Emmanuel Itier

Interview by Emmanuel Itier

Q: How did this movie come together?

Sean: Eric and I met in a creative class in 2012. And we would meet after class and talk about action movies we grew up with. We formed a deep bond through that exchange. And because we had the intention to make a first film without a huge budget, we figured out this script, “In Action”. I pitched Eric the idea of a two persons action movie. He was confused, at first, but his brain got “into action”! It started almost like a theatre piece with the two of us seating on a chair and talking. And it grew from there.

Eric: I will always remember the initial idea of Sean: “Eric, I want to do an action movie with two people talking to each other and seating on a chair and we can shoot it for $5000!”. I really didn’t know, at first, what that meant. But the conversation kept going, especially at this pizza joint near “Union Square”, in New York, where we loved to get together to work. And from there we went back and forth with a script that evolved very quickly into something we could film. Very quickly we had a perfect vision of fast cutting car chases and other action scenes into this dialogue between the two characters.

Q: Tell me about the various challenges you faced to get it made and to get it released?

Eric: Any creative process is a huge challenge. For us, because we don’t come from the film world, it was very difficult to get into it and to convince people to back us up. I work in advertising, I’m in add sales and Sean works in higher education. But we were writers and we had studies films. But we had enough productions connections, thanks in part to Sean who is also an actor. We couldn’t convince people, producers to jump behind us. So, we decided to film some sort of prototype to show others what we had in mind. This was in 2014 and this got us to move forward with the project and make the adjustment necessary to make it accessible to people to back us up. Initially we tried to bring someone on board to direct as we wanted to focus on the acting. But that person didn’t get our vision, so we decided to helm this feature as well as directors. And as you can imagine, it wasn’t easy to maintain a balance between making a movie and keeping a full- time job. So, we ended up working 24/7 to make this film come together.

Q: What is this film truly about?

Sean: Like with any action movie, there is the plot and then, there is what it is truly about. For us, this film is about two friends who had a feud and who learn to overcome their differences in order to become friends again, in order to save the world. It’s truly about two characters who need to grow up. They have to realize that, even so they are disappointed with their lives, what they have is gold. It’s like asking what ‘Die Hard’ is about. On one hand it’s about terrorists taking over a building but for me it’s about a love story. So, even so our film is about two friends who wrote a screenplay and who end up in a crazy adventure after the government intercepted their script, truly it’s about these two friends learning to grow up and give a second chance to their friendship.

Eric: It’s also about the ridiculousness of male bonding. What they talk about when men are alone. And the stupid things we say, sometimes, that are totally politically incorrect. It was funny to me to show two guys who are as smarts as they are idiots.

Q: Due to your limitations, budget and schedule wise, you had to be very creative to film ‘In Action’, what is the scene that was the most complicated to shoot?

Sean: We thought for the entire movie outside of the box and this is why we incorporated drawings and animation as well as toys. But the toughest scene for me to put together was maybe the simplest one. At one point, mid movie, Eric and I have an argument and we were not sure how to film that scene. And Eric suggested we make it bare bone and make it about the characters. And we just decided to have 1 camera on me and 1 on him without worrying about the world around us. And it’s a long scene, at least 5 minutes. But I think it works because of the intensity of the delivery of our dialogues and our energies.

Eric: 2 actions scene were also tough to put together. In one scene, Sean is about to be taken hostage in the hotel room. We didn’t to show fully the characters committing the assault. So, we decided to have a bunch of inserts such as a gun coming close to the camera lens. A little bit like the shark in Jaws, close up of the big mouth opened but nothing else, body wise.

Q: So, when do get the sequel?

Eric: Haha! Actually, it’s funny because people suggested we approach every “genre” like this movie and we could end up with ‘In Drama’ and ‘In Comedy’, etc.

In any case we decided right now to focus on writing a Horror comedy. It’s about a washed-up film director who runs a horror film festival, and he gets terrorized by an amateur filmmaker that he has rejected. It’s a little bit based on our experience in the film festival world. So, it’s a study about rejection and what it does to you.  We hope to get going shortly now that the pandemic is a little bit behind us. We all are vaccinated so we are ready to rock’n’roll!!!