The event makes everyone equal

Skyline director duo talks about what makes their film different from or similar to the rest

End-of-the-world flicks go grand on scale and show. There has to be an end-all alien entity that will attempt to thwart all human resistance.

When you watch several such films, you know where they're going with an apocalyptic story.


Ending it right: Scottie Thompson, Eric Balfour and the Brothers Strause

The Brothers Strause Greg and Colin know this better than most people. They've delivered the VFX for several big blockbusters (see box).

Here they talk about turning directors with Skyline, an 'event' film that releases today nationwide in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu with 650 prints. We get talking...

Isn't Skyline a bit like Independence Day?

We wouldn't say that... Skyline is a visually powerful epic alien-abduction movie with a great character story and heart. The premise is mass abduction on a global scale.u00a0

For example, most people driving on a freeway who see an accident would look at the wreck. If some entity used these instinctual weaknesses against us, it would wipe us out instantly.u00a0

The event makes everyone equal. Everything flatlines at that point and they are trying to survive what could be the end of the Earth.

The characters are the main point of the movie that this huge visual world is wrapped around.

We were committed to having a character-driven movie.u00a0 Knowing that tropes of many sci-fi screenplays include enormous visuals and disposable characters, we vowed to avoid the obvious traps.

What are you doing differently?

Greg: While many sci-fi thrillers are set and shot at night to compensate for any issues with the inevitable CGI, it was important to us to showcase the terror during the day.

We felt confident with our work on dozens of big-budget films, and that had prepared us to pull it off.

Colin: We combined the scale of an event movie with the action of an invasion film.u00a0

Having people watch as dozens of motherships are sucking up millions of people off the face of the Earth... that's something you have to see during the day.u00a0

At nighttime, that wouldn't look like much.u00a0 In the daytime, there's a constant reminder that there's nowhere else you can go.

Skyline has gone from concept to release date in less than a year.

Why pick this story for your directorial debut?

When we considered making the film, we knew it would only happen if we could craft it in-house and control every aspect of production.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2009, we were having lunch with longtime animation supervisor of Hydraulx, Joshua Cordes, and frequent writer of our music videos and commercials, Liam O'Donnell.

We began to discuss ideas for a project we could entirely create within our own team.

We had all these great spaces, and we had these awesome cameras and wondered what we could do to take advantage of that.
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We then realised Greg had this amazing view of the city, and our story quickly became the 'end of the world' outside of his window.

Who the brothers strause are...

Colin and Greg collectively known as the Brothers Strause and their company Hydraulx has provided visual effects foru00a0 Hollywood blockbusters like Avatar, Iron Man 2, 2012, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 300, The Day After Tomorrow, X-Men Origins: Wolverine; and now turn directors with Skyline, which releases today.