Although director partnerships have had some success in the movie industry, Great Neck resident Scott Aharoni said he hopes he can impact the industry to make director partnerships a consistent thing.
“I want to be able to show that this partnership works and that directing with somebody works and is going to be very successful,” Aharoni said. “It would be cool seeing people in the future with more and more directors coming up and working together.”
Aharoni and his friend, Dennis Latos, of Glen Cove, have a director partnership that has seen them complete two short films, with a third short film, “Bardo,” in post-production.
Citing the influence of popular movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” which both were filmed with two directors, Aharoni said he and Latos noticed their similar styles and thought they should start working together.
“When me and him met we were individuals directing by ourselves but we were very close friends and one day after us just working by ourselves, it hit us and we said why don’t we create this partnership where we produce and direct and edit together,” he said. “We realized in the way we direct, the way we edit, we had extremely similar styles. Together we brought the best out of each other.”
Aharoni, a Village of Lake Success resident, found his talent in filmmaking after taking a seventh grade film class at Great Neck South Middle School taught by Bob Gluck.
Students were tasked with shooting a film based on a given storyboard, he said, but he wanted to make changes to the storyboard and film something different, which Gluck agreed to.
“I shot it, then we went into the editing room and he started teaching me how to edit. He said to me that I had something special,” Aharoni said. “The rest is history. I took it to heart and went with it.”
He said he met Latos after seeing him on Facebook talking about filmmaking.
“I saw a Facebook post and I realized Dennis was doing film stuff too, so I messaged him,” Aharoni said. “Looking back, it’s been awesome and interesting and a cool process. It’s awesome to be best friends with your business partner.”
The duo wrapped up filming for “Bardo” last month, after a week of filming in Astoria.
Initially a senior thesis project at Hofstra University, where Aharoni said he will be graduating from the Honors College in May 2016, “Bardo” grew into a short film that would be submitted to various film festivals, Aharoni said.
He said the film’s cinematographer, Petros Georgiadis, met Leila Goldoni, the film’s lead actress and two-time British Academy of Film and Television award nominee, on a train.
“He found her on the train and showed her the script,” Aharoni said. “She read the script and fell in love with it. She cried reading it.”
He also said the movie industry is a “small world” because while speaking with Goldoni’s agency about a contract, they found the same agency represented his friend and lead actor in “Bardo,” Johnny Solo, who also appeared in the 2012 film “Man on a Ledge” and the 2011 film “Newlyweds.”
Aharoni said funding films was the most difficult part to the filmmaking process.
“Dennis and I have shot music videos and commercials so from there we’ve been able to make money for our films,” he said. “We self fund our films and together we make it happen.”
Aharoni said he and Latos had long-term plans of directing feature films rather than just short films.
“In the future, within five years, I see Dennis and I directing a feature film but with a substantial budget,” he said. “We’re not talking a major summer blockbuster, but a legitimate feature that would be able to show our talents together as a unit.”
