The short film Maestro hit Los Angeles theaters on this day in 2004. But its origins began on the other side of the country, when fellow Rockport College professors-writers-directors Doug Stradley and Daniel Stephens began visualizing a humble $5,000 short project. In the end, Maestro was 30 minutes in length, six times its original budget and featured an unexpected performance by “Saturday Night Live” head writer and performer Seth Meyers. This Rocky-inspired story stars Meyers as the older version of Tim Healy, a bowling alley employee fantasizing about the day he would be the greatest orchestral conductor in the world. His piece de resistance would be the cursed composition “Air,” which failed anyone who ever had a hand in it.
Factoid: Seth Meyers and Stan Grunder (the young version of Tim Healy) returned for writer-director Doug Stradley’s Cub Scout Pinewood Derby comedy, Thunder Road.