A local filmmaker is debuting his passion project Girl, Yeti and a SpaceshipGirl, Yeti and a Spaceship in Juneau next month. Juneau locals Amelia Jenkins, Bryan Crowder, and Roblin Gray Davis star in the film.
Anton Doiron, the mind behind the movie, spent the last 13 years of his life putting it together, along with some help from some friends. His first film, Space Trucker Bruce, came out in 2014.
Doiron sat down with some of the actors in the film to talk about how the project came together.
Girl, Yeti and a Spaceship premieres November 21 and 22 at the Gold Town Theater in Juneau.
Listen:
Anton Doiron: What is Girl, Yeti, and a Spaceship? It’s a sci-fi comedy movie based here in Juneau. We use local actors and local businesses, and we built all the sets here locally. There is one scene in Ketchikan, but otherwise, it’s pretty much 100% here in Juneau with local people.
Bryan Crowder: I’m Bryan Crowder, and I play the Yeti and a film director and yeah a couple of those small little bits.
Amelia Jenkins: I’m Amelia Jenkins and I play Brit.
Roblin Gray Davis: I’m Roblin Davis and I played the agent leader. He’s the bad guy. I think so. The leader of the bad guys.
Anton Doiron: Oh yes, yes.
Roblin Gray Davis: I haven’t seen the film yet.
Anton Doiron: I’m the only one who’s seen it at this point. It’s taken me about 13 years to make the movie. We finished filming their parts in about 2018, so it’s been eight years since they acted.
With this project, I really wanted to take advantage of Juneau’s scenery and the hiking trails and get outside more. So about I want to say about 50% of this movie is outdoors, and the rest is in sets and in space animations and things like that.
Amelia Jenkins: All of my sets were in space, so I would walk into a room that was a complete set. There was a dashboard. There was a roof. There were walls. But I’m really excited to see what it looks like once there’s something out the windows that I was responding to and interacting with.
Bryan Crowder: I remember being at Anton’s house at one point, and this was when Roblin was there too. And it was with the big gun that you all were trying to fabricate and get Roblin to hold the big zapper gun in the house. And there’s green screens around, and Anton has like the sound equipment, and he’s got the the boom under his arm, and he’s got the camera set up, and you’re just seeing this guy doing like five different things at one time, directing and and and you know making sure all the audio is correct and the lighting’s good, and you know you’re just watching him take it all in, and it’s very impressive and very very fun to watch him and his element,
Roblin Gray Davis: And making sure that the beagle was still on the couch and not on the floor in the space.
Anton Doiron: Yes, I did some of the green screen in my living room, and our beagle was there, and she would lay on the couch and watch us. But every now and then, she’d get up, and we have wooden floors, and so click, click, click, click, click along the floor. Okay, redo the sound. Her name’s Maddie, and she’s in the movie. My character is this unhappy government worker, and his only joy in life is going out hiking with his beagle. So she has a — Maddie, the beagle — has a pretty big part.
Bryan Crowder: Without having seen the movie and playing three different parts, so I should know what is going on in the movie. I still don’t. I would have to say friendship is a core component of the movie.
Roblin Gray Davis: I would say, without having seen the film yet, that it’s about a girl, and there’s a spaceship, at least one spaceship, I think, and a yeti in a pretty awesome yeti costume, I have to say. But I would agree, friendship and working together to overcome the evil challenges that may be presented in your life. I think somewhere is in there.
Anton Doiron: Okay. Well, having seen the film and written the film, and the main theme that I was trying to go for with it had more to do with work and our relationship to work. A lot of people take a job and expect that job to give them meaning in their lives, to be this passion, and some people are lucky enough to do that, but a lot of us just end up in jobs where we’re in a windowless basement typing stuff into a computer.
And we can be pretty miserable because we’re expecting this job to fulfill us and to give us meaningful things for us to do with our lives, and most of them don’t. You get a paycheck, and like I said, if you’re lucky, you find some enjoyment in work. But otherwise, you have to go find your own meaning in the world.
That maybe the things that we do are more important than the jobs we have.
Mike Maas’s song Spaceship, performed by Salissa Thole is the theme for the film Girl, Yeti and a Spaceship.
