Today’s interview is with Two Guys and a Film. Two Guys and a Film is a production company headed by filmmakers Canyon Prince and James Thomas. For more info on them, check out Two Guys and a Film on imdb. Also you can follow them on twitter @twoguysandafilm, or on their facebook fanpage.
Justin Samuels: Your film Hard Sun is in Post Production. How can audiences find this film when it released? Do you have distribution? When will it be released?
Two Guys and a Film: Hard Sun is in the final stages of post and should be wrapping up within a month. So as far as a hard-pressed release date goes, we don’t have one yet. The plan with HS is really work the festival market. It’s ready made for that crowd and we believe that it can do very well there.
JS: What led to you guys creating your production company Two Guys and a Film?
TG: Two Guys and a Film was started out of a passion and desire to tell gritty yet compelling stories. When people think of independent films, they often think of art house films. But in all actuality, it simply means that we produce films independently of a major studio. This allows us to have a larger say in what we produce and allows us the freedom to create not only amazing festival films like Hard Sun, but also terrifying horror films like Get Away.
JS: You’ve another film made in 2012, Get Away. Can you give us any details on that?
TG: Get Away is an action packed horror film that will make you question taking that next road trip. The film shows the gritty side of humanity and has an eerie realism to it that makes you wonder if this type of thing actually happens. An interesting point we make in the film is that horrifying things don’t only happen at night or when no one is looking. They can be happening all around us, at any moment. Sometimes they can even be done by people we would call normal. And that is what makes them frightening.
Right now GA is in visual effects, which will take about a month to complete. At the same time sound design has just started as well. Since, we shot HS first and pushed it through our post workflow first GA is always a step or two behind. It’s pretty cool to finish the sound mix on one film and be able to say “Okay, this worked really well and some of that didn’t” and improve your process. So hopefully we will see the light at the end of the tunnel sometime in the fall.
JS: How does the internet effect the film industry? Particularly from the view point of indie filmmakers?
TG: It’s made it easier for filmmakers to do what we all love, which is making movies. From financing to distribution there are avenues that exist now, like IndieGoGo and Netflix, that have made this possible. If you don’t have the biggest name actors attached or a giant budget, you can still go make your film. It also allows you to do something we’ve never been able to do in the history of this business. Have immediate human interaction with your audience and that is priceless. This is a fascinating thing because if you think of a band and their latest album being put out. Do you follow the band or the album? The band right? Filmmakers have the exact opposite problem, most people don’t even know who directed or produced these films. Twitter and Facebook (mainly Twitter in my opinion) have really opened it up for filmmakers to gain a following that will translate to a built in audience on your next project. That’s why we constantly tell filmmakers to grow that social media audience. We foresee that in the future, the filmmaker’s following will be the reason your film is green lit or not.
JS: There’s a picture of you two at a Film Independent event. Are you guys members? If so, would you say organizations like this are helpful to filmmakers? Please explain how.
TG: Yes, we are both members. We love FIND because it connects filmmakers together and networking is one of the most important things any filmmaker can do. They also have a lot of seminars and classes for first timers in which people who have “been there and done that” share their vast knowledge and that’s incredibly valuable.
JS: The both of you have had a number of crew positions over the years. How did you find these gigs?
James: I got my first PA gig working on a Master P music video, which was crazy. And the production coordinator from that brought me along to other projects. I’ve always known I wanted to direct, but I think everyone should PA a couple of times in their career.
Canyon: When I first moved out to LA, I got work doing background on some television shows. That led to me being hired as a PA on some of those same shows and films. PAing lead to some acting gigs, and from there my primary focus became acting. When the WGA writer’s strike happened at the end of ’07 and the acting work dried up, I moved into directing and producing and have been there ever since.
JS: Will you enter Hard Sun and Get Away in film festivals?
TW: We will submit HS to festivals. Get Away will be a different story. We may submit it to festivals just to see it on the big screen a couple of times, but mainly we are seeking distribution.
JS: What other upcoming projects are you two working on, either together or individually?
J: Right now our main goal is growing and expanding Two Guys. We just acquired a TV comedy pilot called ‘Faculty Lounge’ that we are packaging to pitch to networks and have a slate of films to go into production. One of our next films is called ’68 Minutes’ which is a sci-fi film involving time travel that Canyon will direct and I will produce.