‘Spaceman X’ lands in Quincy

Filmmakers Peter Craig
and Rachel Craig

At 25, Peter Craig is a man with a past.?Back in eighth grade, the Quincy, Illinois?native directed his first short film titled, “Spaceman X,” featuring an other-worldly visitor whose mission was to “wreak havoc on a small Midwestern town.”?

Ten years later the extraterrestrial became the namesake for Spaceman X Media Productions, a Downstate company specializing in Web design, interactive media and film/ video production.

Peter, and his sister and?business partner Rachel, 28, are fresh from Park City after garnering enthusiastic response to their short film “Une Histoire d’Amour.”?The storyline involves an older woman who, while sipping coffee on a city street, speculates on the private life of a man she observes for a brief moment in time.?It was scripted, storyboarded and shot in a few days on 16mm with minimal gear and “a rag-tag cast and crew.”

“Une Histoire” enjoyed multiple screenings at Slamdance and caught the eye of new media distributor Atom Films of San Francisco and London. Atom, which recently merged with Shockwave, distributes via the Internet, broadband services and mobile devices as well as traditional outlets such as TV, theatres and airlines.

A distribution deal has not yet been signed, but Peter and Rachel are encouraged by the Slamdance buzz thus far.

In fact, an edited version took the grand prize and $25,000 in last year’s “Make You a Director for A Day” commercial contest hosted by Travelocity.com.?Ironically, a change in marketing direction at Travelocity may stand in the way of the commercial actually being aired, but you can still see the winning version at http://can.travelocity.com.?The original 90-second version is at http://www.spacemanx.com/ alovestory.htm.?

Peter and Rachel help keep the doors open at Spaceman X Media Productions with more financially viable activities, including web development, promotional and industrial videos, television commercials, flash animation, music videos and other multi-media services.?The pair is well-suited to the task.?After graduating with a film degree from SIU, Peter joined up with Kurtis Productions and worked on a variety of documentary projects.

“But city life and the job made it really hard for him to work on his own films,” says Rachel.?So Peter moved back to Quincy to team up with his sister, who, by this time had a law degree in her hand and a dream of becoming a producer in her heart.?

“Right now we’re both writing and developing web site concepts and film projects,” says Rachel.?But why in, of all places, Quincy Illinois???”We were raised around here,” she says,?”and the cost of living is really low.?Maybe some day in the future we’ll relocate to where there’s more film work going on.?But for now, this is good.”

Contact Spaceman X Media Productions at 800-890-0877, http://www.spacemanx.com. — Joan Tortorici Ruppert