Boys and Girls

Synopsis

Frat rats and sorority sis's try to find out who hooked up with who the night before.

The Experience

Junior year at Dodge is the year of “Advanced Productions” also known as APs. For an AP everyone is assigned a Producer, UPM, 1st AD, and a crew size that makes this feel like a real production. Inspired by a close friend’s chilling story of what happened to him I set out to play with college stereotypes. With my writer, Henry Gerse, we decided the conceit would be best if presented as a cliched comedy.

We had three days to shoot. The first two went by quick and in great humor as tends to be the case when filming comedies. The third day though was incredibly tense due to the nature of the sequence being shot. It provided a challenge for a multitude of reasons one of which being this was most of the crew’s first time shooting a sex scene of any sort let alone one that was so twisted, and the scene took a toll on the actors emotionally. It was a difficult day but successful. We finished an hour early and in good spirits which seemed an impossible feat earlier in the day.

From the outset of the project I had some worries of how audiences would react to the film. When it screened at the end of the semester I was able to feel the audience around me tense up just as I had hoped they would at the start of the third act. I had always known that film was able to affect people both physically and emotionally, but up until that moment I had never thought that I would be able to create something that had that affect.

“Boys and Girls” went out on the festival circuit and it ended up winning a Merit Award at the Awareness Film Festival 2017, Special Mention at Global Shorts 2018, and a Remi at Houston Worldfest International Film Festival 2018.