It's A Snap - Henry & Aaron Interview

Think of your favourite college recruitment film. Got one? No! To be honest, ads about educational establishments rarely find their way to The Reel, but when we spotted the remarkable ‘It’s A Snap’ for the Central Institute of Technology in Perth, Australia on YouTube we instantly hunted down the folk responsible to digitally shake their hand.

It turns out that the creative team behind it - Aaron McCann, Henry Inglis and producer Lauren Elliott – are no strangers to creating compelling short-form content for a YouTube audience. Their seven-part YouTube series, ‘Henry & Aaron’s 7 Steps To Superstardom’, was the result of a filmmaking competition win worth $50,000 and clocked up an impressive 127,000+ hits (and is ruddy marvellous to boot!). However, this has since been dwarfed by the remarkable viral success of ‘It’s A Snap’, which in its two weeks online has garnered close to 2million views, celebrity support and a cult following.

We chatted to Henry, Aaron and Lauren about what it’s like to rule the web, make a good-looking series on a budget and plans for the future.

At last count, your viral ‘IT'S A SNAP!’ is at 1.7million views. How does it feel to be YouTube superstars?

HENRY: This is gonna sound clichéd and stupid, but it does feel 'surreal'. I feel like I'm just about to wake up from this beautiful, yet overly long dream.

AARON: Very humbled that there are so many people out there who love our sense of humour. It's been a dream.

How did the viral come about? Was it something you were working on before or did the college approach you? How the heck did you come up with the finale?!

LAUREN: We needed slightly more than $50,000 to make what we wanted to make, so I approached Central Institute of Technology and asked them to contribute to our production budget. I put together a sponsorship proposal with one of the benefits being a web promo. Marketing guru Kenley Gordon gave the sponsorship the green light and the rest is history.

HENRY: We did it as a favour to CIT for investing in our web series. We offered to make an original video to promote the school. The concept of a hackneyed, cheap TV effect and it's devastating real-world consequences came to mind very quickly. We definitely gravitated towards the most gruesome ending we could, because that's the kinda guys we are. Teleporting opens up so many interesting (and funny) ways someone can die.

AARON: Originally I teleported home into a fridge and was sliced up inside the fridge. But neither of us could be bothered buying a fridge, cutting it up and then disposing of a broken fridge afterwards, so we went with the more complicated FX ending using a feature of the college that we walked past every day whilst attending.

Were the college ever hesitant about releasing the film? It has some fairly unconventional moments!

HENRY: They were never hesitant. Kenley Gordon, the Head of Marketing had trust in us that the concept was extreme enough to get attention on the web. And he was right.

AARON: They loved the idea from the onset. They took a great risk in releasing it, but it paid off for them in such a big way. We're very thankful for that.

What was the shoot like? There are some pretty nifty effects for (what we assume was) a low-ish budget film.

HENRY: The shoot was actually very fun and comfortable. We were able to experiment with different lines and deliveries. We're gonna be making an outtakes video that will have the bloopers and alternate takes in there. The FX stuff that involved Aaron spitting out blood on a green screen took the longest to shoot, and took us way over time.

AARON: Dominic Pearce and Robert Woods did all the FX for us. There were many layers to the final scene and each element was shot separately, including the pole sticking through my mouth. The clothes rack was just cut in half and pressed up against my chest and back and was all done practically.

Your web series –‘7 Steps To Superstardom’ – showcased some madcap ideas for getting famous. Was ‘creating a college recruitment film that would become a viral smash’ ever in the running?

HENRY: Well, coincidentally, the first incarnation of Henry and Aaron was a feature film script, and in the script Henry and Aaron botch a comedy routine and it ends up as a viral youtube hit. So, life imitates art or something.

AARON: I wish we had an episode titled: "Become a YouTube Sensation", but as Henry said, sometimes life does imitate art.

We understand the making of ‘7 Steps’ was a prize for a competition. What’s the story there?

HENRY: Movie Extra Webfest was a national filmmaking competition that we entered and won $50,000 to make the series. We used the $50,000 to produce Henry & Aaron’s 7 Steps to Superstardom.

AARON: Central Institute of Technology and ScreenWest contributed some funds towards our production budget on top of the $50,000 and we secured a lot of in-kind sponsors also. It was a very low budget shoot, but we have always worked in a low budget realm. Sometimes those budget restrictions create the greatest inspiration for creativity.

The entire series had the budget of $50,000, yet it’s not limited in location and scale (some bits seem to have tons of extras). How did you stretch the money out?

LAUREN: With 32 full-time crew, and then some, working on an 18-day shoot, our $50,000-ish was spent pretty quickly. But we secured a lot of in-kind sponsorship, our heads of department worked for mates rates and loads of people worked for free. We couldn’t have done it without them.

AARON: We also own our own camera, a Canon 5D Mark II, and Henry and Antony Webb edited all of the episodes on their Mac Book Pros. We have all worked in the industry in some form or another and we knew what we could get away with in terms of making the budget stretch. Ant and Zak’s first ever feature film, ‘The Actress’ was made for AU$700. So we were in good hands.

There are a lot of pop-culture references in your work, either overt spoofs or knowing hints. Are you guys pretty pop-culture literate? Do you think that helps in creating your films?

LAUREN: I remember watching the Spaced DVD extras a few years ago and Edgar Wright said something that really resonated with me. It was something along the lines of Tim and Daisy’s lives being so governed by pop culture that they could only think in those terms. I think it’s the same for us. It's not that we ever intentionally include a film or TV quote or homage, it's more the fact that they naturally creep into our day-to-day vocabulary and inevitably end up in scripts. So many of our in jokes are things we’ve been quoting for so long that we sometimes forget that they’re from one of our favourite TV shows or films.

AARON: It's very subconscious at times, and sometimes it's in there because we have never seen anyone spoof it before. In Episode 5, ‘Find Your Inner Self’, I really wanted to do the opening sequence of ‘Funny Games’ because I love the film, and also because I have never seen anyone take it off in a comic sense.

Who are your influences?

HENRY: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Larry David, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, Louis CK, Sarah Silverman.

AARON:  John Cleese, Ricky Gervais, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Louis CK, The Mighty Boosh, Abbot & Costello, Ren & Stimpy, Mum & Dad

LAUREN: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Shaun Micallef, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Chris Lilley, Steve Coogan, Stephen Colbert, Tim and Eric.

The college spot marks a step from the web-series into ‘branded entertainment’. Is that something you guys are interested in?

HENRY: We’re interested in working in an environment where we can do whatever we want.

LAUREN: I think Reebok should sponsor Aaron. His pumps are getting a lot of credit for his teleporting ability.

AARON: We just want to tell good stories, if the stories happen to "sell" something then that's cool, but I don't think we're actively going out of our way to brand something that we don't have a strong connection to, or believe in... However if Reebok want to send me more Pumps I'll gladly teleport wherever they ask.

What’s next on the cards? Are you going to do a Tim and Eric and make a movie or a Bret and Jermaine and win an Oscar (*question asked before the Oscars were announced)?

HENRY: Did Bret and Jermaine win an Oscar? I'm still keen in pursuing an Australian comedy series, developing TV and film projects and still releasing content on the web.

AARON: I'm currently working on some feature films right now, and myself and Henry and busy writing for a full half hour series. All of us work independently outside of "Henry & Aaron" on our own projects, but really we're looking forward to whatever the future brings our way.

LAUREN: The heart of our show is the characters of Henry & Aaron. I can see them working in so many different formats whether it be another comedy series, a sketch show or something else entirely. I love producing and I love comedy so I’m really keen to explore all the different opportunities that come our way. As long as it feels authentic, we’re open to a world of possibilities.

A million thanks to Henry, Aaron and Lauren for the interview. Check out the full web series here and find out more about the guys on the profile page of our site.

Aaron McCann, Henry Inglis and James Helm photo at the top of the page taken by Richard Jefferson.