I don't, I just, yeah, I mean, that's what's so fascinating about, I think UFO, I mean, I know you document a lot of UFO experiences, but just it is just like

you're calling it. It's an experience. Like there is not, there really isn't an objective version of a sighting because there is no camera that will capture how we experience what we're seeing with our eyes. It just doesn't look the same. It never does. I mean, even when we film with our cameras in the desert, we, you know, we have to colorize it and we have to, you know, we have to do things, well, to create the look. Because a camera doesn't. not, but even there, it's an interpretation of what that moment was when we were filming. So, you know, the more that I think people can accept that our fellow humans have different experiences of life, of reality of the human experience, I think the more we're able to

accept that there just isn't one way to live and to be human, you know, to live our lives. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And that's kind of the UFO. Every UFO is different. It's probably a different source or controller behind it. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Subjectivity. That is the buzzword and euphology, for sure. To kind of get into the film aspect of all this, Adam, your composer and your cinematographer, what was it like working with them to kind of bring your, like your visual language, your musical language to your story. Tell us a little about them if you don't like. Sure. Yeah, Aidan Chaperone was my cinematographer. Very talented guy.

And we, he's based in Arizona. Most of our crew was from Arizona. And he, you know, he and I had a lot of conversations about the look that we wanted for the desert, the sort of visual structure of the film, the type of lenses we wanted. you know, the feeling that we would have when we were out in the desert versus inside, you know, there were a lot of conversations about those lighting setups. And also whenever we were going to show stars, I mean, a lot of that was also in hand in hand, in him with our visual effects artist Brian Tucker, who, you know, had to put the stars into those shots

because, you know, you can't expose both for, it's just impossible to expose stars and actors at the same time. But the stars that were put into the shots were from real star maps. You know, we just spent a lot of, they all had to be kind of planned in advance about when we were going to see stars. But yeah, all the stars in the film had to be brought in post. Wow. Yeah, there's just no other way to do it. But I was very insistent on figuring out how to tweak it, to give it the most real experience of what it was like.

being out under the stars. And, you know, I mean, we were physically out under the stars for a lot of this filming out in that canyon in the superstition mountains. We were filming at a ranch for a lot of those exteriors. We're kind of in the Gold Canyon area. It was like eight miles deep into this canyon on a dirt road, off the grid. I think I popped a tire on one of our location scouts because it was a little bit of a rough road to get.

I mean, we had to get all of our equipment and crew out there to, to, film some of the stuff. But, um, but yeah, Aiden, Aiden was a, was just a joy to work with. Um, and, um, on the music side, um, so I'm, I mean, I'm an amateur musician and music for me has always been, like I hear, like I have to, I feel the music when I'm writing. I just like, I love, I love music to kind of inspire me as I'm, as I'm creating something, but also I knew that the music would be a really big part of the experience of the film. And Reza, uh, Safinia, our composer, he just had a very spiritual take on how to create music. I mean, I don't know all the details and insinounce of how he created some of the sounds,

but I know that there was some analog mixing that he did to create the score. I mean, it's an incredible score. Actually, it's on Spotify now. We've released the entire score on Spotify, if you look up to star people. And, you know, he created, resurrected motifs that would kind of, come back in different moments of the film and also grow, like where you would hear, like the opening music track would kind of come back in whenever she was searching for the stars, but it would, it would layer and get more complex, complex, and then even the final track had some of those same

themes at the end of the film. And, you know, Kat, the, so the final track in the film is Constellation. I don't know if you noticed, so Kat did the vocals and co-wrote it with Reza. I wanted, because Kat's a very talented musician in their own right, has, you know, when I met Kat, and I heard all, like, Kat's music and singing, it was, I was like, I have to, I needed, I needed their voice to be a part of this story. Like, I knew that it had to come in. So if you listen, the, so the music track that comes in the very end, the credits, that is our lead, Kat Cunning's voice on that track, singing Constellation. Yeah, Kat collaborated with Reza on that.

Wow. That was a fun experience because that was probably the last element of the film we did was that music track once it was score, because we kind of didn't know what it, tonally what it was going to be until we kind of had most of the score figured out for the film. And so the very last thing was their collaboration to, you know, to write and produce that track.

So that was fun experience. That was just fun to be involved with that and, you know, have my lead's voice be part of the music track. Right. Well, they did a fantastic job, multi-talented, for sure. So I guess to kind of wrap things up, Adam, any fun stories. You mentioned you lost a tire at one point, but I always love to hear if there's any, like, fun. behind the scenes stories that happened. Anyone out there, you know,

threatening to kick you guys off the land? Did you actually see any UFOs while you were out there? Yeah, anything like that? I mean, well, no, I didn't see any UFOs. I mean, we certainly had a, it was, the filming of it because we were in this deep canyon was in and of itself a very mystical kind of experience. I remember every time we'd drive out the set,

I'd be playing music in my car and this dark landscape. with just my headlights leading the way through this dirt road to get to set. It was really something. But we definitely had to deal with rattlesnakes. That was an interesting element, you know, because we were shooting out in the Arizona desert. You know, the day before we started shooting, our art department was prepping the main house location, which is way out in the desert. And there was this rattlesnake just hanging out on the deck there, which is what they do.

They live there. So we had to, for everyone's safety, we had to bring in some of the, one whose job was to just manage any rattlesnakes that showed up, you know, just move, because you can't hurt them. You have to move them. And just to check for rattlesnakes, because we had a bunch of shots where actors are running in the desert. And we had a lot of times where we needed our crew to be, like, setting up lights out in the desert.

We're like way out in the desert. You know, and it was kind of rattlesnakes season. So we had this gentleman who's job, he had like this grabber thing. And he was very experienced in this. But he would go and like poke around and just like before we would have. actors he would just like clear an area you know to make sure we were going to be safe uh luckily that was the only incident where they show i think they once they knew he was there they decided to just sort of back off i think okay uh we didn't we didn't have any more any more uh any more

rattlesnake into it's after that but um but we did have i mean it was a very tight shoe because we had you know being a low budget film we had we had to film this in i had 14 days to to to film this, which is a very, very, very, very tight schedule. Every minute of the day was important. And there were definitely some days we were filming up to the minute where we had to wrap, like getting stuff in the can, like getting everything filmed. But it was just like it was a it was a hustle all the way through. I will say, oh, well, one thing that, okay, one other little story that's interesting is the, the location where Felix's house is is on this ranch out in gold. It's called Quarterstokely Ranch and we were out in this desert.

But you can't see, but there's this, it's a cattle ranch. So they have like, they have like all these cattle that they keep there. And, you know, cattle have a certain smell to them. And we certainly had to deal with, I mean, there definitely were areas we were filming where we were very close to like what these areas where the cattle would graze or they would go through. And it was just like, you just kind of had to like, all right, we're on a ranch here. But, I mean, it was just out of frame.

I mean, you would never, you never see it in the film, but it's like, I mean, even that shed that, that, the, like, brick house that they find out in the desert just out of frame is where, like, all these cows were held. I think they moved them out and we were filming, but, you know, they leave behind quite a lot of stuff. Yeah. And so, yeah, so we had some smelly, smelly moments to deal with in, in some of that. But, you know, it's just part of filmmaking. Got to deal with what, deal with location and get, get the shots, get the. the, you know, get it all in a can. So you have a story.

Get the shot, baby. I love that. Yeah, that's indie filmmaking. Well, I will say this. And I'm not just, uh, shooting your horn. I mean, this does not feel like an indie film. I mean, if this is an indie film, it is top tier from special effects to the acting to the writing. I mean, it's a beautiful story.

I, I cannot recommend it enough to people. Um, again, you know, we're very territorial in the UFO world when these, fictional movies of actual events come out. But you took such a unique angle and told such a humanistic story, which is what I'm all about, man, when it comes to UFOs. So it did really resonate with me.

I think it'll resonate a lot with our viewers and listeners as well. So, of course, my big last question. What do you hope people will take away from the movie? And where can we find it? I hope that people will take away the connectedness that we all have together and that the UFO phenomenon,

I think in some ways, can remind us that there is something greater out there that we don't understand. And that, you know, in this increasingly kind of isolating world, as much as, even though we do look into the skies and we see things we don't understand, it's the people around us that enrich our lives and sort of will give us meaning ultimately. You know, none of us, it takes a whole, it takes a village thing, but even just like living a life, living a life in isolation is not, is not some, I mean, people are fighting, fighting this problem in our digital society. And I guess I hope people take away this, this reminder that, like, those around us will help us heal and help us.

grow and no one can kind of do it alone. Yeah, whoever one takes that, can take that message away. And the film is, yeah, it's, you know, we had a limited theatrical run in New York, L.A., and Phoenix, but now it is available on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Bandango. There might be some other VOD service sources, but yeah, it's available for rent or purchase on VOD, and I hope your audience is enjoy it. Perfect, man. We'll link everything in the show notes as well. Five stars, baby. That's what I'm giving it. So guys, definitely check out star people and wherever you can find that online. And yeah, any other big projects coming up at him before we let you go? You spend all this time making a movie. And then the last question people ask is, what's next?

I'm working, no, I am working on, I've been writing another screenplay that I hope to get made. And yeah, I mean, it's, unfortunately, I don't have something to say like, this is coming out. But, you know, I'm working towards it. So look for, look for something on the horizon. Love it. Love it. Awesome. Adam, I can't thank you enough for coming on Somewhere in the Sky.

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Pleasure meeting you. Somewhere in the Skies is part of the Somewhere Podcast Universe. please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To learn more about all of our shows, visit thespu.com. Spectrevision Radio. You're great of protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.

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