One of my projects during my summer experience with the WHYY Filmmaking Program was developing an original story for our final project. My group’s goal was to create a horror film. While I’m not a huge fan of horror movies, I enjoy writing unexpected twists, so I took everyone’s favorite ideas and combined them into a script called Just Take a Joke.
The group really liked the concept and wanted to film it, but after looking at our budget, schedule, and the number of locations required, we realized it wasn’t realistic. Instead, we set the script aside and created our final WHYY project, The Board Game.
After the program ended, I decided I still wanted to bring Just Take a Joke to life. I asked a few of my friends if they would be interested in helping, and they were all on board. Since we were filming during the limited free time we had while still in high school, I revised the script to fit our schedule. I cut much of the slower world-building and condensed the story so it could realistically be filmed with the time and resources we had.
Although the final film didn’t turn out exactly as I had originally envisioned, the entire process was a lot of fun. Writing, filming, and editing the project with friends was a rewarding experience, and somewhere along the way the film transformed from a horror story into more of a comedy that playfully pokes fun at classic horror movie tropes.
