Article,
FAN FILM GOES VIRAL | EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DEVIN GRAHAM
 |
A couple of weeks ago, the new video from US based filmmaker and YouTuber, Devin Graham was released. In the first three days, the views rocketed to 63K. It now sits at over 255K!
Known for his ambitious stunt and travel videos, Devin set out to make a tribute to three iconic fictional adventurers. This would be the first time they would appear together on screen.
With the stunning Uzbekistan as it’s backdrop, the film’s story centres around Timur Tamerlane, a prominent figure in the country’s history who was a ruthless conqueror up until the early 1400s.
The stunts lifted the production quality even higher performed by some of Hollywood’s best. Michaela McAllister, who plays the rebooted Lara Croft (with the character’s voice provided by Fiona Iredu), can be seen as the stunt double for Yelena in Marvel’s film “Black Widow” and the “Hawkeye” series on Disney+. Her husband Braxton plays Nathan Drake from the “Uncharted” games and Braxton’s brother Corbett plays the OG himself, Indiana Jones!
It’s the crossover we’ve all wanted to see and I had the pleasure of speaking to Devin about his experiences on the shoot.
TDD: Hi Devin, thanks for taking the time to speak to me! Firstly, you have made history by bringing all these characters together on screen. What made you decide to do this project?
DG: I'm a huge fan of all 3 characters, and I had never seen it done before. I run the YouTube channel Devinsupertramp and on that channel it's all about creating content that's unique. We do a ton of video game stuff in real life, and I always approach it with trying to create something I'm genuinely excited about. As a fan of these characters, I tried to think of something fun I would want to see as a fan of all of them.
TDD: What drew you to Uzbekistan?
DG: I actually filmed another video in the country a few years ago, our Aladdin Parkour video. One of the locals out there, Bekruz, is a fan of our channel and he had reached out to us 4 years ago or so, and said he would love to produce/make anything we wanted to happen out there. I had actually never heard of the country, so when he reached out I had to google it and found out that it was truly this amazing country with incredible history. Bekruz helped make this entire project happen. I told him what we needed, and he figured out a way to make it happen.
TDD: Were there any particular challenges you faced prior to or during the shoot?
DG: Everything was pretty straightforward with this. We were filming 4 videos out there though in a two week time span, the Tomb Raider project, an Assassin's Creed Parkour video, a Prince of Persia video, and a Sonic The Hedgehog video. So biggest challenge was trying to balance my time for all 4 videos in the short window we had. And we filmed this the first two weeks in December where it was freezing. In the scene with Lara and Indy, in a few of the shots at the start, you'll see it snowing/raining. Out in below freezing in a tanktop, not ideal.
TDD: You have an incredible cast! Tell us how you decided on your actors.
DG: The cast we had were all amazing. They're all hollywood stunt men/woman in Hollywood. Michaela and Braxton who played Nathan and Lara are actually a married couple as well, so that helps. And Corbett, who played Indiana Jones is actually Braxtons brother. I've worked with all these people over a long period of time, so we're all friends. At the end of the film the credit that pops up says its a film by a bunch of friends, and that's exactly what it was. But they're all true professionals.
 |
| Michaela and Braxton performing one of their bigger stunts. |
TDD: How were your costumes and props created?
DG: All the costumes were made by Allison Dredge. We went to film school together and she makes most of the costumes for our film shoots. And the Prince of Persia Dagger was hand made by Fitz who makes most of our props. Any other props we used we gathered while in Uzbekistan.
 |
 |
TDD: Favourite memories that stick out in your mind?
DG: I love the country of Uzbekistan. Everyone is so friendly and does everything they can to help. When Lara and Nathan fall from the building, we had the table structure they fall on built by locals. They made it happen so fast. Just the hospitality was on another level I've never experienced.
TDD: Might there be a sequel on the horizon and can you tease anything?
DG: We would love to make a sequel. With these passion projects, they're pretty expensive to make since they're fully self funded, so the hope is the video can get a lot of attention and that we can make another sequel, we already have the locations and some of the events in mind if we're able to make it happen, all I can say about it for now is it would be somewhere tropical :)
Thank you to Devin for doing this interview! Check out the film and behind the scenes video below…
0 comments: