Alien Vs Predator
On-set with director Greg Strause
Natives of suburban Illinois, Greg Strause and his brother Colin developed a fascination with movie special effects in their teens. Crude home experiments with effects blossomed into a full-blown career when the brothers moved to LA and landed work on TV shows and movies including The X-Files, The Nutty Professor and Volcano. Following a slew of successful ad campaigns, Nike, Jeep and Pepsi among them, plus a number of sensational music videos for the likes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the duo began directing under the moniker The Brothers Strause, producing clips for top bands such as A Perfect Circle, Nickelback, Disturbed and Staind. They are partners in the visual effects company Hydraulx which has made spectacular contributions to major movies including The Day After Tomorrow, Terminator 3 and Fantastic Four. Alongside their effects work, The Brothers Strause continue to direct eye-catching commercials, recently helming spots for Coca-Cola, Ford, The US Marines, Universal Studios and Sony PlayStation’s God Of War. AVP-R is their feature film debut.
How did you land the AVP-R gig?
I’ve been working with my brother Colin (co-director) since I was about ten years-old. For the last six years we’ve been doing music videos and commercials. This is our first movie together. Alien and Predator are two of our favourite movies. We have a lot of passion for those two properties and we had a strong vision for the film, which is a really important factor going in to pitch a movie, fixing on the story points and having good visuals.
What was your vision? How do you keep a franchise like this fresh and interesting?
