MERREL DAVIS

Last night I attended a screening and Q&A at the New York Film Academy for R.W. Goodwin’s upcoming alien comedy Alien Trespass. It was a full house of NYFA students and others and the evening proved rich in film-making discussion.

The evening began with a screening of a featurette followed by the full feature cut of Alien Trespass. The whole film is a campy triumph that doesn’t try hard to be funny. In staying with the true traditions of 1950′s science fiction movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still,  Alien Trespass plays out in a serious manner. Through the visuals and story, a quintessential quirkiness of movies from a simpler time is apparent. The 1950′s are truly a moment in-time unlike any other in cinematic history. Tonight, they’ll be showing the 35mm print at the Dolby Screening Room here in New York.

The Q&A afterward with R.W. Goodwin (also known as Bob Goodwin) proved a wealth of industry wisdom and witty conversation. After years of working on rigid television production schedules, Bob Goodwin has a knack for economizing the production process financially and time-wise. The entire 90 minute feature was shot over the period of only 15 days in Canada and came in $200,000 under budget.

Inevitably, one can’t talk about Goodwin without bringing up The X-Files which he will be inexorably tied to for all eternity. And that’s not such a bad thing, after all he’s married to “Scully’s Mom.” Sheila Larken played Margaret Scully on The X-Files, and made a brief appearance before the screening.

I furiously took down chicken scratch to transcribe some of the questions and answers from the audience. The following is a selection of largely paraphrased Q&A based on my notes and memory, I didn’t have  my audio equipment.

Right out of the gate The X-Files questions were flying:

Q: What is it like to work with David Duchovny?

A: David Duchovny is one of the smartest and funniest people I know. If you can make David laugh you know you’ve done something right.

Q: What was your favorite episode of The X-Files ?

A: It really tough to choose… If I really had to select one I’d say The Erlenmeyer Flask which was the finale of season 1.  It has a special place as the first episode I directed. Chris Carter wrote the best script ever. Fox called me up and gave me 2 more days of production. I didn’t even ask for them. There were many complicated things in the script. One scene that got  a lot of play is when Mulder walks into this wear house to reveal the bodies in tanks that were being cloned. The image served to get people interested in the show over the summer during re-runs.

Q: The episode Demons you wrote is one of my favorites from the earlier seasons. I’m curious if you can talk a little bit about the writing process for the episode and how difficult it is to write for an existing universe and preset characters [Note: I asked this question and I'm sure it wasn't as eloquently worded as I have put it here.]

A: Writing Demons was hell. I ended up locked in a room for four days to write. We went to a ski resort, rented two rooms one for the Wife and Kids and the other for me to sit in and write.  Writing is a lonely job. I much prefer directing to writing. Directing is more fun.

Q:  Which do you prefer more – writing, directing or producing?

A: Directing is more fun. The dirty secret that people don’t want you to know is that you’ll make more money producing, as an executive producer on television. And writing, well I already touched on that.

There were plenty more questions and it was a great evening that proved stimulating and enjoyable. Be sure to check out the website for Alien Trespass and watch the trailer! R.W. Goodwin will  be attending New York Comicon this weekend, there’s a chance I’ll be there too.