Ivon and Eyan Wuchina
Twin filmmakers, Eyan and Ivon Wuchina, are in front of the camera in a new music video, “Fuck You COVID-19,” which was made by Canadian actor/musician Marc Marut.
The video will make its debut between 4 and 5 p.m., September 3rd on MTV. It also will be shown six more times in September on MTV.
The Wuchinas, who appear toward the end of the video, came up with the idea for their segment, which they filmed themselves. “And we got to bring our own unique brand of Wuchina weirdness to it,” Eyan says.
The twins, who don’t talk in the video, admit they talk a lot — and rapidly — in real life. When they conduct interviews, they “interrupt each other and finish each other’s sentences,” Ivon says.,
They’re proud of their work on the video. “It’s a really fun reveal of us kind of quarantining,” Eyan says. “A staged little story, so to speak. It goes along with the lyrics. Like a brother-against-brother situation resulting from quarantining. Hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer.”
The video “talks about this COVID-19 feeling just like a bad dream,” Ivon says. They used a Flashback filter, which they put over the footage they shot with a Panasonic HC-X1000 camera, to achieve a dreamlike effect.
The twins describe the action:
“We’re sitting in the living room counting hand sanitizers,” Eyan says.
“We fall asleep to where our heads knock together,” Ivon says. They then “drift off to this kind of atmospheric place.”
“Where I’m making it rain with all these hand sanitizers,” Eyan says. “I’m stacking up my toilet paper like I’m Scarface.”
“I come in with a toy gun,” Ivon says
“He puts it in my face,” Eyan says. “I put my hands up.”
“I steal his toilet paper and his hand sanitizer,” Ivon says.
“I get up in the camera and throw up my middle finger and say, ‘Fuck you, COVID-19,’ while singing along with the lyrics,” Eyan says.
“We’re mouthing along to the song,” Ivon says.
The Wuchina twins in a scene from the ‘Fuck You COVID-19’ music video.
The Wuchinas already knew Marut. “We’ve been friends with Marc on social media for years,” Eyan says. “We’ve kept a dialog with him. And one day he messaged us.”
“He interacts with his fans,” Ivon says. “He likes to get them involved with his stuff.”
“He reached out one day and said, ‘Hey, guys. I’m putting together this music video, ‘Fuck You COVID-19.” I want to piece together people rocking out to my song while they’re quarantining. Living their COVID-19 quarantine life,’” Eyan says. “We said we’d love to be a part of it.”
The twins became fans of the actor when they were eight years old and saw Marut in the 1994 cult movie, The Paperboy. “This horror movie about this paperboy that goes around the neighborhood killing people,” Ivon says.
Marut played the lead, Johnny McFarley. “When we think about that movie we think about how much that movie freaked us out,” Ivon says.
“This 12-year-old murderous paperboy, that was the film’s namesake,” Eyan says. “And it was such a deep, complex performance for a kid like him to pull off.”
The movie gave Marut “cult status as a horror icon,” Ivon says.
Marut, who releases all his music under the name Cool Ass, came up with the idea for the video while mastering the song. “I wanted to show that despite the social distancing measures we were facing, we could all still come together and have fun,” he says.
Marc Marut
He reached out to fans on Facebook and his email list asking if they’d like to submit footage to be in the music video. A total of 17 people, including himself, from “all around the world” appear in the video, Marut says.
Asked what he thought about the Wuchinas, Marut says, “Their scene in the video is really creative and absolutely hilarious.”
And, he says, “They did an amazing job. My son and I burst out laughing when we saw it.”
The Wuchinas are keeping busy with their own projects during quarantine. They’re working on their Web series, Wuchina Twin Time. “Like Howdy Doody Time, but Wuchina Twin Time,” Ivon says.
Their first episode featured Oscar-nominee Greg Kinnear, who they got to know when working on the Tom Shadyac film Brian Banks, which was filmed in Memphis. “We were the set location assistants,” Ivon says.
Their second episode featured Marut. And, Ivon says, “We have a few big surprises and exciting guests in store soon.”
The Wuchinas, who began making movies when they were children, released their documentary, Ernest Day, on the late actor Jim Varney in 2019.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time with family — mom, dad, brother, sister — back in Middle Tennessee,” Ivon says.
“Everybody’s doing well,” Eyan says.”It’s definitely a new normal, but we’re taking this time we see as precious.”
“We’re really close to our family,” Ivon says. “It’s teaching us to appreciate the time we do have and spend time with people you love.”
And, Eyan says, “We’re devoting a bunch of our time into more online content for our YouTube page and finishing up two feature scripts. “
“And we’ve been filming a lot more short films and some short documentaries,” Ivon says. “We’ve been devoting ourselves to our own work because we have more time to do that.”
Being “in close proximity” to each other has helped their work process, Eyan says. Since they’re only a few rooms away, they don’t have to write down their ideas and phone each other. “Instead of calling him up, I just yell at him.”
They’re excited about the “Fuck You COVID-19” video. “When we were eight years old watching The Paper Boy on TV, we never imagined that boy in the movies would one day get us on MTV,” Ivon says.
“We’re such big fan boys of movies,” Eyan says. “And it’s been our life. Getting to be in this video has been such a unique opportunity. And it’s a dream come true.”
“You hold onto things you love and they will take you places,” Ivon says.