Written by: Johnny Bernardin
“Action”, said Stacie Higgins for what felt like the hundredth time. We had been filming for well over 4 hours and we were already starting to get cranky. Earlier disagreements about small prop details about simple things like sand and clocks had us arguing later. Neither Corey Nguyen, Stacie, or even our actor Johnathan Tran thought that our production was going well, and I had my doubts as well.
We were working on a Christmas special for the eighth episode, and we knew that it had to be good because there was only one other Christmas-themed production being made other than ours.
Even though what we were working on was a comedy, that wasn’t the funniest thing about it. It wasn’t even our first idea, let alone our third, or maybe even our fourth. At the beginning of December, the three of us knew we wanted to work on a Christmas package, but we weren’t entirely sure what we wanted it to be yet.
The way it was proposed to me from Corey was something along the lines of “like The Haunt, but Christmas”, which meant that we wanted to do something similar to the spooktacular and lengthly special that BBN produces every year, but rather than being scary and Halloween centered, it would be sweet and warm with good tidings from the Holidays. It would have been called “The Holly” out of some sort of irony. We got together in a meeting one day and started brainstorming.
The first thing we came up with was a heartbreaking tale of a couple. One of them was bedridden in a hospital, and it would have had a bittersweet twist ending. Since the production value got too high, we scrapped the idea and moved on to our second.
Two students sitting in class, talking about how great their Holiday break is going to be. They plan on doing all sorts of fun things. The bell rings, and they both leave in opposite directions. Then we’d have a montage type thing of their breaks going not at all how they hoped. They get sick, their friends don’t respond to their texts, etc. We had it mostly organized and planned out, when I decided to voice my opinion.
I didn’t think that the idea sounded very optimistic. I told Corey and Stacie that showing two students having bad breaks to FVHS before the school goes on break didn’t seem like a great thing to do. Corey was understandably annoyed at this, because they had been formulating this for some time now, and I had just decided to butt in and not provide any solution on how to fix it.
Being the night before our planner (what we present to the producers to show how we plan on executing our package) was due, we all got very stressed very quickly, and started trying to come up with new ideas. That brought us to a similar concept about the same two students reminiscing about how they didn’t do much during their Thanksgiving breaks, but that they plan on making their Holiday breaks better.
When we presented the idea to producer Leah Phillips, she said that the idea sounded too much like “#noregrets” and that we needed to think of yet again something else.
Desperate to come up with something, anything, I came up with the idea of making a cooking show featuring the recipe for how to make a great winter break. It wasn’t the best of ideas, but it was something.
Fast-forward to the day of filming, it was nearly 9:30 PM and we were still filming scenes that should have been done an hour ago. We were getting mad at each other over who did more work than who. In the middle of the yelling and arguing, we forgot the most important thing. We had forgotten that we were all working towards the same goal of getting our production finished and looking good.
It was at the height of the situation where we took a step back from it all to look where our small mistakes and disputes had gotten us. We acknowledged that we were all stressed and tired, and that there were only a few scenes left to film. It was only a handful of moments after a heated argument that we were laughing at ourselves for being mad at each other.
Sometimes, I have people ask me if it’s difficult working in BBN, being that every assignment is a group project and how group projects are rarely easy. Usually it all works out just fine and every thing get’s done in smiles, but occasionally there is a disagreement here and there. But as cheesy as it sounds, we always realize at the end of the day that we’re all on the same team.
