In the introductory portion of my recently released short film Lonely Day, I mentioned how previous projects and short film projects weren’t “legitimate” because them being school assignments. To The Happy Couple is one of those, being an assignment from one of my first production classes at Brooklyn College. I do hold that one in high regard, though, because of the promising effort and the excellent reception I’ve received when showing it off.

Then there was The Greatest Movie Never Seen, a mockumentary high school English project from my senior year that cemented my passion and made me realize my filmmaking skill. These were both great projects that I’m proud to have made, don’t get me wrong. But their status as school assignments never sat right with me, so I took to not calling them ‘short films’.

But, on the subject of film project assignments, there is one that I’ve never mentioned or even put up on my YouTube channel. It doesn’t even exist digitally. I only ever saved it onto two DVDs, one of which I gave to the teacher. It’s essentially lost (until I rummage through our stored junk). It’s a strange blip in my filmography, especially since only a handful of friends and family have seen it. Now is the time to talk about it, if nothing else, to show how you can start from anywhere and still burgeon into a well-rounded filmmaker.

The Year Was 2014…

In first-year high school Honors English class, we learned about the Hero’s Journey from Joseph Campbell, reading his work on hero myths and interpreting their place in today’s societal standards. I was taken by the stories of the demi-god/Sumerian king Gilgamesh and the warrior/monster-slayer Beowulf, which I appreciate my teacher, Mr. Sosa, for making it so enthralling to study. We focused more on Greek and Roman myths during the second half of the year, which I excelled at because I was a long-time fan of the Percy Jackson book series. Sosa was always very passionate, encouraging us to reflect on and deliberate these stories together in group discussions. So it was no surprise when he announced our final project would be a group effort.

The assignment was to recreate a Greek myth in a short video. I remember being pretty excited by the project; as a fan of YouTube sketch comedy groups like Smosh, Derrick Comedy, and FilmCow, I had always wanted to do something like that on my own. This was before I had any interest in making movies. Like many teens my age at the time, we all wanted to be ‘famous YouTube stars,’ making videos with friends and getting ~~tons of views~~.

Naturally, I teamed up with my friend Kevin (who would serve as my sound mixer and collaborator for other projects like Lonely Day); I knew his similar sense of humor and affinity for that YouTube-style would work well for us. Two other classmates we were cool with, Salvatore and Blaal, joined us too. After forming our groups, Sosa assigned everyone their myths. I was hoping for something like Theseus and the Minotaur or the Tasks of Heracles, something that we could have fun with and look cool doing. As he was doling out the great myths to others, the list of stories I knew about was getting smaller and smaller. What did he have planned?

Looking at our all-boys group, I later learned that he knew exactly what he was doing when he assigned us a myth I skimmed maybe once in my past reading: the romance of Psyche and Eros. My jaw dropped. When you break it down, this story has maybe two male characters. I looked at my partners and groaned. Blaal was this scrawny Indian kid with a slight mustache (which he didn’t shave for the project). Towering at a little less than 6 feet before the age of 15, Sal was the exact opposite of the type to embody a standard of feminine beauty. And taking a better look in the mirror, Kevin and I weren’t a cinch either: slightly acne’d and baby-faced, I knew I had my work cut out for us.

With only a month or so to get this done, I decided to work with what I had and put down a script.

So What’s The Story?

Like most Greek myths, many versions have minor changes depending on the translator or storyteller. After looking at numerous sources (on the first page of Google), here’s a summary of my account of the myth, complete with some pages of the screenplay I managed to find (typed up in Celtx):

A king is trying to marry off his three beautiful daughters, Alecto, Calypso, and Psyche. He shows them off to a group of young suitors, only for the suitors to praise Psyche, ignoring the other two. They commend her beauty, putting her above the goddess of love, Aphrodite, in terms of looks, saying they’ll pray to her instead. Unhappy with this rivalry, Aphrodite sends off her son Eros (or Cupid) to curse her with one of his golden love arrows. She commands him to make Psyche fall in love with the most disgusting creature he can find.

The king has grown worrisome about Psyche, who has not received more proposals. Her sisters have already gone off and married, but she is alone despite her appraised beauty. Seeking advice, he consults the Oracle of Delphi. He is told that Psyche will marry a ghastly, serpent-like monster that even the gods fear. She is to be taken to the top of a mountain to await the creature’s arrival, never to be seen again. Despite his attempts at bargaining, he knows he cannot defy the gods’ will.

After sorrowfully leaving her atop the mountain, Psyche is taken by the wind god Zephyrus to a golden palace with lovely greenery and wind servants to wait at her hand. He gives the word from her husband, saying that he can only be with her at night and that, when together, she must never look upon him. She converses with the servants as she waits for nightfall and grows accustomed to her new home.

At night, the husband is revealed to the audience (but not to Psyche) as Eros, who lies with her as they converse. Following instructions, Psyche doesn’t look upon him. Eventually, she succumbs to loneliness and begs for her sisters to visit her, despite their belief that she is dead. Eros complies, though he warns her that they will tear the two apart and must ignore any ill-given advice from them. Alecto and Calypso are brought to the palace and are immediately envious of the riches their younger sister has access to. Learning of the rules about looking upon her husband, the sisters jealously plot to have her break this promise and lose her life of luxury. Theorizing that she is pregnant, they remind Psyche that her husband is (supposed to be) a horrid creature and that she must kill him to protect herself.

Forgetting Eros’ warning, Psyche arms herself with a dagger and a candlestick. Once she shines the light on her mysterious husband, Psyche is stunned to see the god-like appearance of Eros. While entranced by his appearance, she drops the dagger, injuring Eros and startling him awake. Hurt physically and emotionally by Psyche’s betrayal, he leaves her and has her removed from the palace.

Psyche pleads for Aphrodite to allow her to see Eros again. Wanting to punish the girl, Aphrodite delegates her to an impossible task: separating piles of seeds and grain into their piles; this is a classic Sisyphean task, meaning it will take her forever to complete on her own. As in classic Greek myths, a group of ants (that talk!) decide to help her complete the laborious task before Aphrodite returns.

Her next task is to retrieve “beauty” from Persephone, wife of Hades and Queen of the Underworld. Of course, the only way to get to the Underworld would be to actually die; once again, an impossible task that is damning for Psyche. Faced with committing suicide, she is instead told by a tower (yes, the tower SPEAKS!) of a ~~secret~~ passage to the Underworld by burning a special leaf. She’s confronted by Hades, who gives her the beauty on Persephone’s behalf. He warns Psyche that she must not open the box before giving it to Aphrodite.

Returned to the land of the living, she cannot help but peak in the box, hoping to swipe some beauty before she meets Eros again. The box releases a mist that knocks her out, putting her into an eternal slumber. Eros discovers his mother’s actions against Psyche and races to rescue her. After successfully bringing her out of her sleeping spell, he forgives Psyche and properly marries her. Having earned her respect, Aphrodite officiates the wedding, ending the film with a loving embrace between the two.

A great story, right? Adapted decently from the source material with a theatrical flair in the dialogue and presentation, I was pretty happy with it. Can you believe it was my first time doing anything in a script format? That’s right, first screenplay EVER right up there (alright, Tyler. keep it humble). So how did it go when it came time to film all of that?

Pretty, Pretty…Pretty Good

Being a group of 4 guys and there being 10-12 different characters (or off-screen voices), we knew that we’d all have to play multiple roles. And whoever wasn’t on camera in a particular shot or scene ended up being the cameraman, so that position also rotated around. So I tried to write it so that no more than three people were on camera at all times, so one of us could always be filming.

We used top-notch camera equipment, too: my Samsung Galaxy s7. Of course, when that died in the middle of our filming day, we used Kevin’s iPhone (take that Soderbergh!), but I digress. Our costumes were just wigs I either bought at Party City for cheap or ones that Kevin’s mom happened to own. His mom, being a seamstress, also helped us with our “dresses,” pinning together sheets of fabric over our clothes. She even quickly sewed Kevin’s kilt/archers sash for his role as Eros (my first collaboration with a costume designer).

We decided to film in Kevin’s basement, forgoing all differentiating backgrounds and leaving it up to the audience to figure out what ~~exotic location~~ we were in.

At some point, though, to portray the secret entryway to the Underworld, we used Kevin’s freshly snowed-on backyard to diversify our surroundings. I cut out things I had initially written, such as some stuff with the wind servants and a whole scene with Cerberus and Charon, gatekeepers of the Underworld. And, to make it one less female character to portray, I omitted Persephone and just had Hades deliver the already-prepared box of beauty.

Our Troubles

The first trouble we ran into was the camera. Like I said before, it died in the middle of our shoot. Rather than wait for it to charge, we used Kevin’s iPhone. Everything went smoothly with that until I brought it into my editing software of choice: Windows F**KING Movie Maker. Did you know that you can’t edit Apple-coded footage in Windows software? Cause I didn’t! All the footage was saved as super pixelated and lost all the audio! I had to dub over and explain to the teacher what happened, and he gave us a pass on that front.

Looking back on it, I could’ve probably done some editing on the phone or re-encoded the clips somehow. But I didn’t know any better, sue me! I was very tedious in that editing, too, down to the millisecond in how long a shot lasted because the software doesn’t have that kind of control so quickly figured out. Putting all that together was an actual “labor of love.”

The second trouble was playing numerous roles in the same scene. Our first scene consisted of two suitors meeting with the king to court his daughters. Well, Kevin and I played both the suitors and the sisters. How did we do it? We shot our scenes as the suitors first, pretending like the daughters were there. Then we got dressed up in our…dresses and played out the rest of the scene as the sisters.

That’s how we did pretty much every scene. It looked…terrible, but it was all we could do. Besides, it was pretty funny, and we had a good laugh once it was over and done with.

The Grade

We, of course, had to get a grade for this whole thing. When it came time to present the project, if memory serves me correctly, only three videos were presented on the project’s due date, out of like 5 or 6 groups.

Now, Mr. Sosa was no bullshitter. If he saw something he didn’t like or thought was beneath your ability, he would tell you straight up. After the first two presentations, one of which was the kickass story of Jason & The Argonauts, he was pretty displeased. I remember him disliking the Jason video because it barely had anything to do with the story, despite it being the larger group with five people instead of 4.

So I was pretty worried when putting my disc into the computer and pressing play on the film, especially with the janky footage from Kevin’s phone. But I held on to hope that he would enjoy our “faithful” adaptation. Plus, there was one little comedic trick up my sleeve that I knew would win him over.

See, Psyche was supposed to be pregnant. It was a part of the excuse her sisters used to feign interest in helping her. But in the rush of filming everything, I kind of forgot about that part of the character. It wasn’t until the very end, during the wedding scene, that Blaal improvised a great line. After the wedding, Eros tells his wife that he’s so happy they’re together again, and Psyche exclaims, “Me too!…oh yeah, and I’m pregnant.” Without the video context, it might not seem as funny. But picture a brown kid with a rat stache, putting on a high-pitched “lady voice” saying that and IMMEDIATELY cutting to black. The last line of the short; straight into the rolling credits.

It had everyone in stitches! Sosa tried to hide his laughter, but I could tell he enjoyed it. We got good applause and commendation from him, and I knew we got a good grade. 100’s all around!

Why Did I Tell You This, Again?

I wish – I WISH – I had some footage to show off. It would be a good laugh on myself, but I hope it would serve as an excellent lesson to any new, even high school filmmakers.

• Work with what and who you’ve got
• Don’t be afraid to be embarrassed; it only lasts for a moment
• Have fun with it!

We used a phone to shoot in the same location and say it was somewhere else. We used shot/reverse shot to play multiple parts. We put on feminine voices in pinned-together dresses.

Believe it or not, this was when I first started thinking about making movies. I loved them already and talked about them all the time. YouTube video skits were the rage at the time, but I never seriously considered making actual films. But once we finished up and got that 100, I began thinking about the enjoyment I got from writing the script up and filming with my friend.

Of course, it’s easy to say that now, having already set off on the path of a filmmaker. Hindsight and all that. But I think you can look at my story and be able to draw some sort of inspiration from it.

We’ve all got to start from somewhere, don’t we?