Creating @LUCKY: A teen drama about social media, fame, and mental health.

An insight into the making of the debut indie feature from Remy Madge, Kyle Richardson Media, and Prego Productions, staring Maximilian Marcham.

Development

When I was first approached by Kyle Richardson to help develop a feature film for Prego Productions based on the story by Samantha Marcham, I was slightly daunted but incredibly excited to get started. Kyle and I had worked together before on the short film 'Bones Barn' so I was already aware of how incredibly talented he was as a director and cinematographer, and was of course very flattered that he should ask me to be the one to write the film. He pitched me the project: A teen drama about a social media influencer's rapid rise to fame and how the pressures of social media quickly begin to take their toll on his mental health. "Great", I said. "I'm in".

Something I'm really interested in is creating stories for kids and teens which accurately reflect their feelings and experiences. Growing up as an anxious, lesbian with little interest in dating or going to parties, I never saw myself on screen, and it made me feel like an outsider. Now, as an adult, it's my mission to make people of all types feel seen on screen, starting with showing teens that they're not alone, and that feeling abnormal, is the most normal thing in the world. @Lucky felt like a really great way to explore that, and the challenge of writing a feature film was the icing on the cake.

Once I was on board, I was sent the original working-script by Samantha Marcham and set to work restructuring Sam's fantastic story into a viable feature-length script. Having only worked on short films and episodic scripts before, this was a challenge for me but one I felt I could crack with a little research.

There was lots about Sam's original story that I changed when writing my version, but ultimately the message, the emotion, and the main character's journey was the same. It was important to me that the integrity of the original concept be maintained and that Sam still felt as though it was the story she originally wanted to tell, but I also wanted to explore some aspects of the film in more detail, this meant making some precise tweaks. I wanted to highlight the differences in the ways kids of different genders experience trolling online, I wanted to explore the parental relationship between the main character and his father, I wanted to give the characters a little more agency, inject a little humour, and increase the stakes for our lead. All these things intertwined nicely, conveying the reality of the teen experience in a world where social media always dictates our first impressions of those around us. Sam was really happy for me to make these changes and I'm really glad we ended up with a script that she was excited about making.

Once the final script was agreed on, the team kindly let me be involved in casting. It's always exciting hearing actors read the words you've written and we had a lot of great applications but I'm confident we ended up casting the best people for the roles.

Production

And so, in April 2022, we shot down to Cornwall and started filming. Kyle was keen I script supervised the project as I knew the script better than anyone and had done the role before on a previous project. It was great to watch Kyle work as he clearly had a strong vision for the film. You could really see him getting excited about what we were making and some of the more unexpected shots we'd managed to pull off. With a small crew involved, I inevitably ended up doing multiple jobs across departments but it added to the experience in a way non of us were really expecting. We had to fit shooting a feature film into two weeks with a skeleton crew - we had no choice but to get involved and get things done. It's safe to say I learnt a lot about how to run a film set and luckily, as an overly organised person generally, I managed to keep things on track for the most part. But it was a real team effort in getting props sorted and actors on location. We really lucked out with such a lovely, cooperative, and enthusiastic cast who managed extremely well with the unpredictable Cornish weather.

After two weeks shooting (and cramming in re-shoots) we managed to film all 86 scenes. It didn't always run smoothly but it was a really rewarding experience being so involved in making something I had written. Seeing something grow from words on a screen to self-tapes from actors, to beautiful and dynamic shots on location was really exciting and I'm really looking forward to working with Kyle and the team again in the future. I know the writer isn't always involved in the production side of things so I'm really grateful to Kyle and Prego Productions for valuing my opinion and allowing me to have a say in things.

@LUCKY comes out in the winter of 2022. You can watch the teaser trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TDjXLlphs0&ab_channel=MaximillianMarcham