Anthony O’Reilly Jr (Tonto) – The next generation filmmaker

I just needed a name and that came to mind straight away because in school people used to call me ‘Tont’, because my name’s Anthony like, and I needed something to scream and shout with high-energy at the start of videos – so it worked.

I was then told on Facebook by some Spanish people that tonto in Spanish means fool, so there’s that as well.

What made you want to be a YouTuber?

I want to do what others around here don’t do, a lot of people in my area have issues with drink and taking drugs and I do none of that, I just want to be a YouTuber. It might sound cheesy or something but I’m trying to entertain people, and I want to make people laugh.

People around here can just be in the wrong state of mind, and kid’s from around here love YouTube and are trying to make their own videos, so it’s a very positive thing to be able to make videos to inspire other kids.

You’ve made a few short films; would you like to get into the film industry?

I would. I just don’t know how to get there on my own, so I’m making comedy sketches and short films with my friends for now.

I’m trying to get into film festivals and get involved but I just can’t get in there because I don’t have the right equipment or anything like that – I just make the videos with what I have – and YouTube is a way of doing what I want to do.

‘The Interview’ is your most recent short film, what was the process of making it like?

Very stressful. I put up a post on Facebook and I ended up getting loads of people asking to audition for it. It was all set up and ready to go, I spent €150 on a room in the Clayton Hotel to film it and that was all of my savings because I was on the social welfare at the time.

But then people didn’t show up and one of the guys who did had a split personality, which he never told me, and he couldn’t work because he had this side to him that was full of anxiety – it was such a mess.

We ended up scrapping it, and reshooting the whole thing in two day’s in Rathcoole with my girlfriend and a few friends, and I guess it turned out well in the end.

What’s ‘The Dream Factory Productions’?

That’s just a name I came up with that I could put at the start of films and people would automatically know “ohh that’s Anthony”.

See I have loads of scripts written, which is an achievement in itself because I would sit in Starbucks and write on my old laptop that would take 20 minutes to start up, and would freeze all the bloody time!

And that is tough because all you want to do is scream and shout, which is something you obviously can’t do because you’re in Starbucks.

Any upcoming projects you’re working on?

I made this series for YouTube in 2012 called ‘Dead or Alive’ that was inspired by Love/Hate at the time and it followed these four lads who accidently kill a drug dealer and have to deal with the consequences.

It was great because the whole road was involved for the series, my mates, my da and everything, only problem was that I couldn’t shoot the last episode because people had to go back to work and do other things.

But I’ve written a full 90-page script to turn it into a film, so I’m just trying to get that up and running.

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