Diary of a High School Wannabe

Submission for the comedy "Pitch Your Pilot" contest

Logline

Five teens go to a mysterious boarding school only to find themselves stuck playing parts in the world of a generic high school movie controlled by the will of the main character.

Synopsis

Diary of a High School Wannabe is a dramedy about five high school theater kids stuck in a real-life coming-of-age movie. Three theater students, Jess, Xander, and Ollie, and two tech theater students, Anya and Ryden, get scholarships to an arts boarding school after their huge success of an end-of-year production. After getting to this school, they meet Magnolia, whose voice they hear everywhere whenever she speaks. They then come to find out Magnolia is the main character in a generic teen movie that they’re all living in with no clear escape, along with the other students who’ve been stuck there for who knows how long. Jess is the token mean girl, with Ollie and Xander being her minions in the story, Ryden quickly becomes Magnolia’s love interest after a book-dropping meet-cute, and Anya has to watch all this unfold in the role of Ryden’s emo best friend.

The story starts as a fun acting experiment where they can play out whatever tropes they want, but it becomes much more drastic when Jess gets a girlfriend who then disappears and is replaced with a random football player with no sign of where her girlfriend went. With the new knowledge that anyone in this story can be replaced if Magnolia doesn’t like them, all five kids have to play their parts well until the end of the movie or until they can find a way out together. This seems simple enough until Magnolia keeps making moves on Ryden, Ollie finds himself interested in a girl uninvolved with the plot, Xander has to dodge love interests left and right, Jess is still dealing with the rejection of her identity in her new world, and Anya is spiraling to find everyone a way out.

Pilot Overview - The New Girl

Anya and Jess meet up outside the school and walk to their dorm together to meet up with Ryden, Ollie, and Xander. They all find themselves in the same dorm hanging out when they hear Magnolia walk through the door and talk to no one, but they can hear all of it. Both Ryden and Jess go out to investigate, discovering their conversations with Magnolia can be heard by everyone, and that she is supposedly the one new girl at the start of the year. The next day, Magnolia walks into the cafeteria with credits of a teen coming-of-age movie following her where she walks, including the names of Jess, Ryden, Ollie, Xander, and Anya, as well as many names they don’t yet recognize. They then realize they are supposed to be playing roles in this “movie,” and go to find out what their roles are.

After some of Anya’s investigation, she finds out that Jess, Ollie, and Xander are the three most popular people in school, and that she and Ryden are supposedly best friends. To add to their given roles, they make themselves look like generic teen movie archetypes and go to find out more about their roles. The trio goes to find out how the social ladder of the school works, while Anya and Ryden wait around for Magnolia to determine Ryden’s role. Eventually, Magnolia gets back to their dorm and runs into Ryden with a stack of books she then drops. He helps her pick them up and she rushes away, then Anya realizes that was a classic movie meet-cute and he’s now her love interest. The popular three come back and explain their social hierarchy findings while Ryden spirals over what to do given he has no interest in Magnolia.

Jess starts talking to Anya about the really cute cheer captain Grace, and after Anya points out that she was in the credits, Jess gets hopeful that Grace is supposed to be her love interest. Anya supports her but warns her that she’s not sure if this movie will take kindly to who Jess is. Meanwhile, Ryden complains about his situation with Magnolia, and Xander and Ollie tell him to channel his inner theater kid and try pretending he likes her, to which he reluctantly agrees.

The next day, Ryden and Anya sit with Magnolia at breakfast to see if any of her classes line up with Ryden’s. Ryden looks at her schedule and comments on her math class, and as he says that, his math class changes to match hers, jumping him three years ahead of his current class. Everyone’s classes are ten minutes at most due to their lack of plot importance up until lunch when Jess decides she’s going to give Magnolia a clique member makeover. Magnolia enters and Jess gets her attention, reintroducing herself and giving Magnolia the chance to become popular, which is where episode 1 ends.

Cast

Magnolia: The most main character of main characters. She’s misunderstood, pretty but doesn’t know it, has a tragic backstory, likes math, and would rather read than go to a party, at least until she’s swooped up by the popular crowd and turns into a new version of herself. Do you want to punch her yet? If not you certainly will later on.

Jess: A confident and self-assured girl who has been “cast” as the leader of the popular kids. She adapts to her role pretty well, since nothing will distract her from putting on a good performance… except maybe the pretty cheer captain Grace.

Ryden: A fairly kept-to-himself lighting designer, Ryden accidentally makes himself known to Magnolia in a classic romance meet-cute and is stuck as her love interest despite having no feelings for her whatsoever as well as no acting experience.

Xander: Smart as a whip, Xander is more than a bit displeased when he has to play the dumb one of Jess’s group. He’s trying to get his friends out of the whole mess, but it’s a little difficult with the movie trying to force him into a relationship.

Ollie: The final member of the popular trio, Ollie struggles to contain his thoughts and overly snarky opinions while being Jess’s right-hand man. He wants to help his friends with their various problems, but also wants to adapt for himself in whatever way he can.

Anya: Anya is a bit torn on being stuck as Ryden’s emo best friend but being rather unimportant to the story overall. It gives her much more time to help and investigate, but much less influence on how the plot goes and she doesn’t know how much she can do for everyone.

This is our main cast, but there are also a few fun recurring characters who serve as mentors, friends, and love interests to these characters. Some of these are the RA and newspaper head Lilianna, as well as Ollie’s sarcastic love interest Sage.

Some Future Episodes

Each episode is named after a generic high school movie trope people either love or hate or possibly have no opinion about.

Episode 2: The Makeover Montage

Magnolia gets fully absorbed into the popular crowd and starts to talk to Ryden more. Jess starts dating the cheer captain and Magnolia is not pleased.

Episode 3: The Love Triangle

Magnolia wants to hang out with Ryden, but he uses Anya as a way out. Meanwhile, Jess tries to figure out what happened to her girlfriend.

Episode 4: The Popular Girl Gets the Guy

Jess is trying to cope with the disappearance of her girlfriend while Ollie is getting to know a girl from the newspaper club and Ryden is trying harder to like Magnolia.

Episode 5: The Big Proclamation

Ryden and Ollie struggle to find a way to ask Magnolia and Sage to the upcoming dance so Xander helps while dodging askings left and right. Meanwhile, Jess and Sage take Anya shopping to distract her from Ryden and Magnolia.