The process of getting “Shubian’s Rift” from Joe Dwyer’s brain to the screen has taken 31 years. People will get to see the final results for the first time at theCentere for the Performing and Visual Arts in Coweta County this Saturday and Dwyer, a Coweta County resident and the writer/director of “Shubian’s Rift” couldn’t be more excited.

“I wrote the initial story in 1975, when I was still in high school and making short films with my friends,” Dwyer recalled. “But there was no way to film it. I didn’t have the resources, the money or the time, so I put it on the back burner.”

That’s where it stayed until 1992 when Dwyer’s wife, Maureen, told him, “Shut up and write the script.”

It was another seven years before Dwyer, a captain for Delta, was able to sit down and start writing and the script took three years to finish. He started filming in July of 2002 and the film was getting its final touches several weeks ago.

The film deals with a spacecraft from Earth getting caught in the middle of a civil war between two planets from a solar system 100 light years from Earth. Captain Shubian wonders if Earth is safe from these warring planets and he and his crew on the Journeyman soon find themselves in the middle of an escalating war and must find a way to protect themselves and their planet.

“This was truly a labor of love,” Dwyer stated, adding that the film is an action-adventure story with a lot of mystery involved. “If I had no passion for this, I would’ve dropped it a long time ago.” He almost dropped it after the initial six months of filming.

“I was just blown away by how big the project was and I stopped for two weeks, but the I thought about how much time I had put into it already and realized I couldn’t stop now. My passion was re-ignited.”

That passion would come in handy as Dwyer was at the center of almost every aspect of the film. There are lots of special effects in the film and he and a student at Newnan High School, Casey Curtis, created the seven space-crafts seen in the film. Dwyer did all of the secondary special effects and had to learn several computer animation and video editing programs to get his story to the screen. He was also behind the camera, building sets and working with the actors, many of whom are members of Newnan Community Theatre.

“My wife and I went to a lot of shows there, especially while I was writing the script,” Dwyer said. “I thought, these guys are really good and I was really auditioning them while I was watching them perform.” Dwyer started to envision certain actors in roles and continued to write the script. The process started to go faster now that he had faces to go with the names on the page and when he presented the finished script to the theatre at a monthly meeting, the response was great.

“They already had such a great chemistry from working with each other that it really translated to the screen,” said Dwyer.
Dwyer also got to rely on the relationship with his high school buddy Ellsworth Hall, who created the music and sound effects for the film. Dwyer and Hall made films together since high school and that familiarity had to have helped keep the film-making process going over the years.

The budget for “Shubian’s Rift” was $20,000 and Dwyer financed the film with his own money. He may not have used the top of the line camera, lights or computers for the film, but he shot on a Digital DV from Sony, got a deal on Lightware, an animation program, and built a computer for around $3,000 that gave him larger hard drives and faster CPU. The film hit its fair share of obstacles too, with several coming from computers crashing during animation projects and putting on the sound. Each obstacle becomes a lesson learned once it is overcome and Dwyer remains excited about his film and filmmaking in general.

Dwyer is also an avid sci-fi fan and an admitted Trekkie. While he stated that he learned a lot of what not to do from bad sci-fi, he learned a lot of good from “Star Trek.”

“This film is about a hero who finds himself in a situation that he didn’t put himself into but now he must resolve it and there is no easy way out,” Dwyer said, adding that this is familiar plot construct of many “Star Trek” episodes. Dwyer, a former Air Force pilot, who favors Captain Kirk over Captain Picard, also states that authors Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov and the Halo novelizations are influences for him as well.

“Believe it or not, the Halo novelizations are great military novels,” Dwyer said, adding that he is also a fan of the new “Battlestar Galactica.”

Perhaps one day, Dwyer’s work will be the talk of sci-fi fans as well. Dwyer hopes to make creating films his career and after the premiere next week, he will take “Shubian’s Rift” to several film festivals, including submitting it to Slam Dance, which runs at the same time of year as the Sundance Film Festival.

For now, Dwyer is simply looking forward to showing the film to the community. The premiere will start at 7 p.m. and doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. Advance tickets are all $5 and are available in Newnan at Kebco Toys, Scott’s Bokstore, Allison Performance Hobbies, Sports Cards and NewTech Photo.

Visit www.shubiansrift.com for more information.

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