One late night during Fall Quarter, Communication freshman Jonathan Greenberg had the idea to bring the Facebook craze to film.
Greenberg’s romantic comedy “A Facebook Love Story” centers around two students who fall in love through the Facebook.
The idea came to life in early December when Greenberg, fellow Communication freshmen Malcolm Gray and Ryan Griffin-Stegink put together a crew of 22 people to work on the film. The original three-page script was submitted by Weinberg freshman Jiwon Park.
Co-writer and director of photography Griffin-Stegink converted the script to a five-page comedy with the help of co-writer and casting director Erika Kokkinos, a Communication freshman.
“We felt the Facebook is an obsession with college students nowadays.” Gray said. “It’d be neat to do a ‘You’ve Got Mail’-ish romantic comedy.”
But Greenberg said the main character in “A Facebook Love Story” is not based on the romantic and intelligent Joe Fox from “You’ve Got Mail,” but rather Jim Levenstein, played by Jason Biggs, the lovable nerd who means well but wreaks havoc in “American Pie” and its sequels.
Inspired by Biggs’s hilarious performance, Greenberg envisioned Justin, a freshman who falls in love with the Facebook profile of Jen, an outgoing girl who has not met the “right” one. Their affair is fragile since Jen is also dating Justin’s roommate Bret, a loud, obnoxious, and seemingly stupid jock.
“We’re not trying to make it different from any other love story,” Gray said. “Our niche is that we’re involving the Facebook.”
“A Facebook Love Story” mixes romance with comedic episodes. At one point Bret is surprised with a blow-up doll while searching for peanuts in his closet. In another instance a man dressed in a Ronald McDonald suit lures children into his white van using giant lollipops.
Greenberg plans to have a spring premiere of “A Facebook Love Story” in Louis Hall and several residential colleges.
“We are looking for people who want to do this and who would have fun doing it,” Gray said.
The second round of auditions took place Thursday, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Louis Hall, room 119.
Due to a small budget, Gray and fellow crew members do not plan to charge for the film.
“We’re doing this as a gift to the Facebook community,” Gray said.
Reach Ilya Bunimovich at [email protected].
