COVERFLY: TOP 15% for STYLE
7 on The Black List
Logline: In the summer of 2010, an insecure teenager obsessed with being cool commits his friends to having the best night of their lives party-hopping around New Jersey, but each have their own missions that test the foundation of their friendship.
Because the protagonist of Last Friday Night is an aspiring record company exec, the story is set to the sounds of pop music from 2010. This was back when Lady Gaga and Kesha were releasing their new albums, The Black Eyed Peas were all the rage, and Katy Perry was the Queen of the Summer with her record-breaking album Teenage Dream.
Last Friday Night had a lot of inspirations. From a personal standpoint, the movie was inspired by my own experience as a Black student at a predominantly white private school in New Jersey, and features a lot of my favorite places from growing up in South Jersey, including the Adventure Aquarium, The Cherry Hill Diner, and the beach and boardwalk at Wildwood, New Jersey. From a film standpoint, the film’s use of pop music from 2010 was inspired by American Graffiti, and the overall tone and feel was inspired both by big musicals like West Side Story and movies about the conflict between different generations like The Last Picture Show and Rebel Without a Cause. Our generation was the first to grow up with social media. It made us feel like celebrities, but really it was just making us compete with our classmates — who got into the best college? Who got invited to what party? Who looked the best? I fell down the rabbit hole quickly, and now that it’s ten years later, it’s easy for me to see just how much social media comparisons affected me at that time. So at its core, this screenplay was about my own struggle to live a life not governed by the opinions of others.