Welcome, Sam
Running Time: 24 minutes
Production Co: 436 Cinemas
Directed By: Nina Gallagher & Nick Turner
Written By: Katie Preston, Mark Gosney and Michael Dibiase
Produced By: Julia Dergunov, Jacob Dunn, Heather Coker Hawkins, Michael Hoisington and Nick Turner
Edited by: Zach Pugh, Alexandra Anderson and Jacob Dunn
Cinematography: Michael Santoro (DP), Caleb Coleman, Kyle Breeden and Katie Seal
About Us
This film started out as an email to various students in the cinema studies, theatre, art, and other departments at the University of Tennessee last fall. Since then, fifteen students came together to jointly write, produce, edit, and market a short film. We all have a range of experience and expertise that has led us throughout the process to finally make something for the public.
We thank our actors for working within our learning curve and joint schedules, our friends and families for supporting us during a hectic time, and each other for filling in the holes within our realm of knowledge. A special thanks goes out to our professor, Heather Hawkins, as the person who brought us all together to learn about and create our short film, Welcome, Sam!
LOGLINE & SYNOPSIS
A young college student discovers pictures of them self online depicting different versions of their life, horrified, they go on a journey that explores their self identity.
College student Sam Harmon is distant and left out by his friends Alex and Brenden. While he is walking alone, a mysterious man gives him a pamphlet with only Sam’s name and a URL. When Sam investigates the URL, he discovers a website with voyeuristic pictures of him, his friends, and people he’s never met. He tries to reach out to Alex, who ignores him. The website is gone the next day.
On his way to class Sam recognizes a girl from the website’s pictures: Haley is promoting for her improv group. She convinces Sam to attend. Sam brushes off Alex and Brenden and comes out of his shell at the improv show. At her apartment afterwards, Haley offers that Sam should join the group, but Sam is evasive. When he tries the website again, Sam discovers that the photos of Alex and Brenden are gone.
The next day, Sam runs into the mysterious man again. Sam interrogates him but only gets cryptic comments in return. Alex confronts Sam in his apartment and insults Sam’s new friends in the improv group. Sam accuses Alex of using him and not caring. Alex leaves. Sam discovers once again that he is unable to access the website. He joins Haley and their friends at improv practice.
UT436Film 