Fun Sci-Fi Short Film FUN, GUS! Which is a Cosmic Mushroom Comedy

Here’s a sci-fi short film for you to watch titled Fun, Gus!. In the story, when a strange mushroom sprouts up in her balcony planter, Chloé is compelled to eat it, resulting in consciousness altering hi-jinx.

The short film is written and directed by Peter McCoubrey, and it’s shared in collaboration with the FilmQuest Film Festival, where we are looking to expose some of the radical indie genre films and shorts that filmmakers are creating.

I’ve also included an interview with the filmmakers below. Enjoy the short film!

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

Fun, Gus! is a very short story about Chloé, who discovers a strange mushroom growing in her balcony planter. She finds herself drawn to it and is compelled to eat it, resulting in consciousness altering hi-jinx.

It's a very quick bit of silliness, which at its core is about how as humans, we are capable of seemingly impossible feats and vast intellect yet at the same time have the most primal needs and desires that can often comically derail our progress.

The short was made as a standalone piece, but it thematically aligns with a lot of my work, so an expansion of the idea is always a possibility.

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

I actually wrote this short several years ago and never made it. I primarily work as a commercial director and was itching to make something original of my own again. So, I dusted off the old script, and did a page one rewrite.

I read an article that stuck with me over the years - about how mushroom spores are so resilient and their DNA is closer to animal than plant. The article went on to suggest that because spores possess all of the requirements to travel through outer space, that it’s possible they travelled here from distant worlds, found their way into the brain chemistry of primitive humans and may have directly contributed to human intelligence and self awareness. This planted the seeds (spores?) in my mind of what would eventually become FUN, GUS!

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

When I was a kid I only had three interests skateboarding, drawing and watching movies. While in art school, I realized that I could major in filmmaking and after that realization I never really considered anything else.

After school I bounced around NYC and PAed for a bit then got an entry level job at a commercial post house. I continued making my own short films, but my first real gig was for some friends of mine from college whose band, Stellastarr*, had recently signed to RCA Records.

I did a no budget video for their first single. The label liked that video which lead to a second video for them, only this time - with an actual budget! After that I started making videos professionally which ultimately lead to getting signed as a commercial director at Radical Media... which in turn got me into the DGA and eventually lead to some TV work.

Early on, I had sort of naively assumed that music videos and commercials would just naturally lead me to making movies, but it wasn't until a few years ago I realized that I had to start writing and making my own shorts in order to properly showcase my taste, voice and aesthetic to the world.

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

I love movies from a wide variety of genres, but I've always been drawn to telling stories that can't happen in the real world. Genre conventions allow you to create entire worlds and explore themes through metaphor.

You can tackle social issues through subtext rather than hitting people over the head with an overt message. I love creating impossible worlds that could only exist in a movie and well as taking existential concepts and pairing them with everyday human folly to create satire.

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

I love the feeling of watching as the dumb words I wrote down, alone at my computer one night, are being brought to life by great actors. Throughout the entire writing process I'm always questioning myself. Is this any good? Is this funny? Will other people even get this?

I never really know if it's going to work until I'm there on set, the camera rolling with the actors in make up and wardrobe. Then they say these ridiculous lines that I wrote (and they memorized) out loud - and suddenly it feels so real, organic and three dimensional. What talented actors can do is so mind boggling and amazing to me. It's literally magic.

What are you most proud of with this film?

Every member of the cast and crew for this film was amazing. It's no secret that it's extremely hard to get filmmaking projects going. I've had a couple features stall out on me in the past few years and I was just so happy to get together with a group of friends and collaborators and make something very quickly over one weekend in LA. Whenever you get to make something with your friends it's pretty special. I'm just happy that everyone was so supportive of this silly little film and we all got to make it together.

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

You never know what you're gonna get when you work with animals, but I think the performance from my girlfriend Lindsay's dog, Beverages, in the role of Falcor was pretty impressive. I originally tested some of the gags with him and it seemed like he'd work out.

Then we had some scheduling issues and we were gonna try to get a dog that was closer to the location. Turns out we couldn't find another dog and last minute we had to send a PA to pick up Beverages and rush him in to set. He landed and did everything we needed perfectly.

Then my 9 year old son Wesley recorded his voice (I told him it was okay to say bad words because it was for a movie and wasn't real. Haha!) So in the end, I couldn't have asked for a better dog performance.

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

The most challenging part of making Fun, Gus! besides the overall challenge of just getting it made, was probably the scene at the beginning of the film involving our mushroom prop. Our incredible production designer, Erin Beaupre, had the prop made by a fabricator.

It turned out great looking (it's proudly displayed on my desk as I write this), but we could only afford to have one made and as we were getting ready to roll we had an issue. I wanted to mist it with water so that it looked moist and more natural. The only problem was the fabricator couldn't confirm that water wouldn't destroy it.

So we had to prioritize which shots we felt safe doing before the final shot of it where we could wet it. We shot the mushroom dry for most of the scene then misted it for the final shots. Turns out the water didn't damage it and we could have shot it all wet practically and saved ourselves from having to make it look wet in post - thanks Darius Turbak @ Cloud Harvest Creations for doing just that! But it was a big risk that I knew I couldn't take in the heat of the moment.

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?

The biggest change was that I originally planned to do all the VFX myself, both to save money and as a challenge to myself to learn something new. I have experience with After Effects and always wanted to learn how to do 3D animation.

So I set out to teach myself Blender via YouTube tutorials for the opening space shot of the film. Amazingly, I was able to make a shot that looked halfway decent, but when it came down to tweaking the camera moves and other subtleties of the shot I became incredibly frustrated with the process.

Ultimately, I had to swallow my pride and reached out to Cloud Harvest Creations for help. They were very generous with their time and a great animator named Stuart Wade was able to help me get much closer to what I'd originally envisioned.

Things always change in filmmaking and I think one of the most important parts of directing is being able to adapt quickly and roll with the punches as things inevitably evolve.

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

My DP, Luke is my brother and best friend we've worked together forever. He's shot 90 percent of my work and hopefully will continue to do so. He's shot three features to date THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER & DRUNK BUS, with the third on the way called NOWHERE MEN, so I have some catching up to do in the feature department. My EP and co-financier Emily Wiedemann and I have been colleagues and friends for many years.

She has her own production company in NYC called Greencard and has pretty much helped me out on all of my shorts in one way or another. She's a great friend and one of the most supportive people to my overall career. I met Rebecca Maar, my producer, through Emily.

It was my first time working with her but she's fantastic, a star on the rise... and she let us shoot in her house - which was amazingly generous and benefited the film and our budget massively. Gavin Stenhouse and I had never met before but we followed each other on Instagram (we think we followed each other initially because we're both really in to still film photography and used to post lots of #shootfilm shots).

When I wrote the part of Gus I imagined a handsome, British gent with abs and immediately thought of Gavin! I'm Gen X - so reaching out to people I've never met on social media was a very foreign concept to me, but friends assured me that they do it all the time. So I bit the bullet and DMed him.

I sent him the script and he was down! Turns out, in addition to being an amazing actor and really funny as Gus, he happens to be an all around great guy who I hope to get the opportunity to work with again. When it came to casting the part of Chloé I reached out to some of my buddies for advice.

Two director friends of mine, Kevin Kolsch (Starry Eyes, Pet Semetery) and Adam Stillwell (The Free Fall, The Triangle) both worked with and recommended the same actor, Madeleine Coghlan. So they introduced me to Maddy, I sent her the script and she was in!

Maddy really grounded the character of Chloé in a way I couldn't have imagined but at the same time she's so funny in the part. I was incredibly lucky to have landed both actors they really elevated the script and I hope I can work with both of them again very soon.

There are so many other amazing and integral crew members that I should go on and on about but unfortunately I think this section is probably already way too long. If you're reading this guys - you're the best and it couldn't have happened without you!

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

Well this is a bit of a cheat because the advice wasn't given to me directly, but to my brother Luke when he shot a short film for one of my idol's, Terry Gilliam. Obviously, Gilliam's films have incredible production design, but to paraphrase the thing he said that stuck with me is that no matter what your budget constraints are, you can always suggest a bigger world that lies beyond the frame with your lensing choice and art direction.

If you can't afford a computer prop, place a keyboard splitting the edge of the frame and the audience will assume a computer and monitor lie beyond the frame. It's so simple and so obvious, but it's something I try to always keep in mind, especially when making low budget genre films that need to suggest a world bigger than I can afford to show.

The advice all filmmakers give now that the filmmaking tools have become so easily accessible, is to just get out there and shoot something, which I totally agree with. I'd also like to add, that while it's much easier to make high quality looking stuff with fewer resources these days, it's also ten times harder to get your work discovered in an endless sea of content. So I recommend that you work hard to find and hone your unique voice, something that only you can do, and put that out there on full display.

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?

I'm very fortunate that I've had a half way decent career directing projects for others as well as getting to making my own short films along the way. I've written a handful of feature films and just started a new one, so my hope is that I'll get to make one of those soon.

As far as FUN, GUS! is concerned, I just hope people watch it... and if they enjoy it, then maybe they'll spread the word and/or check out my other work... and if they enjoy that too... maybe one of them will be a billionaire and say "send me all your scripts, I want to fund them all!" I plan to continue working in genre whether that be horror, sci-fi or fantasy (my first loves) and maybe down the road a crime thriller or western of some sort.

Most of my work also has humor to it because I usually can't help myself from trying to make my characters funny. My tastes can be a bit niche and I've always been drawn to the weirder outsider side of cinema. I ultimately love creating strange new cinematic worlds for characters to get into trouble in.

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

During the pandemic I wrote a contained little horror film (with comedic elements) that I'm in the process of trying to get made called THE COMPLEX.

It's about a disgraced actress who moves to a suburban apartment complex to be closer to her kids, but upon arrival strange and horrific occurrences start to unfold in and around the complex.

It's sort like my take on Polanski's The Tenant with some supernatural elements. I'm also in the middle of writing a sort of Kafkaesque sci-fi satire about a guy who realizes he's living in a simulation. Sort of like a version of The Matrix by way of the wackiest of Coen Brothers films.

Where can we find more of your work and where can interested parties contact you? Do you have a website or YouTube/Vimeo channel? Social media handles?

It's all just my name petermccoubrey. Ha. My website - petermccoubrey.com, Vimeo, and Youtube - and I'm @petermccoubrey on twitter, instagram and threads.

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

This answer will change depending on the day that you ask it, but today I'll say An American Werewolf in London. To me that's a film that has it all. It's both really scary and laugh out loud funny - an incredible hard task for a movie to pull off tonally. I love "kitchen sink" movies that stuff so many different ideas into them (a criticism I sometimes receive for my own work). This thing has folklore, werewolves, zombies, dry British humor and even a scene with nazi monsters shooting automatic weapons. I'm pretty sure Hollywood wouldn't make this movie today, which is a shame because it's perfect in every way.

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

I'm going to cheat and name two movies here. The first is A Clockwork Orange, because when I was about 13 my friend's cooler older brother had the poster on his bedroom door and I just assumed that it was some rock band I didn't know about. Then I saw it on the video store shelf and convinced my friends to rent it... and we were all immediately traumatized by it. The movie was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I was used to happy Hollywood narratives, but this was something else entirely. I hated it at first, but it stuck with me and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I started to revisit it and eventually learned about its director, Stanley Kubrick, and that's when I first became interested in what a director does with a movie. Shortly thereafter, my father, who passed on his love of Monty Python to me, rented Terry Gilliam's Brazil and similarly I didn't get it at all at first, but the world building, satire and visual style stayed with me and eventually became one of my all time favorite films. I think both these films have a major influence over my work.