Times are tough for 24-year-old Shane and his girlfriend, so he takes up an offer from a friend for a chance at some ‘easy money’. What should be a straightforward factory robbery goes horribly wrong. And things for Shane go from bad to unimaginably worse.

This is the story behind HIT, Daperis Brothers’ new short film, screening at The Delphi Bank 22nd Greek Film Festival.
Born in Melbourne, Daniel and Jared Daperis grew up in the film industry as actors.

Daniel is a graduate of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York and Jared has appeared in Underbelly: Squizzy (2013) as Squizzy Taylor.

The brothers first collaborated on their debut short film Phone Call (2011), the winner of Screen Australia’s Raw Nerve initiative.

“I’ve been working with my brother from an early age, we were three and five years old respectively,” Daniel Daperis tells Neos Kosmos.

“We always knew that we wanted to direct when we got older so we founded Daperis Brothers, our creative brainchild.”

The first independent film project Daniel and Jared made together was Phone Call back in 2011. Whenever something radical comes up, the brothers get down to business together.

“We both have our main jobs and work with advertisers to make a living but we have our own creative projects on the side,” he says.

“We work together so well, keeping any arguments we might have behind closed doors and never on the set; the one who wins is usually right.”

Essentially, the brothers wrote HIT almost two years ago and over this period, they slowly refined it and sent it out to different people in the of realising it.

“Everything is self-funded, so we tried to save and fortunately the people we sent it out to were either excited about the script or the project altogether,” Daniel explains.

“We all worked for no money and we are fortunate to be able to pull it all together with the help of a wonderful cast.

“It was a really well-organised short film shoot, we all had a lot of fun and we are happy with the professional result we achieved.”

The story revolves around a young character called Shane, who was originally meant to be played by a 35-year-old lead character, however, after the brothers received feedback from several different people whose opinion they valued, they decided to drop the age.

“Once we reduced the age I told my brother: ‘Since you know the character better than anyone else and you are a better actor that anyone else, you should star’.

“Of course, he was a bit apprehensive at first but I managed to convince him and he did a top job,” Daniel enthuses.

HIT has been more interesting and challenging not only because the brothers were co-directing it, but because Daniel was also directing Jared.

“Fortunately the way we work and envision things is quite similar,” he says, highlighting how they love to push each other to their limits.

“We constantly question one another. We don’t settle for things without considering other options.”

This short encapsulates the style and concepts the duo wants to produce; contemporary high drama with a realistic touch. The Daperis Brothers’ aim is to push boundaries with simplicity and rawness, so that the audience can connect and relate to the heroes.
“We don’t want to do fanciful things; on the contrary, we are eager to make people think and feel emotions,” Daniel stresses.
“It is important to keep a toned-down yet strong approach to more effectively deliver a message.”

For Daniel, HIT manages to combine all the top points from different films they have always aspired to shoot in one short drama, which may be just nine minutes long but has helped them come a long way as creatives.

Meanwhile, the Daperis clan is finishing up post-production for a “crazy” project they have co-directed. A music video for an emerging Melbourne band called American Doubles.. The song is called The Swell and it will be released on the same day as the clip.

“The video is about a lady who walks along a pier and sees a red carpet. When she reaches the end of the carpet she jumps into the water where she finds a bar-restaurant,” Daniel explains.

“It was challenging because we had to literally build the set outside the water ourselves, making sure it was all waterproof and then sink it in a 5-metre deep pool.”

Instead of actors Daniel and Jared hired free divers because the characters had to hold their breath and be comfortable under the water for several minutes.

“They did a really good, natural job, considering all the filming was all done underwater,” Daniel says.

“We can’t wait for it to be aired next month.”

For more information on the short film and the Daperis Brothers’ work head to www.daperisbrothers.com/hit.html