On the last day of Alberta Poon and Katie Nguyen’s shoot, for their short film Crouching Comic, the sky began to rain ash.
“I don’t know if it was Mother Nature being like, ‘We don’t want this film, we don’t want your story,'” Poon, the film’s director and co-writer, said. “But it was quite the experience. Looking back on it is kind of funny, and it’s a good story, but… god damn.”
As the cast and crew stood inside, looking out the window at the toxic air, the power cut out.
“We had to get the generator,” Nguyen said.
Ash—from 2021 Oregon wildfires—and outages be damned, the Crouching Comic crew persevered. They’d planned the film through COVID lockdown and other delays, and nothing would stop this all-star team from telling their story of an insecure stand-up comedian trying to psych herself up before an open mic night.