This is Perth: the video

This short film, posted on YouTube yesterday, is all over the internet this afternoon and it's just too funny not to share. After seeing it a couple of times, I had to get in touch with the creators and ask them for the story behind the story. Turns out it's the work of two very clever high school teachers, Vincenzo Perrella and Dan Osborn, who also do a sideline in producing short films.

But first, the video.

I spoke to Vincenzo this afternoon for a quick Q&A.

GP: Congratulations on a very funny piece of work.

VP: Cheers mate, good on you.

GP: It hasn't been up on the net long, obviously, but it's already creating a bit of a reaction.

VP: Yeah, I guess it is. I only uploaded it about 10 o'clock last night, and it's got about 300 hits in a few hours, that's not too shabby.

GP: Have you been promoting it through social media networks and things like that, or have you just sort of released it into the ether and let it go?

VP: I emailed it to a couple of people, a couple of mates, and I think they might have emailed it around. My co-writer and director Dan posted it on Facebook. I suspect maybe a few people have got on to it from that. But yeah, basically just a couple of emails and it's had a pretty quick reception.

GP: It was getting a run among some of the Perth people on Twitter this afternoon, which is where I found it. Where did the inspiration come from to do a project like this?

VP: Well, we're actually making a larger short film at the moment, and that's a massive undertaking. We wanted to see if we could just pull something off a bit smaller, just a little short film between the two of us, to see what we could achieve with one person and one camera. There's a lot of us, me and my friends, who talk about Perth in this love-hate kind of way, especially people who are kind of creative. I guess we just wanted to take the p... a little. We enjoy doing stuff that's satirical and we like to explore our own city.

GP: People who live in Perth, and people who have lived in Perth, will identify with it straight away, I think.

VP: Yeah, I mean, we've both lived in London for some time, and we've got friends back there. We thought we would like to give them a bit of a satirical guide to the city, something they might enjoy. Especially people who are living overseas but are from Perth. We just wanted to make something that would make our friends laugh.

GP: So is that you starring in it, or Dan?

VP: That's Dan in the shot, and it's my voiceover.

GP: And how long did it take to make?

VP: We probably shot it over about two weekends, and cut it over those two weekends.

GP: And how did you manage to find Perth so empty?

VP: (Laughs) Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult, just pop into the city on a Sunday and you've pretty much got the run of the place.

GP: So you said you're making a short film, do you come from a filmmaking background, is it something you do for a living?

VP: I don't do it for a living because it's kind of hard to be a short filmmaker for a living in this place, but it's something that Dan and I have worked at. We're currently in production on a Government-funded short film which will be about 15 minutes long, but that's a massive undertaking. So we like to make shorter pieces, especially little things that you can just pop up on to the internet, just to keep our skills up and to try things out, experiment, see what's funny and what gets a reaction.

GP: So what's your professional background then?

VP: Dan and I are both high school teachers.

GP: Public or private - are you allowed to say?

VP: Oh yeah, I'm at St Marys Anglican Girls School, and Dan works around the place at both public and private (schools).

GP: So are you a media teacher?

VP: I'm an English teacher, Dan's a drama teacher.

GP: I mean, this is a really interesting way to spend your spare time.

VP: When you do something like this, it actually does... when you're out there exploring the city and trying to represent the city, it actually does make the city a little bit exciting. We did another film just before this one - now that I've seen the reaction to this I'm going to put the earlier film up - and that was also about a singer-songwriter in Perth who refuses to leave. For that, we kind of went around putting up fake posters of that singer-songwriter's gigs. But that was exciting because you were actually engaging with the city and changing it a little bit.

GP: So in a perverse way, is your poking fun at how dull and staid Perth is actually making the city a more vibrant and interesting place?

VP: Well for us it is, absolutely. We've been out there exploring, trying to find the dullest places and the most boring areas, and that actually makes it exciting for us.