‘Skyline’ filmmakers look for new career horizon with indie sci-fi

Visual effects artists Colin and Greg Strause have toppled digital elephants in “300,”  aged Brad Pitt backward for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and cloned one actor into identical twins for “The Social Network.”

The brothers’ task on “Skyline” is perhaps more daunting: proving themselves as full-fledged independent filmmakers. Visual effects designers occasionally graduate into directing jobs – Eric Brevig (“Journey to the Center of the Earth”) and Stefen Fangmeier (“Eragon”) are two recent examples. But the 35-year-old Greg and the 33-year-old Colin aren’t just migrating from sitting at computer workstations to standing behind cameras. The pair also developed and financed the $10-million “Skyline,” eventually selling it to Relativity Media, whose Rogue Pictures will release the alien attack drama on Friday.

“Skyline” unfolds in and around Marina del Rey, when a group of young adults awakens in an apartment (Greg’s own residence) to discover that Los Angeles is being ransacked by some unfriendly intergalactic visitors. Using a massive, seductive blue light beam, the interlopers suck up countless thousands of locals into their hovering spaceships, where worse things await.

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