Christopher Sean and John Gearries are the creators of the upcoming “Twilight” spoof film “Twiharder” Media Mikes had the chance to talk with both John and Chris recently about the film and what it was like taking it from the Internet to the big screen.
Adam Lawton: What made you decide to do a parody of the “Twilight” series?
John Gearries: We knew that there was a big market for us to tap into. Being new film makers we really wanted to be seen by a large audience. I think if you look at the genres that have been in the past for younger people they have had something to do with a specific trend. Right now the vampire trend is going crazy. Chris and I were thinking what we could use to help us be seen by a large number of people and that’s why we chose the “Twilight” series. That series is also pretty easy to poke fun at.
AL: Were you fans of the original films?
Christopher Sean: To be fair I actually enjoyed the original films. I liked the story. John then pointed out to me that there was really nothing happening in those stories. That was the truth as there was really nothing more going on than a 105 year old vampire falling in love with an underage school girl. I started to think about some of the other points about how the vampires were always sunbathing and the werewolf’s never had shirts on.
JG: The thing that I saw was all these subliminal topics that were never brought up. Why was someone always taking off their shirt or wet? There was really no reason for that to happen when it does. If a vampire is 105 years old why he is still interested in young girls? His mind still should be aging. Why is he even still going to high school every day?
AL: Did you find yourself re-reading the books at all during the writing process?
CS: We didn’t read too much of the books. We mostly watched the movies and were just grossed out. I can’t wait for the final film to come out.
JG: I saw the first 2 films once but that was it. I am not a Twihard fanatic or anything. I think it would be hard for me to sit through those films over and over. I guess they are fun movies for kids but these films just made me upset as they really had no point.
AL: Can you tell us about the “I’m So Sexy” music video shoot?
CS: John came to me with the idea for the video. John wrote the song under the name John Blaze. When he first sang it for me I knew it was going to blow up. We shot that in a mansion up in the hills of Thousand Oaks.
JG: I wanted to see all the werewolves extra wet and playing with each other. (Laughs) I wanted something for the YouTube community to have a “Twilight” song. There were a few other songs out there already but I went darker and tried to push things as far as I could. The entire concept came from the “Big Pimp’n” video.
AL: What was the most difficult part of taking this from a web series to a motion picture format?
JG: Probably the large number of people involved was the most difficult aspect. We had around 30-40 actors, 80 production/crew staff and another 10 or so music artists involved. To bring that in collectively and make it work cohesively has been tough. We have run into a number of constraints. 
Shooting the film was also a bit difficult. We had a number of kids show up on set and just start screaming the characters names. Not only are the characters in “Twiharder” vampires and werewolves but they are also Hollywood stars. They live in a world where they are famous, vampires, and in love. They have a lot of fans. Everyone was great but there was a lot of responsibility.
AL: How do you feel this spoof differs from the other that have been released recently?
CS: This one’s better! (Laughs) Not only are we poking fun at the movies but also at the actors who are in those movies. Everything that “Twilight” is we are poking fun at. The film solely incorporates things from those films not a number of different films. We really get in-depth and poke things with a big stick.
JG: Films like “Scary Movie” throw a whole bunch of popular movies together into one film. Our film “Twiharder” is about the acting and the writing. It’s all really dark humor and can seem a bit disturbing.
AL: When can we expect to see the film?
JG: We are really shooting for late October or November. We wanted it to come out around Halloween but we are still wrapping some things up. It’s looking more like early winter.
