The films I’ve received lately have made me very cynical. Some made me loose faith in the digital film revolution. Some were so bad I had to turn them off. Drop Box at least made me believe again. The screenwriting team of Spiros and Anesty Carasoulos has a knack for comedy writing and an eye for talent. They also have the passion and the spirit I enjoy most about the genre. Here discussing their inspirations, their future and the events that inspired a film about a celebrity sex tape are Spiros and Anesty Carasoulos in this month’s indie interview.

TheFilmChair: Just a bit of history first. How did you guys get into filmmaking?
Anesty: When I was about twelve years old and Spiros was ten, our older brother bought a video camera. He told us we were never to use it. We would get together with a friend of ours on the weekends and come up with an idea then shoot it. We eventually broke that camera and couldn’t afford a new one, so we turned our attention towards screenwriting. We figured, no matter what we would always be able to afford a pen and some paper. Since about fourteen years old we have been writing screenplays, trying to break into the film industry that way. But as time went by the more it seemed impossible to do it as a screenwriter alone. It seemed our best chance was to make our own film, so we gave it a shot and made Drop Box.

FC: This is a higher concept indie film than I am used to. Where did you come up with the story of a pop star who returns homemade porn to a video store?
Anesty: We’ve been trying to write a script for a while that we could produce with a limited budget, and with the resources that we had at our disposal. While spending some time at a local video store that a relative manages, we simply couldn’t ignore the hilarity of the customer behavior. We started to take note of all the incidents we witnessed.
Spiros: We knew we had something that we could produce, but it wasn’t enough. We wanted a concept that could be easily described, something that caught people’s attention right away. And we didn’t want to make another day in the life of a slacker movie. That really wasn’t enough for us. We just did not feel like that needed to be done again. Since celebrity sex tapes do seem to get a lot of attention, and people are very intrigued by them, it seemed like a perfect fit. I think it all came together when we were in the video store, and we actually saw a customer accidentally return a personal video of a dance rehearsal.

Indie Interviews #14: Spiros and Anesty Carasoulos...continues here