Geek Chronicles
Trekkies director Roger Nygard shares his Six Days in Roswell.
      by Sarah Kendzior

Rich Kronfeld (center), in his Captain Pike chair for Minnesota's Hopkins Raspberry Festival.

Well, I talked to some people that may or may not have been abducted today. Some of them were abducted just to be looked at scientifically, like a lab rat. But this one woman said that she was impregnated by several different aliens. Being that I don't, myself, have a womb, I don't think that that'll happen to me.

Nothing like this has ever happened in Minnesota. And I think that I'll be able to at least go back to Minnesota and hold my head up high, and say that I have finally been somewhere and I finally did something. Especially if I can get abducted. I'll really be someone back in Minnesota if I get abducted.
--Richard Kronfeld, Six Days in Roswell

"It has to do with people and their passions and obsessions, that's what I find fascinating," explains Roger Nygard, the director of the 1999 film Trekkies and producer of the recent documentary Six Days in Roswell. "It's engrossing to see what lengths people will go for whatever it is that they're obsessed about. Why the obsessions? What it is about human beings? Why the need to go to such extremes? It's sort of an open question. I'm sure a sociologist would be able to give you a theoretical answer, but for me, it's not so much about that. We just set out to profile people and their obsessions, because that's what I find entertaining and interesting."

Not to mention hilarious, compelling, and, yes, more than a little scary. When in 1996 Nygard -- a director then best known for the indie films High Strung and Back to Back -- set out to document the various nuances of Star Trek devotion, even the most dedicated genre fan couldn't have predicted the results. Backed by an eclectic array of subjects -- including Starfleet Commander turned Whitewater juror Barbara Adams, "Starbase Dental" staff member Denis Bourguignon, and not one, but two men known by the name of James T. Kirk -- and narrated by Next Generation star Denise Crosby, Trekkies proved a hit with sci fi fans and mainstream critics alike, garnering a limited 1999 theatrical release by Paramount before going to video later that year.

While many scenes in Trekkies proved memorable -- like, say the Klingon language school -- nothing rivaled the sight of Minneapolis native Richard Kronfeld gliding down the highway in a homemade Captain Pike chair. It was Kronfeld, ultimately, who provided the impetus for Nygard's next project. "At the time I was organizing our first shoot, I called everybody I knew to try to find some people who would help out for free, because that's the only way you get documentaries made," explains Nygard. "I realized later that the people who said yes were all Trek fans, and the reason they did it was so they could be around while we interviewed various stars -- DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Roddenberry, et cetera. Rich was one of those people, and so he worked as a production assistant on the shoot.

Nygard on set for Six Days in Roswell.

"Then, about eight months later, as I was nearing a final cut on Trekkies, I was talking to Rich on the phone and telling him that I was finishing up the film, and he happened to mention that he had this Captain Pike chair that he built," Nygard continues. "I said, 'You're telling me this now? The film's almost done!' It's like going to the doctor, and on the way out the door, saying, 'Oh, by the way, I vomited blood this morning. Is that important?' 'Yes, that's important!' So we immediately went to go shoot Rich with his Star Trek stuff, which included his Captain Pike chair, and the gentleman who shot that for me was my second unit director, Tim Johnson. While doing the shoot, Rich happened to mention that he was going down to Roswell five months later for the anniversary of the alien crash in 1947. Tim suggested we go to Roswell and shoot some film for Trekkies, because there would probably be a lot of Star Trek fans there. We thought, 'Hey, that's not a bad idea, but maybe there's an entire movie in itself in this place.' So we spun Rich Kronfeld out of Trekkies into his own show, his own documentary."

That documentary is Six Days in Roswell, and while the film again highlights Kronfeld's geeky ways -- fans of the Captain Pike chair will not be disappointed -- what it neglects to mention is that Kronfeld is an experienced performer and stand-up comic who stars in his own Minneapolis public access television series. The resulting production is an odd hybrid of Spinal Tap-esque send-up and straightforward documentary, in which a clearly fictional narrator interacts with people often too strange to be believed. It's an unusual tactic that Nygard felt necessary to achieve Roswell's true intent -- to entertain. "The truth of the matter is, Richard is essentially playing an exaggerated version of himself," admits Nygard. "He's a geek, don't get me wrong, but he's not as big of a geek as he plays. We helped him create a backstory and a character in order to create a comedic framework to draw the most humor out of the subject matter."

When asked why such a approach was necessary -- after all, wouldn't the town that advertises alien parking at Arby's provide enough of a comedic framework unto its own? -- Nygard responds, "One reason we did it is that it really helps, I've found, when you're interviewing and documenting people, that you are one of them. We had to really become UFO fanatics. Rich became sort of what Denise Crosby was in Trekkies -- we see the experience through his eyes. Rich really is a Star Trek fan and he is interested in sci fi and UFO and alien mythology, but he is also a very gifted comedic personality. Although," he considers, "compared to all the other people there, he was actually very subdued."

Nygard and Johnson, who produced and directed the film, respectively, visited Roswell at the peak of Roswell trendiness, when Men in Black topped the box office a year after Independence Day and The X-Files still had some relevance. "It starts with pop culture, because that's where people get the bulk of their information, unfortunately," says Nygard. "Things like X-Files and Independence Day make Roswell more famous to the populists. But it was already known to a select few people who are more conspiracy buffs." The Roswell UFO Encounter, as the 50th anniversary celebration was called, contained many of these hardcore fans. "The reason it's so intriguing to people is because of the mystery, and the possibility behind that mystery," he continues. "When people say 'what if?', it really gets their imaginations going. There are a few mysteries out there that really touch people and really strike a chord, and this is one of them. If there is alien intelligence or other life out there, it would have a huge impact on our daily lives if that were to one day come to light as fact. That's why people are drawn to Roswell to find out more about it.

"Then, of course, there's this whole goofy aspect of Americana at its best," Nygard adds. "I mean, the people who live in Roswell are not UFO fanatics. They're just the people who live in that town, and they have a real twinkle in their eye about the whole phenomenon." Nygard pauses. "I guess you'd have to," he concludes, "when you're selling alien beer and alien beef jerky."

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