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Aerodynamics details the eleventh-hour mission of Lil' Moe, the first African-American ventriloquist dummy in space, and his estranged relationship with his ex-partner, ventriloquist Willy Jefferson.
Lil' Moe, celebrity ventriloquist dummy and M.O.O.N. experimental test pilot, is launched into orbit to investigate the disappearance of several lunar teams. The diminutive astronaut soon uncovers the problem — a colossal Man O' War Jellyfish on a collision course with Earth! Moe defeats the extraterrestrial menace, but his shuttle sustains fatal damage and begins to drift. A "point-of-no-return" is breached, taxing the limits of Moe's unique bond with the Earth-bound Willy. The narrative juxtaposes Lil' Moe's perilous mission with Willy and Moe's ventriloquist act backstory.
Aerodynamics is the opening segment for the sci-fi anthology feature, April Land. The film will showcase a quartet of off-beat, pulp space adventures inspired by disparate Wasteland sources — both T.S. Eliot's epic poem and Del Close's 1980's "adult" comic book.
Crew:
Writer/Producer/Director: Theodore Cormey
Director of Photography: Stu Vose
Editor: Steve Sherrick
Composer: Elaine Walker
Sound Design & Mix: Jason Jordan
Cast:
Willy Jefferson..... Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
Lil' Mo.... Will Luera
Flight Director Lex Harrison... Jeremiah Kissel
Mayor Kate O'Connell... Paula Langton
Director's Statement
It began with a dream. Literally. Chicago, Spring 1993. One of the most miserable six months of my personal life (NOTE: see self-financed feature film, What I Did When I Was Away). For the first time, I kept a dream journal. Horrible drunken after-images were recorded in laborious, self-involved detail, ie: me flying off a window ledge on a giant napkin kite, unreleased record albums covered in hieroglyphics, bodies in the snow, etc.
One dream image in particular stuck—a tiny, wooden African-American ventriloquist dummy in a shiny spacesuit tootin' creaky falsetto verses of "The Star-Spangled Banner," all smiles and confidence before a waving American flag ala George C. Scott in Patton. Who was he? What was he doing? How'd he get there? Twelve pages of script later, I had my answer a la a choppy rough draft composed in one sitting, as I hunched over the steamer trunk I used as a writing desk in my spartan North-Side studio apartment.
There were more dreams, cobbled segments which shifted over time and began to take form as an anthology feature (April Land, which became my Peter Gabriel album—years in the making and overly produced). Yet, despite the juggle-bug which constituted the other script segments, the tiny cosmonaut who could stood the test of time.
Fifteen years later (and seven since initial, aborted principal photography in 2002), Aerodynamics is perilously close to completion. The story of one man and his refusal to quit, the outcast who makes good by any means engastrimuthon* is a chord that is both universal and personal.
The world of Aerodynamics is a fantastic one, but grounded in emotion and science. I did oodles of research to capture the mid 60's and early 70's vibe of Gemini, Apollo space missions. The bible I adhered to was none other than Gene Krantz' recollection of those days when NASA and space exploration took international center stage (Krantz was a Mission Control Center Flight Director, perhaps best remembered as the "character" Ed Harris portrayed in Apollo 13).
The name of that book? Failure Is Not An Option.
Or to quote the great Irish god, Bono: "There is no failure here, sweetheart, just when you quit."
There's meaning here somewhere. Thanks to cast and crew and all those along the way who helped make a dream a pragmatic, digital reality. And eternal hallelujahs esp. to Ray Griffin, Director of McAuliffe Learning Center who believed enough in me and the film to get the "mission" rolling again.
— Theodore Cormey
*familiar spirit, one consumed (roots of ventriloquism)
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Aerodynamics movie website
