Meet the Twins of Destruction
The Twins of Destruction are Clayton and Connor Petrella. As two brothers who are filmmakers, prop makers, and costume designers, one would think their name would come from a movie reference. In actuality, it comes from their high school football careers, though Clayton is quick to say that they were “not very good.”
“There was a family friend, Andrew Hufnagel, who also played football and was about a year older than us, but he and his dad, Dave, always were just like, yeah, bro, what’s up? That kind of people,” Clayton recalls. “Dave was a hype man.”
“Sports weren’t really our thing, but we were trying,” continues Connor.
“We showed up and we would run to the line every time,” adds Clayton. “I remember it was a JV game on a Saturday. We were there on the sideline and Dave walked up to us. He goes, hey, look, it’s the Twins of Destruction. I looked at Connor and was like, what does that even mean?”
“I think he was being a hype man. He was trying to do something to try to hype us up,” Connor says. “For whatever reason, it stuck.”
Courtesy of Twins of Destruction
The twins’ company may have come from the football field, but their love for film, television, and the production of it all comes from Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and comic books. When their mother pulled out some mementos from their elementary school days, Clayton remarked on how little has changed. Star Wars was and is a favorite story for the brothers. Their mother was reminiscing because of the recent passing of the twins’ grandfather.
“There was a story that came up about how we were playing Star Wars with our neighbor when we were around seven years old,” says Connor. “We had lightsabers and our neighbor had a lightsaber, but he had a Jedi cloak. We were flabbergasted. We were like, well, we don’t have a Jedi cloak, we’re missing something here.”
Courtesy of Twins of Destruction
“Our grandfather was watching us at the time and we went inside,” remembers Connor. “We were scheming about how to get a cloak. Our grandfather was like, what are you guys talking about, what’s wrong? We told him, we don’t have a cloak, what are we going to do?”
“He found some string, some bath towels, and he tied us cloaks. We didn’t even fathom that could be a costume,” emphasizes Connor. “When we put it on, we didn’t think it was a bath towel and string. We saw a Jedi cloak.”
Years later, Clayton and Connor would have the opportunity to contribute to a fan-made Star Wars film directed by Lucia Taylor. The Lost Padawans is a thirty-three-minute film that takes place in the years before the canon movie of Phantom Menace. It’s a full-circle moment for the twins, who believe that influential stories like Star Wars and superhero movies aren’t just important for their careers, but for the larger culture.
“We designed six of the seven costumes and constructed three of the six we designed,” explains Clayton. “It was really cool to have our vision all over the designs from the get-go.”
“It was also funny to look into how they made costumes in the original Star Wars. Luke’s pants were bleached jeans. We’re like, well, we’re going to do the same thing. We’re going to go to Goodwill because that’s what they did. They had nothing. They had $2 to make their movie,” offers Connor.
“It all goes back to superheroes, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings,” states Clayton. “It really is the modern mythology of our age. We don’t talk about Zeus. We talk about Superman. Sauron instead of Hades. These stories translate more accurately to the modern age. I’m not afraid of talking about superheroes because the Greeks weren’t afraid of talking about Zeus.”
If you hadn’t noticed, Clayton and Connor finish each other’s sentences with ease. When it comes to their work as Twins of Destruction, a similar methodology unfolds. They share the same ethos, drive, and excitement for new projects, but they don’t always divide tasks up in the same way. Inspiration for their next prop or costume can come from the unlikeliest of places, including Facebook Marketplace and Goodwill.
“I’ll go sometimes on Facebook Marketplace,” says Connor. “I’ll see this sweet brush axe and I don’t want to buy it, but I like how old it looks. It looks like it’s been in someone’s barn for 40 years. I’ll share it with Clayton because that’s a good reference, right?”
“Or I’ll go to a Goodwill and get yoga blocks because they’re foam, so we can make a couple of hammers,” Clayton explains. “We’ll communicate every step of the way.”
“We’ve heard stories of twins not really thinking the same. We’ve heard stories of twins thinking the same,” recalls Connor. “Twins are like siblings. You don’t have to think the same. We’re just siblings. We’re not clones.”
“People have a misconception about twins. Hollywood doesn’t help. We’re just normal siblings. We just spend a lot of time together,” adds Clayton.
Courtesy of Twins of Destruction
“In our case, we do think a lot alike. Whenever he has an idea, no matter what step he’s on, I’ll pick it up,” Connor says.
“He’ll jump in and be like, well, this is what I would do. Sometimes I say no and sometimes he does the same thing and then I’ll be like, well, I still want to do it my way,” Clayton continues. “Whether it’s a joint project or an individual project, we can trust each other but also be able to tell each other, hey, I appreciate your input.”
“We know each other so well. We know each other like the back of our hand. We have more than a friendship, more than a partnership. It’s a very tight brotherhood,” Connor states.
The twins are shaping up to be busy as summer gives way to spooky season. They’re scare actors in Kennywood’s Fall Fest and also occasionally contribute props to the event. Some of the Kennywood makeup crew will follow the twins to the 48-Hour Film Horror Project. As the name implies, the 48-Hour Film Horror Project is an insane marathon where teams fully conceive a film over the course of two days. From writing to shooting, editing, coloring, and special effects, all of it has to be done in 48 hours. This September’s iteration of the 48-Hour Film Horror Project will mark the seventh time Connor and Clayton have led a team, and their sixth time writing and directing.
“It’s a very different experience in filmmaking,” Connor explains. “You don’t make a 48-hour film like you would a regular movie. Coming from a production design perspective, we write our scripts with that in mind.”
“This is a people exercise,” he continues. “It’s not necessarily a filmmaking exercise, but you really learn about people when you have ten hours left to make your movie. When the chips are down, how do people react? You learn who your friends are.”
“It’s interesting as team leaders,” adds Clayton. “How do we run a set where we have so little time? It’s a practice for us as well.”
Connor and Clayton were born and raised in Moon Township, outside of Pittsburgh. As avid film lovers, they’re aware of Pittsburgh’s long legacy of being used as a shooting location in films and note Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises as one of the most famous examples of the city on screen. However, it’s a more recent television series that the twins praise for celebrating Pittsburgh instead of merely using it as a backdrop.
“The Pitt is so unapologetically Pittsburgh that it doesn’t care about anything else,” Clayton says. “I really like that because it’s like, that’s who we are. Not only is The Pitt a reference to these doctors being in hell. Also, it’s Pittsburgh. It’s a cool play on words while still honoring the legacy of Pittsburgh, and especially because of our hospitals. The show knows the legacy of Pittsburgh Hospital. We know it was Addie Johnson, the first woman who was hired by the Freedom House Ambulance Service. There’s such a legacy of paramedics in Pittsburgh, and The Pitt really honors that by saying we’re from Pittsburgh and this is a show about really good medical practitioners. That’s really cool.”
Looking ahead to the future, Connor and Clayton want to keep creating. When asked what project they would want to tackle if budget and time didn’t matter, they don’t pick a remake or a reimagining of one of the movies that sparked their imagination as kids. Instead, they have grand stories of their own they want to tell.
“We do have a pretty expansive cyberpunk project that we’ve been planning for several years. It’s heavy worldbuilding, heavy production design,” smiles Clayton. “I wouldn’t say it’s going nowhere because films never go away, right? Ideas never go away.”
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