I’ve got a sci-fi short film trilogy here for you to watch today that I think you’re going to enjoy! The films in the trilogy are titled BackSpace, BackSpace Returns, and BackSpace Forever.

In BackSpace, “Hunting for blackholes is a dangerous business. Adventurers, Explorers and anyone trying to find their fortune, will kill, and face danger in BackSpace to find one.”

In BackSpace Returns, “Hunting for Black Holes is a dangerous business and it’s only getting deadlier.”

BackSpace Forever is the thrilling conclusion, and in it, “We find Hunter and Rival must team up to survive the outer reaches of BackSpace. After breaking their contracts with the BackSpace Corporation, they’ll be sent on a suicide mission as their only way to survive.”

The movie comes from filmmakers Nick Trivundza and Lexie Trivundza and below you will find an interview with them talking about the project. This is shared in in collaboration with FilmQuest Film Festival.

The films can be watched below the interview. I hope you enjoy!

Without spoilers, tell us what your film is about, its characters, and its themes. Is it a proof of concept, or a standalone story? 

The BackSpace Trilogy are three short films that tell the story of Hunter and Mono as they head out to the furthest reaches of BackSpace to hunt for a black hole. The story is about adventure, friendship, and not always doing what you’re told.

What was the inspiration for your film? How did you come up with the idea?

We were inspired by the films we grew up loving – films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, and Stargate. They all had this feeling of a grand sweeping adventure and taking you somewhere you’d never been before.

Tell us about yourself. What is your background? How long have you been a filmmaker? Please keep fairly brief –

We’re Nick Trivundza and Lexie Trivundza (often just Nick + Lexie). We’ve been directing feature films, shorts, and commercials for awhile now. We started with commercials and as we’ve wanted to learn more about filmmaking or a new hardware or software, we’ll make something to see how it works. For the BackSpace Trilogy we really wanted to expand into 3D and Unreal Engine.

What inspires you to work within genre cinema and tell these kind of stories?

Genre is like getting to go through a portal to a new or different world, one that you can’t experience in your everyday life.

What was your favorite part of the filmmaking process for this project?

Our favorite part was when you record the voices from the actors and get them into the picture. We’ll often work with scratch VOs to get the timing and story down – but the film comes to life when you get the actual performances in. Suddenly the characters are alive.

What are you most proud of with this film?

We’re really proud that even though this is a CG film by people who didn’t have a clue what they were doing when they first started, audiences never mention that its a CG film. Instead they mention the characters – especially the friendship between Hunter and Mono.

What is a favorite story or moment from the making of the film you’d like to share? 

My favorite moment was the premiere of BackSpace at FilmQuest. Making a film isn’t quite complete until you can share it with an audience. The audience at FilmQuest is always amazing and seeing it up on the big screen was wonderful as well.

What was your most challenging moment or experience you had while making your film?

The learning curve of the new software was fairly challenging when we first began, moving from Cinema 4D to Unreal Engine 5, but the real time rendering was definitely worth it. UE5 is a giant game-changer for us.

If it did, how did your film change or differ from its original concept during pre-production, production, and/or post-production? How has this changed how you’ll approach future projects as a result?

When we started the first version of BackSpace it was just a quick two minute experiment in Cinema 4D. The experiment did not go well. As a matter of fact, we were never even going to release it. It was more like “let’s hit delete on all this and pretend it never happened.” When we discovered how amazing Unreal Engine 5 was, it quickly jumped to a 7 minute film and then an entire series. The rendering capabilities of UE5 are incredible.

Who were some of your collaborators and actors on the film? How did you start working with each other?

We were so lucky to work with some of our super talented frequent collaborators on the BackSpace Trilogy! Paul Haapaniemi plays Hunter. We had worked with Paul on our two feature films (The West and the Ruthless as well as Danger! Danger!).

It’s great to work with talented actors that just instantly click with the character and Paul totally gets what we’re doing every time we work together. We also worked with James Brinkley who we had worked with on our award winning short films The Umbrella Factory, Jack the Ripper, and Around the World in 80 Days.

He also voices Death in our online series, Tales From Black Manor. He can do a million voices and each one is perfect. Holly Standbrook, who voices Jet, was also a collaborator from Tales From Black Manor. We had worked with her previously on the episode “How to Live Forever.”

We love working with her so much that we just brought her back for another episode. When we got to BackSpace Returns and BackSpace Forever we brought in Benedict Mazurek, who we had previously worked with on our feature films as well as a pilot we had shot about a year before.

Benedict is always so willing to jump in and do the craziest stuff we ask him – so this was a nice (hopefully) easy role for him since he wasn’t covered in tattoos or blood this time around. Finally, for the fan fav B-Team, we had auditioned for this role and Chris Harris-Beechey brought him to life, hilariously.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received as a filmmaker and what would you like to say to new filmmakers?

A HUGE inspiration for us – and so many other filmmakers – has been Robert Rodriguez on not waiting for “Hollywood” and just getting out there and making a movie. His book “Rebel Without A Crew” was a great read.

A few years into our filmmaking careers we were asked to appear on his El Rey Network series to discuss filmmaking and it was such a great experience! For new filmmakers we say – don’t wait – get out there and make something, even if its not perfect. The fun, adventure, and skills you’ll pick up will be worth it!

What are your plans for your career and what do you hope this film does for it? What kind of stories would you like to tell moving forward?

The BackSpace Trilogy has been an amazing way to learn so many new things, especially 3D workflows. As filmmakers, adding this tool to our arsenal means we can tell stories that can go anywhere and do anything. We’ve always loved inventing new worlds – and this allows us to do that without the need for giant budgets.

What is your next project and when can we expect to see it? 

After wrapping The BackSpace Trilogy we’ve just started releasing the final series of Tales from Black Manor. The first episode just went live! We’re also working on our next feature film – and can’t wait to share that soon as well!

Where can we find more of your work and where can interested parties contact you?

You can check out tons of work and contact us at: https://adventurecompany.org

Bonus Question #1: What is your all-time favorite film?

We argue about this a lot. Nick says Raiders of the Lost Ark and Lexie says its Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Bonus Question #2: What is the film that most inspired you to become a filmmaker and/or had the most influence on your work?

When I was very young (Nick) I saw the Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There were interviews with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford from the set and it looked like they were in the middle of the most incredible adventure you could have.

I was probably about six years old at the time, and although I was already very much in awe of movies, I didn’t understand how they were made yet – but seeing this was like being struck by lightning.