A Brief History of ASTRON-6

So who are Astron-6?  I like to compare them to the "Voltron" of Canadian genre filmmakers. While every member is multi-talented, they become a supreme galactic force with their powers combined!

Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, and Steve Kostanski - with your powers combined, you are ASTRON-6!*

It all started with the Winnipeg Film Massacre, a festival started by Jeremy Gillespie and his girlfriend. In the beginning, the future members were in competition with each other, and hated each other!

Astron-6 was the brainchild of Adam Brooks and Jeremy Gillespie. The intention had been to create a fake 80's video distributor to release their sketches under. They chose the name out of the love for Vestron - and were going to go with Astron Video - but that existed, so it became Astron-6.

But before Astron-6, there was first GOREBLADE - a web series.  Here is perhaps the earliest relic of Astron-6, the little known Goreblade website!  Goreblade can also be found on their shorts DVD, and the astron site, but the above website was basically never used. So after seeing Kostanki's effects in the shorts he had submitted to Winnipeg film massacre, Adam and Jeremy brought him in to make Goreblade. In return, Matthew Kennedy and Conor Sweeney brought in the others to help them make HIZ, an oldschool dubbed itallian style zombie flick.

HIZ was the first official Astron-6 short! Everything after HIZ was tagged with  the Astron-6 Logo.
Soon after that came Laser Ghost 2: The return to Laser Cove….  And the films kept coming!  At this point in time, all the members lived near each other, and the projects already started to grow in scope.

The action packed, ultra violent sci-fi comedy Manborg was their first feature, and was shot over the course of a year - largely a on green screen's in Steve's parent's garage - as well as pretty much anywhere else that a green screen could be set up.

As they wrapped that, their comedy horror film Father's Day came right after. During a film class workshop, shooting at Matthew's apartment, They were putting glasses on the actor who would become Chris Fuchman -when they said he looked like a rapist. Conor and Matthew started joking with him about only raping dads, and the plot was born in a matter of minutes! It began as a trailer, but after teaming up with Troma, the feature became a reality. A joke made up on the spot became a premise to build a feature upon!

A still from what just might be one of many hilarious dubbed conversations in The Editor

After this the members became scattered, with Jeremy and Steve moving to Toronto, and Conor and Steve moved to Vancouver (but have since returned), renuniting with Adam.  Today, the Astron-6 spirit endures, and the team all intend to keep up the collaborations; with The Editor being the most recent, and largest scale film they've done!

Source:  Matthew Kennedy

* what, how come there are 5 named members, but it's called Astron-6?   Google says:  You are the final member.

THE EDITOR screening times:

Thu., Sept. 11th, 11:59 PM, RYERSON 

Fri., Sept. 12th, 9:15 AM, SCOTIABANK 3 

Sat., Sept. 13th, 6:15 PM, SCOTIABANK 4