CINEMA-mad former Stanmore College classmates produced bite-size versions of Hollywood blockbusters in the hope of winning a coveted prize for one-minute films.
Simon Jago and Ryan Casey, both 24, are hoping to attract enough public votes to see their purposely lo-fi farcical remakes of 2011 horror prequel The Thing and boxing saga The Fighter through to the UK final of the Jameson Empire Award’s Done in 60 Seconds competition.
Two years ago in the same contest, the so-called Movie Maniacs reworked warrior film 300 which made the last five entries, but they missed out on the big prize.
Simon said: “Last year we did 300 because we had limited time and knew we had the costumes already but this year we decided to try to push ourselves. We filmed everything in my mum’s living room in front of a green screen and created the effects on computer in post-production.
“It wasn’t the case that we finished filming one and started the next – we were working on them at the same time. I’d be in arctic costume one minute and be in a boxer’s outfit the next.”
News cameraman Simon and pub worker Ryan, who both live in Northolt, were helped by Simon’s trainee optician girlfriend Caitlin Parlee, 20, and his dad Laurie Jago, who teaches sound technology at Stanmore College, friend Leigh Goudling, a 24-year-old production editor from Alperton, and a handful of friends who played extras.
Simon said: “We worked pretty solidly on both films for about four weeks and it was a good laugh.
“We had a lot of fun even though we gave up a lot of Christmas and it bothered my mum a little bit that we were filming on Christmas Eve when she wanted to relax and watch a film.
“Before the competition organisers released the shortlist, they uploaded all the submissions to the website and we were browsing and found lots of people had just tried to replicate a film in 60 seconds without trying to put their own spin on it, so I think our two are among the strongest.”
Cast your vote by Wednesday, February 29, at www.empireonline.com/awards2012/diss/.
