As a freshman, Jake Appet was ready to hit the ground running after bring accepted into the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Research Program. Now a senior, Appet is a Writing Seminars major interested in script writing and is using his grant money to produce a movie based off a screenplay about a high school boy's social experiences, a script he has been working on for several semesters.
Appet is attempting to tell a non-linear story that explores the different emotions of an introspective adolescent who has not quite found his place in the world and suffers from depression.
The Jersey-born student attended a preparatory high school in Florida and admits that some of the situations and characters in the movie are based off personal observations from his high school days. He believes that high school is especially tumultuous and, in turn, worth looking at.
"In high school, we don't really know ourselves, but now that we're in college we have a better idea of the type of people we are," Appet said.
All of the characters are based on stereotypical high school figures such as ‘the bully' or ‘the jock.'
Despite the somber undertone of the story, it has comic relief that is ubiquitous throughout the script. Appet's objective in this project is to use the resources available to him to convey his work through multimedia storytelling — an opportunity he truly appreciates. Most undergraduates have limited access to independent in depth, hands on, research. With the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Appet can explore his passion and manifest his work into a tangible product.
"It's really fortunate I can do such an ambitious project as an undergrad, otherwise I may not have had the resources or the time necessary to work on something like this," Appet said.
The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship has the power to completely alter the trajectory of many undergrad's experience at Homewood.
"When I applied for the grant, I didn't expect to get it," Appet said. "I thought I would just work with local theatres, but I really wanted to create my own work and this was the perfect opportunity for my passion."
While most senior fellows are putting the finishing touches on their projects, Appet claims to have had obstacles throughout this process that he says impeded him from deciding on what he wanted his end product to be.
Originally, Appet had intended to make a documentary on the holocaust by interviewing various concentration camp survivors. However, after much negotiation many of the survivors and the people with whom he had been coordinating the project decided against it.
He had done a lot of writing and had a passion for film and decided on a new project.
"Why don't I just film this [script about the high school boy]?" Appet reminisced.
This semester Appet has been working exclusively on the actual filming and producing of the movie. Because this story has evolved through an ongoing writing process, Appet doesn't see the conclusion of his undergraduate work as simply ‘finishing a project.'
Rather, it's the ‘realization' of something he has been developing over a long period of time. He views the filming as just another step in the project.
The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship has allowed Appet to make mistakes, change his mind and learn about how he works. Appet acknowledges that he should have perhaps had a more focused destination for his original research.
"Woodrow Wilson Fellows need to have a concrete objective and commit. I didn't find a specific project until really late in the game," Appet said.
However, Appet's mentor for the project, Tristan Davies of the Writing Seminars department, believes that sometimes Appet is a little too self-deprecating,
"Sometimes he can [be] down on himself, but he has done a great job. It's not that Jake started his project late because of a lack of ideas or a lack of motivation, but rather there was a group of competing ideas that he was contemplating and it was difficult to establish one particular direction" Davies said.
Appet first started working on this script in one of Davies' classes. Davies has been able to witness first hand Appet's creativity and the different stages of Appet's writing process.
"It's been great to watch his progress." Davies said.
In the end, Davies believes the film will culminate into a very enticing and well-developed story.
"Jake is doing a really ambitious thing. His story is really challenging, interesting, compelling and funny," Davies said.
The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship is a program that truly fosters independent creativity.
Appet's favorite part about the Fellowship is the general freedom the students are given.
"The administration gives you a lot of freedom to do what you want and they trust you," Appet said.
Appet believes a lack of bureaucracy and micromanagement by the administration is the key to innovation.
"The best way to create innovative projects is if individuals don't feel stymied," Appet said.
Next year, after Appet graduates, he will move to New York and continue to write; however, he eventually would like to move to Hollywood and try his luck as a writer for comedy short films.
The Fellowship program awards $10,000 to select incoming freshmen and $7,500 to rising sophomore to pursue independent research.
