Purdue premieres first short-film 'Boilers to Mars'

“I still remember the moment I got my acceptance letter to Purdue,” said former NASA astronaut Drew Feustel in front of a crowd of Purdue alumni, students and potential future astronauts Thursday night. Feustel wore his blue NASA jumpsuit on the stage of Fowler Hall and sat up in his chair, looking out into the audience.

“When I saw that film I literally started crying when I saw that scene, because that moment for me was so impactful in my life, and I knew that it was going to lead to many amazing things.”

Feustel spoke after Purdue premiered their first short-film “Boilers to Mars,” a movie dedicated to showing Purdue’s goal to get humankind onto the red planet while simultaneously marketing the spirit of what it means to be a Boilermaker.

The 10 and a half minute video followed the story of four fictional Purdue students, all with different majors and careers, and their pursuit to eventually get to Mars. The short film starts with the group in a spaceship getting ready to blast off and then goes back in time to when their reality was just a dream — laying down on the IM Fields and staring at the stars.

In conjunction with the launch of the short-film, Purdue launched a line of merchandise inspired by the film that is available for purchase online and at the team store. The university will also host additional screenings of the short film throughout Friday.

Purdue is also collaborating with Starbucks to have three limited-time Mars flavored drinks, Hiller said.

“This project is a year and a half in the making,” said Kelly Hiller, vice president of marketing at Purdue. “We are the cradle of astronauts at Purdue, and we expect that when we do go to Mars, that a Boilermaker will be in the lead, leading that effort.

“So we decided to take that heroic vision and do it in a short film, (the) prettiest, first ever short film to hopefully inspire that story and ensure generations of space explorers.”

Hiller didn’t say how much the project cost the university, instead saying they had to be “good stewards of (Purdue’s) dollars.” She noted that SpaceKids Global, an organization with the aim to inspire elementary students in STEAM education, supported the film.

“We took a different approach than we have in other videos, in that we not only showed the characters as students, but we also then fast forwarded and showed them as they progressed in their career, just to continue to reinforce what those possibilities are as you go out to the world as a boilermaker.”

The movie was produced by a Purdue production team in conjunction with Madhouse, a Toledo-based studio.

Hiller told the Exponent that the cast were not Purdue students or alumni. However, some of the extras were Purdue students.

“Our class got canceled that day because they were filming in there,” said Delaney Martin, a Purdue student and extra in the film. “But we were able to go in (class to get) extra credit and be an extra so it was cool.”

“We really wanted to tell a deep story about the possibility,” said Emily Richwine, creative director of “Boilers to Mars.”

“I hope our current students see themselves in the film … there’s a montage at the end where it’s all these student moments, like football games, (being on) campus, just hanging out with friends. I hope they see themselves, see their special moments reflected. And I hope prospective students see themselves too.”

The hopes and dreams the film sought to capture were ones that seemed to exist inside of its audience too.

Brianna Petruccelli, a freshman in planetary and computer science, and Gabriel Mojena, a freshman in first-year engineering, hoping to go into aeronautical and astronautical engineering, are floormates in Parker Hall who both “aspire to be astronauts.”

“For me, a big part of it that resonated with me was the fact that one of the characters was first generation, because I am too,” Mojena said. “I’m the first generation of my family to go off to college at all.”

Petrucelli is from Philadelphia and Mojena from Miami, but both said they “could not have gotten luckier” to live next to each other.

“Just listening to that panel, listening specifically to Dr. Horgan … my hope, my aspirations of becoming an astronaut (are) so much closer,” Petrucelli said. “She was really talking about how sending geologists out there … that’s something that is so inspiring to me, and it gives me so much hope.”

Benjamin Louie, a freshman in first-year engineering, said he came to Purdue because of the astronauts it created.

“I like the scene in the greenhouse,” he said, referring to how one of the characters was solicited to go to Mars to create food from its red soil. “A lot of people, when talking about going to Mars, don’t really consider such aspects like how to grow crops or where to live.”

“Being able to be given these opportunities so quickly, it just makes me very excited for the next four years.”