Mike Strong, Arts and Living Editor
The latest addition to the found footage film craze is this month’s “Project Almanac.” The film, coming to theaters Jan. 30, takes found footage away from horror and into the realm of time travel. In the film, a group of teenagers find the plans for a time machine and manage to build it themselves. The group use the machine to fix past mistakes and even twist history in their own interests. The Sentinel caught up with stars Jonny Weston, Sofia Black D’Elia, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangelista and Ginny Gardner to chat a bit about the making of the film.
At the core of the film is the found footage format, which was a new experience for the young actors. “The found footage is really different for all of us. We had never done anything like that before,” Jonny Weston said. “But it is cool as an actor that you can break the fourth wall and hear your echo directly from the camera.”
Because the film stars a group of teenagers in high school, the actors had the chance to draw on recent real life experience to create the influences for their characters regarding using the time machine. Weston used his history as somewhat of an outcast to craft his character. “What I really want to put in the character is not to just be the nerd,” Weston said. “I wanted him to be somebody that can be related to.”
One hurdle that the film had to overcome is the fact that not only is time travel an old, overdone concept in movies, but it has gotten to the point that found footage has also become a common format. Many draw comparisons with “Project Almanac” to the 2012 found footage teen superpower movie “Chronicle.” “We never tried to pretend that we were the first time travel movie,” Black D’Elia said. “I think it was smart to acknowledge the past and embrace it to use it as a positive in our film. I think it is a great genre. Chronicle is a much darker film than ours. ‘Project Almanac’ is a fun ride for the most part. It is a great group of friends with relationship stories. We all wanted to make a very realistic look at teenage love and friendship.”
Time travel is a fascinating concept for everyone that explores the idea. The cast members all have different ideas of what they themselves would do if they had the ability to jump through time. “I would either win the lottery or beat Kobe Bryant’s score of 81 points in 2006,” Sam Lerner said.
Sticking with the common theme of getting rich, Ginny Gardner also said she would win the lottery. “But if I could go to the future, I would love to go 100 years into the future and see what the world looks like then,” Gardner said.
The film was originally slated for an early 2014 release after shooting in 2013. But after delays, pushing back the film to January 2015, the writers had the chance to add more to the story and call the cast back for additional shooting. “The movie became a lot better than they had intended, it became a lot more complex than they had originally thought,” Weston said. “So they pushed it back and they had time to build a larger publicity campaign for the film.”
“As actors, we never understand the inside workings of [production] and all we can do is say ok, when will we see the film?” Black D’Elia said. “I think we’re all just so excited that this movie is coming out and we can’t wait for people to see it, we’re really proud of it.” Look for “Project Almanac” in theaters starting this weekend, January 30, 2015.
