Genre: Thriller
Premise: When a social media influencer meets a fan at a meet-and-greet, she’s so taken with her cleverness and vulnerability that she invites the fan to intern with her for the summer. At first, they’re an unstoppable team, but soon, the influencer is forced to wonder who she has let into her life.
About: This one finished on last year’s Black Last and is being produced by one of the hottest production companies in town, 21 Laps. The idea came to the writer, Michael Kujak, when he went to an influencer’s party, noticed a young teenager there, and found out she had won a contest to spend a day with the influencer but the influencer had ditched her. That sad little girl’s story stayed with him and eventually turned into the character of Millie in “Follow.”
Writer: Michael Kujak
Details: 109 pages
Sydney Sweeney for Hannah?
I’m coming across more and more of these “influencer” and “Youtube personality” scripts. Since none of them have been made yet (and more importantly, none have become hit movies), the subject matter is still there for the taking.
My favorite of these is, without question, Birdies. I also loved last year’s influencer stalker script, Lurker. I’ve found that the key to this subject matter is authenticity. You need to know this world and speak its language to be convincing. Spread a fresh take and great execution on top of that and you’ve got yourself a screenplay.
If writers are looking for ways into influencer concepts, check out old high school movies and see if there’s an “influencer” version of that setup. For example, one of my favorite high school movies is Election, about this girl who’s determined to take down the principle, told through several different points of view. Try to imagine that movie but with influencers. Could be something there.
Today’s script, “Follow,” does an aged-up version of this, as the plot beats are very reminiscent to the 1992 thriller, Single White Female. Let’s see if it delivers enough to make me click and subscribe.
Hannah is a 23 year old influencer who’s built her Youtube channel up from a tiny little group of dedicated followers in high school, to a full-throttle influencing powerhouse of 1 million followers.
You wouldn’t know it by talking to Hannah, though, a perfectionist who’s only thinking about how she’s going to get to 2 million. You see, 2 million is where you start to get the big girl advertising sponsors: Make-up. Clothing.
But no matter what Hannah does, she can’t seem to improve her numbers. Her channel is stagnated. That is until she meets Minnie, a 15 year old nerdy high-schooler. After a local meet-and-greet, Minnie helps her out with a couple of things and Hannah offers her an internship.
Minnie is whip-smart and has watched every single one of Hannah’s videos multiple times, so she knows exactly what the viewers want and always figures out a way to get it to them. After Minnie helps Hannah prank infamous prank bro, Greyson Sinclair, her subscriber base shoots up. And when Hannah starts dating Greyson, her subs finally eclipse 2 million.
All of a sudden, Hannah is the hottest influencer on Youtube and there’s no question Minnie is her lucky rabbit’s foot. But when their next prank goes bad, resulting in a fellow influencer’s death, Hannah sees another side of Millie, a side that will stop at nothing to get her hero to the top. Will Hannah go along? Or will she give in to that nagging feeling that there’s something very off about Millie?
I think one of our jobs as screenwriters is to get out of our own way.
You get an idea for a movie. You start brainstorming how it’s going to play out. You do the necessary character work. You figure out the general plot. And you start writing.
But too many writers think of a script as this bible that needs to be Written with a capital “W.” Your prose needs to be poetic. Your description needs to be bathed in similes and metaphors. Every line of dialogue needs to be the perfect clever comeback.
The problem is, when you write this way, your script loses all connection to reality. It feels too slick, too manufactured, too artificial, too written.
The antithesis to all this is to get out of the way and let the story tell itself. If you’ve come up with a good concept and good characters, you shouldn’t need to overwrite. Just let the characters talk. Just let the story evolve.
That’s the sense I got from “Follow.” This isn’t like, “Birdies,” where the story is being told with this big flashy voice. It’s just a fun clean thriller where the writer makes his story the priority rather than himself.
When you do this right, people read your script and note how “effortless” the read was. That’s the first adjective that came to mind after finishing, “Follow.” It felt effortless.
I think one of the reasons for that was that you had two very driven characters at the center of the story. You had the lead character, Hannah, who’s determined to be a successful influencer at all costs. And then you had Millie, who probably wants Hannah’s success more than she does.
The more determined your character is, the more active they’ll be. The more active they are, the more they’re going to drive the story forward. And if you add a secondary main character to the mix who’s equally determined? It’s like having two engines in your car instead of one. You’re going to fly down that plot highway.
Speaking of plot, it’s important to note that goals in screenplays don’t always have to be physical. We’re used to these comic book movies where the goal is obtaining some Triglicerine Cube that can freeze time or whatever, and everyone is chasing after it. Physical story goals aren’t as common, though, when your characters are staying in one location, like a town or city.
For those situations, you’ll often use objectives. The “objective” that drives the majority of the plot in “Follow” is Vlog Con. Hannah needs to hit 2 million followers to be invited to the prestigious event that could save her channel. So that objective is what pushes us forward – Hannah and Millie try to get her to 2 million followers.
But the clear reason this script works is because it gets the main two characters right. No matter how many scripts I read, it always comes back to that. I was pulled in immediately by these two characters. They felt real to me. I loved how driven they were. They were both smart. I loved watching them come up with ways to get more subscribers.
And it is a bit strange because, normally, you’d want conflict in a team-up. But there isn’t much conflict between these two until the end. They’re a team. The conflict comes more from the other rival influencers, which I thought was a clever idea. Cause there has to be conflict coming from somewhere.
This is another example of a simple premise executed well. No bells and whistles. Just good old-fashioned strong storytelling.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you have a crazy character, make sure to root that character’s craziness in something real. If you make them crazy to be crazy, the character will come off as cliche and forgettable. Millie’s craziness is rooted in obsession that was built because, when she was younger and had no friends, Hannah’s videos saved her. Hannah became the best friend she needed and was there for Millie every day via a new video. No matter how crazy Millie gets in this movie, it’s always rooted in trying to help Hannah improve her channel. Even at the very end, when she’s doing the craziest stuff of all, she’s still trying to help Hannah (in her mind). That’s a great way to write ‘crazy.’
