A UFO has been parked over the small town of Stone’s Throw, Kentucky, for 30 years, but it’s been there so long no one really cares anymore. So goes a very brief summary of the supernatural comedy film The UFO Girl that has been written by Owensboro’s Shane Devon and includes several local cast and crew members. There will be a free, one-night-only live stream event of the film at 7 p.m. tonight followed by a Q&A with Devon.
The free live stream will be hosted on their website tinkertone.com. Anyone interested can go to the website to register for the event.
Devon said he’s been interested in filmmaking since he was a kid in the 80s. He and his friends started making DIY short films and comedy sketches with his aunt’s camcorder. From 2007 to around 2010, they had a sketch comedy show called “The Basement” that drew several thousand views per video at its peak before it eventually fizzled.
When Devon realized a few local friends, such as Daniel Benedict and P.J. Starks, had been making films for a while, Devon realized there was an opportunity to really give filmmaking a go.
“The technology was available. The talent was available. I had stories to tell,” he said. “So I simply decided it was time to finally make some movies.”
Devon wrote a feature called The Third Rock Five about a small town which had become a tourist destination because of a stationary UFO parked over downtown. They held auditions at Kentucky Wesleyan College in February of 2020, with an eye on filming that summer. With the film cast, budget acquired, and everything ready to go, it all came to an abrupt halt when the pandemic hit.
Devon ended up writing a smaller project that summer called Piper Pence and the Pandemic that featured only one character out of necessity. Starks was our executive producer, and the film was shot at Devon’s house in October 2020 under strict pandemic restrictions.
“But it would be nearly another year before I felt comfortable doing something reasonably bigger,” Devon said.
That “reasonably bigger” project was The UFO Girl, which was shot in July 2021. Devon described it as “sort of proof-of-concept version” of his initial feature The Third Rock Five.
“But the idea itself came from an afternoon of writing by myself at Smothers Park back in late summer 2019,” he said. “I was sitting on one of our marvelous swinging benches by the river, notebook in hand. I knew I wanted to write a supernatural type comedy set in a small town but I was struggling to find the details. I looked up and saw a plane slowly flying over the bridge. It seemed almost stationary, with the sun hitting it just right against a clear blue sky. I thought to myself, what if that was a UFO just sitting there? What if it had been there so long nobody cared anymore? And the rest fell into place.”
Devon’s summary of The UFO Girl: “A UFO has been parked over the small town of Stone’s Throw, Kentucky, for 30 years. What was once a booming tourist destination has become old news. The tourism business is dying out and the town is slowly becoming dilapidated. The world at large is no longer interested. Local outcast Nikki Jones leads a small tour group around town as she grapples with whether or not to ask her crush to the senior prom.”
It stars Liz McFerron, an actress out of Louisville who was also in Piper Pence and the Pandemic.
“Our whole cast is so unbelievably outstanding,” Devon said. “I really lucked out on this one.”
Devon said KWC Associate Professor of Theatre Nate Gross was part of the cast, along with a few of his students. Eric Huskisson, of Owensboro’s Blood Moon Pictures, was part of the crew. Assistant Director Bethany Westerfield and Director of Photography Anthony Survant are both local filmmakers. David Goble, Devon’s friend and former castmate on “The Basement” was also part of the production.
Devon is originally from a small town in Breckinridge County called Sample. It’s a few minutes from where they shot the film in Cloverport. Devon moved to Owensboro in 1996 to attend KWC as a music major. He met his wife, who is from Louisville, and they both “were so impressed with Owensboro we decided to stay. We now live here with our daughter Nevada and I think I can safely say we’re here for keeps. We love this town.”
Devon said he has at least three more film projects planned for the next couple years, including another Starks-produced project called Ghost-O-Matic. He’s also in talks about pitching The UFO Girl as a potential TV series.
“I’m learning as I go but I’m fortunate to have many experienced and talented people who believe in what I’m trying to do,” he said. “For instance my executive producer Jessica Mathis out of Louisville has been remarkable in her promotion of not only the film but myself as a filmmaker. My producer Gill Holland (also of Louisville) has made countless films and he’s thrown quite a bit of energy behind both my projects so far. I don’t take these things for granted. When somebody believes in what I’m doing I pay attention to what they have to say. And I hope I can return the favor someday.”
