Stay Up with Me: A Television Short Form Pilot

Welcome to the Awake Apparatus in our pilot Stay Up with Me!

With a team of hardworking television majors, we aim to produce our proof of concept pilot, a cerebral and imaginative drama/thriller. Utilizing themes of self sacrifice for art similar to Black Swan and and the disturbed pursuit of art explored in The Truman Show, Stay Up with Me aims to explore these concepts as people rise and fall to find purpose in their work.

The story begins by exploring Storms Hilde, a rising online streamer who doesn’t feel comfortable in his own skin. Finding escape from those feelings and a need to succeed, he's about to start the ultimate stream challenge: to break the record of staying awake. With the help of his stream partner/wife Serene as well as his dubious new creative director Harp, the team has built him the Awake Apparatus, a strange device that is built to keep him awake at all times, cycling between various lighting and mood shifts that also alter Storms personality in the process. As the first night progresses and his stream gains unprecedented traction, he slowly must decide if he’ll let himself get consumed by his work for a chance to succeed.

With a strong ensemble cast of characters that all have their own motivations separate from Storms, the story explores the risk of sacrificing oneself to make art. Harp’s obsession to make it big with Storms pushes it even further, making the various personas more and more dangerous. Will Storms break the record for staying awake on stream or lose everything in the attempt?

Created as part of the Television Writing & Production Thesis at Chapman, we are beyond excited to produce this project and have amazing ideas to go along with it. With this being a proof of concept, this project aims to show the scale and gravitas of the Apparatus as well as what it takes from Storms and others.

This fundraiser will primarily serve as a way of providing our production with additional support to cover the costs of:

Camera equipment/rentals

Production Design/Lighting that work together to create the overstimulating and alive feeling of the Apparatus

Cast/Crew meals

Film festival submission fees

All of your donations will be going towards a great project and a team that cares about it. We appreciate any and all support and can't wait to show you what we're making!

Directed by: Jack Fischer

Written by: Tavin McAllister

Produced by: Matt Onufrak

Cinematographer: Gretchen Albers

Production Designer: Sulema Mendoza Paniagua

Edited by: Jackson Dinsdale