Private Project

Skip School

LOGLINE:
Everyone has a first day of high school. And everyone has a day that changes their lives forever. Sometimes those days can be one and the same.

SYNOPSIS:
Skip School is not your normal high school movie. This film follows the lives of four students as they try survive their first day of high school. Orlando is balancing his desire to make Varsity Football and his need to protect his little sister, Virginia, starting her Freshmen year. Virginia’s best friend Douglas, also a Freshmen, struggles with his plan to come out of the closet and gets no support from his alcoholic mom. Meanwhile, Orlando’s girlfriend Sandy, also a senior, just wants her mom to trust her enough to drive the car. But it’s dangerous out there; something today’s high schoolers know all too well.

  • Brian Hogan
    Director
  • Brian Hogan
    Writer
  • Brian Hogan
    Producer
  • Tyler Stirling
    Producer
  • Zeke Epps
    Key Cast
    "Single Dad"
    Maniac
  • Todd Barnes
    Executive Producers
    Sex Guaranteed, The Locksmith, Choked
  • Bill Harris
    Executive Producers
    Biography, The Buddy System, Trial By Fire: Lives Re-forged
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Drama, Social, tragedy
  • Runtime:
    22 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 6, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    2,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • New Haven Film Festival
    New Haven
    United States
    May 17, 2019
    Preview Rough Cut Screening
    Official Selection
  • New Filmmakers NY
    New York City
    United States
    September 4, 2019
    New York City Preview Screening
    Official Selection
  • Ridgefield Independent Film Festival
    Ridgefield
    United States
    October 13, 2019
    Debut World Premiere Event
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Brian Hogan

Brian Hogan is a Connecticut born filmmaker who always knew he wanted to be in show business. From the age of eight he was telling friends and family what he was going to do when he became rich and famous, and how he planned to change the world.

Brian worked as a missionary after high school, on a non-governmental hospital ship for three and a half years. During his time overseas he visited over thirty countries, giving him a broad picture of the world as it truly is, not simply the way the American mainstream media wants it to seem to be.

In 2002 Brian’s travels landed him at Oberlin College at age 23, where he pursued his love for film and TV, co-creating a multi-media production called Real World: Oberlin. After college he moved to LA where he spent a few years writing screenplays at a Starbucks before switching gears and opening a Medical Marijuana Dispensery in 2010.

Seven years later in 2017 Brian returned to his natal ground of CT to attend a graduate film program at Sacred Heart University. During grad school Brian wrote and/or directed six short films, including Skip School, created a web series and completed a feature screenplay that he began ten years earlier in a Los Angeles coffeehouse. He lives with his sister and her family in Stratford CT, and now manages the film school from which he just graduated.

For more information about Brian or his films please visit TheBrianHogan.com or SkipSchoolMovie.com. Thank you.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Skip School is not just a movie, it is my suggestion as a filmmaker. Until a solution can be found that addresses the issue of safety in our schools, anger among our children, and divisiveness in our society, I’m saying you’re better off to Skip School.

I can’t, in good conscience, tell my niece and nephew to go to school because I know the sad reality is that they might just end up target practice for the next would-be assassin. How do we send kids off, defenseless, everyday to get shot? I, for one, can’t abide that anymore.

We need to do something drastic, rethink the entire thing, and find a new way forward that doesn’t include mass murder as commonplace and shooter drills in nursery school. My niece was four years old when she starting learning to climb under her desk if she hears a bang. As an artist my role is to stay vocal until the policy makers and local communities make changes. I’m a storyteller, and this feels like a story worth telling.

Skip School began as an idea on a windy beach in Black Rock CT, when I spoke with my old college friend, Hannah, about wanting to make a movie that essentially ‘skipped’ the school shooting altogether, and instead focused on the aftermath and the fallout in the actual survivors lives, something our news media will never do. That old college friend plays “Sandy’s Mom” in the film.

I am thankful to everyone who has been a part of making this film into a reality because I believe in the importance of its bi-partisan, apolitical, common-sense core message: don’t shoot kids. Finally, something we can all agree upon. #DontShootKids

Sincerely, Brian Hogan