SYNOPSIS

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

One night, after falling down a YouTube rabbit hole of prank content, I found a quiet little video. A single take, a webcam facing a young man. Maybe around my age. Maybe even younger. He talked about his life—everything from his achievements to his failures, from his breakfast to having no friends. As he spoke, I looked at his YouTube channel, of which had over a million subscribers. I wondered: “Why post such a vulnerable video to over a million people around the world? And why would a million people be tuning in to a video so vulnerable it felt invasive?” On his channel page, I found hundreds of prank videos, each accumulating millions of views. Yet this video, where he spoke at length about his feelings, insecurities, and depression, hadn’t gotten nearly as much attention as his other videos.

“DANNY” is our attempt at understanding a troubled character’s life online. The film explores a young man’s sense of abandonment, how it manifests online, and his deep-seated need for genuine connection amidst an increasingly superficial digital age. The story follows our main character, Danny, and his best friend and cameraman, George, as they disturb the peace in a park in the Northeastern United States. I wanted the lens to initially maintain a kind of distance, much like how real prank YouTube videos are shot, and like how someone at the park might distance themselves—yet can’t take their eyes off of it online. As the film progresses, our lens creeps in and becomes more narrative, almost too close, almost too vulnerable. The camera gets in the prankster’s face, and we can see everything.

The crew and I found ourselves juggling the impossible ethics of filming a prank video. The elements of filmmaking blurred with elements of content creation, causing us to examine in our work where these lines blur or are crossed. Because of this reflection, we used mainly first-time actors, friends, roommates, and family members to create a safe space for our actors while also offering an element of surprise and improvisation. All of the bystander reactions are genuine, and despite the cameras being more obvious at times, the focus was always locked in on whatever Danny was doing.

I’ve always seen the film as a kind of empathy test, not only for the audience but for me as a director and for my cast and crew. I thought, “No one will stick around in Danny’s life. Who will?” This is one of the biggest questions the film asks: What people in society do we stick around for? Who are those that we neglect and never see again? Much like the internet, these faces and people can be nothing but a swipe and blur in our daily lives. When do we care to stick around?