Pointing out the positives in science fiction movies has seen two Mandurah dads achieve international reach.
Navigating towards the science fiction genre in both their fields of work, Mandurah filmmaker Mark Regan and IT professional Surrey Hughes decided to turn their enthusiasm into a podcast named, Space Brains.
Meeting through their children's school, Mark said the pair soon realised they both had a passion for films, particularly science fiction.
"We both like science fiction and navigate towards it quite regularly," he said.
"Surrey has written three novels, which are all based in the sci-fi genre and as a filmmaker I'm very much interested in that point of difference on the world, which sci-fi presents.
"After a few good chats with each other we realised we should start recording and have a bit of fun with it."
The pair's podcast, Space Brains has now garnered attention from several feature film directors since they began focusing on the positives of different science fiction movies last year.
"We have received positive feedback from feature film directors over the latest 18 months since starting the podcast," Mark said.
"We had received feedback from a couple of British directors like Hazraf Dulull, who made The Beyond and The Darkest Dawn filmmaker Drew Casson, who said he listened to the podcast and loved what we touched on.
"A couple of Australian directors have reached out as well like Ben C. Lucas who is a Perth director and Grant Sputore who made I am Mother."
But Hamad AlSarraf, who is known for making the Netflix feature film, In Paradox, was the first director to be interviewed on Mark and Surrey's podcast.
During the interview, Mark said the international director chatted about his film among other interesting topics for an hour and a half.
"We talked not only about his film but about film making, his creative journey to where he is now, and how he got his film streaming on Netflix," he said.
Focusing on the positives in different science fiction films, Mark hopes Space Brains, offers a different viewpoint to other film review podcasts.
"We like to watch a film and speak about it - We call it joy watching and like to look for the positives," he said.
"Within one episode we talk through the narrative together, Surrey will then focus on a piece of science from the film, and I focus on the film making techniques.
"We hope to put that out to our audience that even if there is maybe bits of a film you don't like there is probably other bits that you did so we are just trying to focus on those positives."
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Mark and Surrey hope to speak to more directors and writers in the future as well as establish a science fiction film festival or conference in Mandurah.
Space Brains is available at gravityundone.net/space-brains/ or on Instagram at spacebrainspodcast.
