UHS Student Creates Film

While plenty of students may dream up ideas of creating films, very few ever follow through on those plans, except Elizabeth Coffman-Mackey, junior at Urbana High School, who will be creating a feature film length Fall Out Boy jukebox musical entitled “The Hand of God”.

“Some of the songs I listened to just seemed to tell their own story, and I worked the plot and other songs in around those. The lyrics were a large deciding factor, but I almost think the tone of the songs ended up being more important to how they would translate to a screenplay,” Coffman-Mackey said.

Creative writing has always been an interest of Coffman-Mackey, who started writing the screenplay for her own enjoyment before seriously considering making it a real film.

Coffman-Mackey’s film will tell the story of Allison who breaks up with her boyfriend, Adam, of eight years before entering her freshman year of college. There she joins a group of friends surrounding Jamie who she eventually falls in love with. However, a dramatic series of events leads to an unexpected twist. The film will have a complex storyline following several subplots including “a tortured artist, a codependent relationship, and Star Trek nerd,” Coffman-Mackey said.

“[This film is different from films created in the past because] most musicals have to be extremely well produced and polished to fit on screen, and while ours will be [polished], it may be strange seeing accommodations usually found in indie movies while the ensemble is still singing and dancing,” Coffman-Mackey said.

Excited fans of Fall Out Boy, independent bloggers, and other Internet sources are mostly handling publicity for the film. Finances are coming from the show’s Indiegogo page, which will ultimately determine the quality of the equipment purchased for the film. The more money risen by the campaign, the better equipment the production will be able to afford.

Being a student and working on any huge project is difficult, but Coffman-Mackey said it’s not impossible, especially when you are working with people who care about the project.

Coffman-Mackey’s advice to aspiring filmmakers is to “make sure you have enthusiastic people to work with you on it. You can’t do everything, and you need people that care about the project as much as you do if you want it to get off the ground.”