By Kevin Toyama
Make: Boo(!)ks Editor

Happy Halloween!

Tonight, I can't wait to see a new generation of kids who saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day dressed up as the ol’ web-head. It’s a great reminder of how deeply we connect with incredible storytelling.

But for me, the films that truly stick are the ones that take creative risks — like the frenetic chaos of Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) and the hyper-stylized visual language of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). They make you sit back and think, “Wow, I want to do something like that!”

That same thrill of seeing creators try something entirely new is why I’m so excited to host our upcoming Make: Live roundtable. We’re bringing that spirit of rule-breaking innovation down to the micro-level by highlighting filmmakers from this year’s Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival. The Film Fest is a celebration of backyard productions and a showcase for hand-made practical effects, harkening back to the fun of cardboard spaceships, homemade costumes, and stop-motion dragons.

I’ll be sitting down with the brilliant makers Will Nava, Freesia Gaul, David Thulin, and Lauren Meichtry to dive into their filmmaking visions. In this live discussion, we’ll screen their films and explore:

We are also thrilled to have Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival judge Jesse Velez joining us as a special guest! Jesse is the owner and lead designer at Raptor House FX, a practical effects studio that’s partnered with Disney, Netflix, and 20th Century Fox.

Whether you’re a movie lover obsessed with how the creative gears turn or a curious maker who’s looking for your next project, you won’t want to miss this!

Event Details:

When: Wednesday, November 4
Time: 4:00 p.m. PST
Where: Live Online Presentation
Link to Join: https://meet.zoho.com/cemz-iic-qip

The Crucible in Oakland closed its doors last week and one hopes the closure is temporary. Stories in several Bay Area publications reported on the shutdown.

About a year ago, I met with the new CEO Doug Yeiser, who is a non-profit executive brought in as interim executive director to develop a strategy for keeping The Crucible going. He was taking over from a previous director who didn’t seem to understand the unique nature of The Crucible or how to raise money for it. Like a lot of spaces, the post-Covid years have been difficult and there have been rumblings previously that it might shut down.

Pre-dating Burning Man and the maker movement, The Crucible was founded in 1996 by Michael Sturtz who was an impressario of the industrial arts, particularly fire arts. The live events he produced — fire operas and ballets — drew crowds of supporters to The Crucible. He made magic and brought new energy to the industrial arts. Sturtz left the organization in 2011.

At its core, the Crucible, like a makerspace, was a creative community that came together to share space and tools and exchange ideas and expertise. The benefits to the community were broader than just those artisans who used the space. They offered classes and workshops that introduced the next generation to the practices of metal-working, woodworking, ceramics and many more areas. The artisans who taught these classes and worked out of The Crucible are distraught.

“The closure comes as a shock to employees, students and the West Oakland community who rely on The Crucible as a valuable source of arts education,” said representatives of the unionized workforce in a press release. “Most of the faculty, staff, volunteers and students have tools and projects locked away in the 56,000 sqft. building in West Oakland, during the busy season.” They mentioned that The Crucible had raised $1M in January from a matching grant with the Kelson Foundation. (The Crucible had $4M in revenue in 2025.)

They added: “The Crucible staff members remain confident that a solution can be found and The Crucible can find stable footing and they can continue to educate and inspire future generations of artists, makers, tinkerers, inventors, and anyone who wants to be creative.”

This week, I learned that Community Shop Class in Sacramento is closing down and I talked to its founder, Chad Orcutt. I’ve interviewed Chad for Make:cast and wrote about him here: A Safe Place to Use Tools Safely. Chad created a unique space in West Sacramento, like a garage workshop on steroids. Chad has a heart of gold and he wanted to create the workshop in the area of the city where he lived. It actually grew out of the ADHD Inventor’s Club, which started in his own garage. He had hoped that Community Shop Class would be a bright spot in this part of town and help bring it back.

What worked well for Chad was offering classes for youth. This fit well with his mission and helped to pay the bills. Now, due to increasing crime activity in this part of town, he decided that it was unsafe for kids to come to the space. Now he’s moving things out and it is a painful process.

He hopes to be able to offer classes in other spaces in Sacramento, and find another use for this space, such as workforce development. The challenge for these non-profits is that there isn’t much government funding or philanthropic funding that would support these communities and their spaces and the work they do.

If you have the ability to support your local makerspace, please do so (and let me know). They need our help.

Check out the Make: team’s favorite Halloween projects.

Make Things is a weekly newsletter from Make: for the Maker community. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co

I’d love to hear from you if you have ideas, projects or news items about the maker community. Email me - [email protected].