How the Radio Silence trio upgraded from shooting YouTube shorts to helming 'Scream'
by Jaskiran Kaur | Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:42:13 GMT
Image Source: The AV Club, Internewscast

If a global pandemic is not scary enough for you, you have obviously watched 'Scream' to introduce an element of horror into your life. The film 'Scream' released in 2022, is the fifth of its name and is made by the artistic trio, Radio Silence. Consisting of three brilliant filmmakers, Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, and Chad Villella, the trio managed to improve their filmmaking prowess from creating Youtube shorts to directing a full-fledged film with the top celebs of Hollywood.

The trio recently came together to promote their film from home, where they individually sat together from their respective homes for a Zoom conference with Variety. Funnily enough, they all turn up in plain black shirts. “We’ve spent so much time together, we’ve morphed into one thing,” joked Bettinelli-Olpin, aged 43, seeing their coordinated outfits.

The three friends have found an amazing comfort with each other, where their jokes flow seamlessly and create positive vibes. Sharing how they came to name themselves 'Radio Silence' they shared that their name originated from a joke they made on themselves. In their initial days when they were just beginning and reaching out to creators, they were met again and again with radio silence as no one approached them to work with them. But instead of being underwhelmed by it, they made it into a joke and became the legendary 'Radio Silence' as we know them today. 

“We used to always say it to each other,” said Bettinelli-Olpin about the group's name. “When you’re trying to get started, it’s nothing but obstacles. The way that we dealt with that kind of like rejection was to just be like, ‘Hey, have you heard from so and so?’ ‘Radio silence. Radio silence.’ It was such a joke among us that, basically, nobody wanted to work with us.”

Luckily, they finally found their one chance when Brad Miska, the founder of the Bloody Disgusting genre website invited them to create YouTub shorts. Their contribution was to be a found footage horror anthology where the three friends played the roles of three characters who come across a real haunted house on Halloween. When asked who was the director of the short film, the friends replied, “And we’re like, ‘Well, it’s all of us.'”

“We put a grand total of five minutes of thought into it,” said the creator about becoming a directing trio instead of a single name. Such devotion to collective work and friendship is rarely seen in Hollywood where most people want to shine a light on their own plaques. “We could ask for permission or we can just ask each other for help,” added Gillett.

Hence, together the three came together from their humble beginnings of directing short indie horror films and now stand proud to have helmed 'Scream,' a franchise that has been beloved for 30 years. It is mandatory to notice that they successfully managed to revive the interest in the franchise which had lain dormant for quite some time now. Not only did they bring in new actors and roles but significantly transformed the face of horror cinema. 

Initially, the group had started with Bettinelli-Olpin and Villella who first met each other back in the 2000s. They were together attending an acting class, from where they turned friends and then a creative group. However, it was not acting that fascinated them. “The typical acting thing wasn’t really for us,” shared Bettinelli-Olpin. “So we sort of decided, hey, there’s this new thing called YouTube, let’s go start just making short films for YouTube.” To this Gillett added: “‘New thing called YouTube!’ It was a long time ago.”

The Bettinelli-Olpin and Villella duo then created a group with Rob Polonsky and named themselves Chad, Matt & Rob. They together made videos on Youtube, many of which amassed views over a million and went viral. 

Gillett was not yet a part of the group, but he wanted to be. The creative aspect of producing cinema totally appealed to him, but he knew the trio only because he worked with Bettinelli-Olpin at New Line Cinema. Gillett shared, “They were doing the comedy thing, but it was wrapped up in a sort of larger, more ambitious storytelling package.”

Chad, Matt & Rob also created a 'choose-your-own-adventure' series, where the audience decided the path the character would take. The collective effect of it made a more interactive storytelling process where the viewers had a direct impact on the fate of the characters. 

Finally, Gillett one day picked up the courage, told Bettinelli-Olpin, and joined the group. “Tyler was walking by and off the cuff was like, ‘Hey, if you guys ever need somebody to shoot something with, I’m around.' And we’re like, ‘What about next weekend?’ We started working together and have been together ever since."

While other collaborators went off to pursue their different paths, the trio stuck together. “It was that mentality of, the only way that this works is if we stick together,” said Bettinelli-Olpin. “We trust each other, and we grow together and we learn together. We can all go off and get jobs being a DP, a writer in a writers’ room, an actor on a show. Or we can have a collective voice, and we can move forward as one, and have a loftier goal for ourselves. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but let’s take the big shot, not the smaller shots.”

Working through the 2010s, the group realized they wanted to have their specific hallmark impact on the horror genre. They took inspiration from the classics like Ghostbusters, the Halloween franchise, and more to learn what they wanted to do. 

“So many of our of the icons that we were raised on were doing things that you maybe wouldn’t necessarily consider a horror movie, but they all had a horror genre element,” shared Gillett. Hence, they too created something unique. 

“It’s been interesting to be a part of a genre where things do get so distilled and so defined,” continued the creator “I think we’ve always fought that a little bit. We’ve always tried to push the walls out. For us, it has to do a little bit of genre dance, it has to do that tone dance. That’s just where our sensibilities lie.”

Filmmakers Radio Silence on What It Was Like for the Biggest ‘Scream’ Fans to Make a ‘Scream’ Movie, Image Source : yahoo.com

Now, they are together the masterminds behind the revival of the Scream franchise!

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