The Feed

A lonely hacker broadcasts the lives of strangers on the Dark Web, but when she falls for one of the women she’s been watching, her digital and physical realities collide.

  • Celeste Chaney
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Genres:
    Drama, Thriller
  • Number of Pages:
    105
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Writer Biography - Celeste Chaney

Celeste Chaney is an author and filmmaker. Her first script, The Feed, was a finalist for Tribeca Film Institute's AT&T Untold Stories competition, the Sloan Filmmaker Fund, and included in the Official Selection for the 2019 Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition. Her novel, In Absence of Fear, was published in 2015 and received Honorable Mention at Foreword's Book of the Year Awards. In May 2019, Celeste produced and directed her first short film, Cradle Song. She is currently at work on another feature-length script.

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Writer Statement

The Feed explores the relationship the protagonist has with digital technologies, and the relationships they permit her to have with others, but at its core, the film examines how our physical and digital identities (or realities) mirror, marry, and contrast one another, and how these similarities and dissimilarities allow us to forge meaningful relationships with ourselves and others.

Digital technologies have transformed the way we connect, communicate, and live. Social media has given us a window into the lives of complete strangers, and we continue to scroll, rapt by the vantage it offers. But, while networking platforms, computer games, and other services have made us more connected than ever before, they’ve also disconnected us, isolating us from the world unfolding just beyond our screens.

Protagonist and hacker, Sam Schumer, knows this better than anyone, and yet she, too, struggles to overcome it. For her, hacking or "ratting," as it’s known in this context, begins as a hobby, something born out of curiosity and loneliness. Later, it becomes a tool for connection and a means for Sam to help the people she’s come to care so much about.

While I had a limited working knowledge of hackers’ capabilities when I began this project, I had no idea how prevalent Remote Access Trojans (RATs) were, how easy they are to use, or that thousands of people really do “tune in” daily to watch strangers in this way.

Through some preliminary research, I came across an article from Ars Technica about the men (they did not mention women ratters, though some may exist) who do this. I was interested in their narrative, the motivations for ratting, and the psychological effects. Surely, I thought, some of these people would come to develop a relationship with (albeit, one-sided), or at least a fondness for, their victims.

What feelings of empathy might arise from such an intimate knowledge of a person’s life and where might these emotional attachments lead? These are some of the questions I explore in The Feed, a techno-thriller in part, but at its heart, a meditation on creating real connections in our hyperconnected, digital age.