New Mexico Film Office Profiles Director Levi Lobo and Mr. Spaceship

The New Mexico Film Office has published a profile of Levi Lobo, the New Mexico native who directed Mr. Spaceship, An Adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Novelette at ABQ Castle Studios. It is a homecoming story, and it says a good deal about what a virtual production stage makes possible for a filmmaker working in New Mexico. Here is a summary; the full piece is on the Film Office site.

A director coming home

Lobo was born in Albuquerque and grew up in Tijeras, in the mountains east of the city. He is an actor, writer and producer as well as a director, and he founded the production company ERA Cinema. He spent four years in Los Angeles working at a film studio, then moved back to New Mexico in 2020. He wants to make films at home and bring the jobs with them.

The profile describes how he came to Mr. Spaceship through ABQ Castle Studios and Tim Pipher, who founded the Castle studios in Burbank in 2007. Lobo saw the project as a chance to work with a new, hybrid way of making films.

What the profile says about the shoot

Mr. Spaceship is set in the near future. A grief-stricken engineer fuses his dying mentor’s mind into a warship and creates the first conscious AI, which chooses to save its makers rather than destroy them. The Film Office describes it as a character-driven thriller about grief, mercy and second chances.

The film was shot almost entirely in camera, using virtual production and live compositing on a single Albuquerque stage. Deep space, the surface of the Moon and the interior of a living warship were all filmed on the same floor at ABQ Castle Studios, with the environment appearing around the cast live on the monitor rather than being added months later. Lobo called the studio a “creative playground”, a place where the limit on a scene is imagination rather than what a location scout can find. Principal photography wrapped in August, the film is now in post-production in Albuquerque, and Lobo expects a release within a year.

Overhead of the stage during Mr. Spaceship: camera crane, boom operator and picture vehicle. Photo: Scott Sandman

Directing every shot, cutting the first assembly

One detail in the profile stands out for producers. Lobo directed every shot himself and edits his own films, so he can put together a fast rough cut before handing the picture to an editor to polish under his supervision. Live, in-camera compositing suits that way of working: because the background was captured with each take, the first assembly is built from finished-looking frames instead of green screen waiting for visual effects.

Building a film industry from inside New Mexico

The larger theme of the profile is Lobo’s view of the state’s industry. New Mexico is known for the big productions it hosts, and he names Breaking Bad, Pluribus and Ransom Canyon. His argument is that independent films made by local creatives matter too, and that the next step is growing key creative roles here, through development and distribution as well as production, so the industry is sustainable. The resources and the talent are already in the state, in his view; the work is getting them in the right place at the right time.

That is the case for shooting at home, and it is the reason ABQ Castle Studios is in Albuquerque. The studio is a New Mexico Qualified Production Facility, which puts studio days on the 30% track of the state’s refundable film tax credit, and a stage that stands in for the locations keeps the crew, the cast and the post-production spend in state. Mr. Spaceship was made with a New Mexico resident crew and an all–New Mexico on-screen cast.

More on Mr. Spaceship

For how the film was made, with photos from the stage, read our wrap story: Mr. Spaceship, a feature film shot on one Albuquerque stage. For the stage itself, the equipment and the sets, see our film studio in Albuquerque and the spaceship and sci-fi sets that load on it in seconds.