Cosmic Playtester grew out of a webseries idea that a few of my friends and I had, where we would each write and direct an episode around a common them – that of aliens visiting earth. I was going through what turned out to be a three-plus year journey with my mother, who was dealing with a cascade of health crises. When you’re staring at illness and death for a while, you start to wonder what, if any, meaning there is in the universe. The script evolved from that question plus the original idea behind the webseries. And I don’t know if it answers the question but hopefully it will give people going through similar issues some moments of hope and solidarity.
I brought back many of the teammates who’ve I’ve worked with since Found In Time, my last feature film: Debarati Biswas, my producer (and spouse); Ben Wolf, cinematographer and colorist; Quentin Chiappette, composer; and Stephen Bradbury, cast. Thanks to them and other friends in the NYC filmmaking community I was very fortunate to find the other members of the team: Jennifer Sklias-Gahan, cast; Philip Kim, production sound mixer; Matthew Sullivan, sound designer; and Nichole Hernandez, key hair/makeup artist.