A Gainesville-based filmmaker recently took home an award at the 2024 All American High School Film Festival’s Teen Indie Awards.   

Director Sam Morgan and his team were presented the “Best Comedy” award for the short film “APOCALYPSE: Written by a Nine-Year-Old-Child” on Oct. 20. The short film follows three characters as they try to survive a zombie apocalypse. However, the plot deviates from Morgan’s other projects by using a script he wrote when he was nine. He was inspired to bring the story to life after discovering the screenplay in his closet nearly 10 years later as a senior in high school. Now a freshman at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication for Entertainment and Media Studies, he shared his process for adapting the childhood project to film.    

“It was kind of a challenge to figure out the format for ‘Apocalypse,’” Morgan recalled. “I knew we couldn’t just present it as a film. There couldn’t just be a title card at the beginning saying something along the lines of, ‘This was written by a child,’ and then we go straight into the movie… I didn’t think that that would have the same comedic impact. I think that it would be funny, but I think that the format we ended up with was a lot funnier and a lot more engaging.” 

The short film’s format cuts between “cinematic” scenes of actors in full costume and the cast’s first table reading of the script. Morgan highlighted that the table reading scenes in the film were the first time the actors read any of the scripts for the project. 

“They had no exposure to [the script],” Morgan said. “So, this wasn’t your typical acting role for them. I looked for people who had experience in theater, particularly who had experience in improv, because I knew that they would be doing a blind read, and they had to have the skill to kind of create a character on the spot.” 

Morgan also said he credits the project’s appeal to the production choices made alongside the script. 

“The contrast between the amateur script and the much more evolved production is a source of comedy, but also a source of interest, and I think that’s sort of the glue holding the film together, is that juxtaposition.” – Sam Morgan, Director of “APOCALYPSE: Written by a Nine-Year-Old-Child” 

Among those selected to take on the project was University of North Georgia sophomore and communications student Anajulia Canavan-Lima. Canavan-Lima plays one of two unnamed scientists in the film. Her character is written to have a thick Russian accent, which she discovered while reading the script for the first time. She shared the thought process behind her initial reading choices while reading with Makenzee McDougald, who plays the role of the other scientist in the film. 

“I knew that [Sam] wanted the accent to be funny,” Canavan-Lima said. “… a lot of it was just me over-dramatizing everything that I did to make it more comedic. Because Makenzee, when she was the second scientist, she was very, by the book, what you would expect a scientist to be like in the movie, and I wanted there to be a super heavy contrast there.” 

“Apocalypse” also received recognition at several Georgia-based film festivals, taking home awards for Best Actor, Director, Narrative and Film at the Atlanta High School Film Festival and Best Student Short at the Macon Film Festival. The project was also an Official Selection at the Georgia Film Festival held on the University of North Georgia’s Gainesville Campus in September and the Cobb International Festival. However, the AAHSFF is the largest-reaching festival, with 2,500 submissions worldwide, 300 nominees and 36 category winners. The award for Best Comedy had 10 nominations in total. 

Mandy Baker, a freshman at Piedmont University studying drama education, worked alongside Wyatt Goad as the short film’s Assistant Director. Baker also served as the project’s makeup and effects artist. She shared her reaction to the short film’s win. 

“It’s extremely gratifying,” Baker said. “In a way that, all this hard work comes to a head. In a way where a lot of people saw our production and liked it enough for us to win an award… this is one of the short films with the biggest cast that has won an award, so, getting to share that with a lot more people than usual is very satisfying to me.” 

Morgan submitted the project under his YouTube channel, Pictures Up Productions, which recently gained over 1,000 subscribers. The channel also holds Morgan’s other projects, most of which were produced during his time in middle and high school. Morgan previously has received other awards from AAHSFF, but said he plans to move forward into new projects as he exists high school filmmaking. 

“This was my final high school film, so it felt like the perfect way to end, sort of my like K through 12 filmmaking journey, and start this new filmmaking journey that I’m on,’ Morgan shared. 

Morgan is currently editing his first feature film, which he wrote and directed. The project will be completed in 2025. 

To watch “APOCALYPSE: Written by a Nine-Year-Old-Child,” click here.