Spartans! Tonight We Dine in Starbucks!
by James Roland
The invasion has begun. It’s not the Germans, the Russians, or even the Persian Army. Internet videos are charging down the Hollywood hills, hell bent on enslaving the entertainment industry.
Leading the charge is 305, a five minute internet spoof directed by David and Daniel Holecheck. In summer 2007, the brothers gathered help from friends and family to shoot the video, which started as a simple experiment to test their visual effects skills.
Shot in the popular mockumentary style, the film follows five rejects from the Spartan army who are ordered to guard a goat pen: Overweight and pie-chart-wielding Claudius (Tim Larson), nerdy know-it-all Darryl (David Leo Schultz), battle-blind Demitrius (Sunny Peabody), street-smart Shazaam (Ed Portillo) and the handsome, every-man warrior Testicleese (Brandon Tyra).
A sharp, witty blend of NBC’s The Office and Warner Brother’s Spartan blockbuster, 300, the short is worthy of ridiculous works of brilliance like Airplane! and Top Secret! It demonstrates high production value, but the humor is not stunningly original (characters mimic The Office staff down to the simplest voice inflections and facial expressions). This is not high art nor subversive underground comedy; it is pure, silly entertainment.
But this David of a short film just might start the Hollywood battle that will slaughter the studio Goliaths.
The brothers posted it online and it was viewed more than three million times on YouTube alone. Soon Orbit Media Group approached them and offered to fund a full version of the spoof, marking it the first internet video to cross into the realm of feature-length film.
The creative team rushed to expand their idea and filmed for a lightning-fast twenty days. The entire project, from initial phone call to finished film, took only six months, an unheard-of pace for the average Hollywood project.
Look for the DVD in Spring, 2008 and keep checking the website for more updates from the 305 crew. They might go down in history as the seven little filmmakers who turned the tide against the Hollywood Hordes.
Directed by: The Holechek Brothers
Produced by: Naomi Kasa and David Holechek
Written by: David Holechek and Brandon Tyra
