We Chat To The Van Vuuren Bros About Their Journey So Far...  

2011 was a busy year for brothers Christiaan and Connor Van Vuuren. After taking out the Optus ONE80PROJECT in March, the boys spent the best part of a year creating the full-length pilot for their winning entry 'Sick.'

We caught up with Connor and Christiaan to talk about their experiences making 'Sick' and to find out what lies ahead...

SICK WILL PREMIERE AT THE OPTUS ONE80PROJECT FESTIVAL ON MARCH 18. PLUS, keep your eyes peeled for the pilot when it airs on MTV this April!

MTV: Hi guys! So tell us, was the 'Sick' production process what you expected?

Christiaan: We kind of started our own production company without knowing exactly what that meant or what it involved. But we knew we had to start by bringing good people on board to help us produce it.

Connor: At one stage we were going to try to juggle it with other work, so we thought it was something that could be done part time, which wasn’t the case.

Christiaan: I definitely don’t think we expected the kind of hours and the dedication that you have to put in throughout the project. We went through 15 or 16 different drafts of the script on the way.

Conor: The other thing is we fully underestimated how far $180,000 would go. We ended up pushing it really far, but we honestly thought it meant we could do, you know, ‘Titanic’.

MTV: So how did you decide to use the production budget of $180,000?

Christiaan: With advice, from people who were more experienced that we spoke to. As soon as we won the competition we had a lot of meetings with both people that were judges from the competition, like the Blue Tongue guys, and we also spoke to guys who had won the competition in the past, including the guys who made ‘The Sellers’ and the guys that made ‘Dungoona.’

One of the great things about the competition is that it doesn’t just open doors in the sense that you’re introduced to people, but it opens doors because you actually have the opportunity to employ them. So we just started talking to people that knew more about the production process than we did and that helped steer us in the right direction with where we wanted to spend the money.

MTV: What can viewers expect from the finished pilot?

Connor: Hip hop, Lightsabers, swords and sandals, and it all happens while a guy is quarantined in hospital.

MTV: How are you feeling about debuting it to the public?

Connor: Connor: Christiaan is really excited, I’m a bit daunted. I get naked, so that’s going to be a bit embarrassing. But it’s a really exciting prospect, because we’ve only ever really had YouTube views, not proper screenings.

MTV: How has it felt sharing this experience as brothers?

Connor: Nash Edgerton came on set one day and said ‘look, how many fights have you had?’ We said one, and he said we were doing pretty well. It’s kind of a juggling act, we’ve got different strengths and weaknesses, and we cover each other’s strengths and weaknesses pretty well.

Christiaan: We just kind of put our heads down and work hard and cover each other’s arses.

MTV: And finally, where do you want to go from here? What’s next for you?

Connor: We’ll keep cooking up ideas and work on the next six episodes of this to pitch. We’ve got some other ideas in the works so we’re just going to keep plugging away.

Christiaan: We’ll keep knocking away at the online thing as well so that we cover our bases and can just keep creating stuff and keep meeting with people. And hopefully when we get a chance to screen this and some people get to see it it will open up more doors for us to be able to get involved with other peoples projects as well as our own.

If you want to find out more about SICK: BEHIND THE CAMERA, you can watch what the cast and directors had to say HERE

On set photo care of Van Vuuren Bros.