There Was A Full Moon

It was a warm summer night. Audrey Hepburn’s “Moon River” drifts along the breeze. The Boy sits with The Friend against a car, staring at a full moon. This moon begins to call to The Boy. Slowly, it comes closer and closer.

“Hey! Are you all right?” The Friend asks. 

“I’m fine, just a little spacey,” The Boy responds. 

The scene comes to an end as the screen fades to black.

Suddenly, a new day begins again for The Boy, played by senior Ian O’Neal. The bright greens and yellows of a summer day illuminate the faces of the audience. 

On Jan. 6, students, teachers, friends and family gathered in the Little Theater to watch senior Micah Reeves’ short film, “Every Day Was Sunny.” What most people didn’t know was that Reeves didn’t always intend to create a short film. It began as a short story. 

During the summer of 2021, Reeves created a boy and a place where you could want for nothing, where every day was sunny.  

He created a world with baseball, ice cream, the sun and the moon. Reeves completed five pages of his story before the summer got away from him. The boy was left to sit in everlasting sun until a year later.  

Reeves was entering the summer of 2022 with the full intention of polishing his short story and leaving it at that. But before the last bell could ring, before classes were dismissed, before school was officially out, KUGR adviser Billy Dent introduced the idea of a summer project. 

Reeves thought about his boy and the world he had created.

The idea rushed over Reeves: “What if I make this into a short film?” 

He finished the short story and it began to take shape as a screenplay throughout June. 

From July 1 to Nov. 1, Reeves had an idea of how everything would happen. He set a timeline that would allow him to use the film in early decision college applications. Everything would be done mid-Sept. and the premiere party would be mid-October. That’s what Reeves had planned. 

That isn’t what happened. 

“Momentum started to [die off] right when school started,” Reeves said. “I was feeling the deadline of college coming up, and I was sensing that the film wasn’t going to be done in time. So, I sat down, thought about the timeline again and made other things priorities. After that, I took a break and that was for the best.”

During that pause, Reeves took time to reflect. He realized how important it was for him to finish the project  he had worked on for so long. 

“Taking a break is necessary so you can come back with fresh set of eyes,” Reeves said. “It is really important to try to achieve your vision, 100 percent. It’s also important to be willing to change that vision when necessary.” 

The Boy sits under a tree on a warm summer day, looking at an illustration of the phases of the moon. The screen fades to black for the last time. 

Silence fills the theater, for only a moment.  

Then, the audience erupts in loud applause and shouts.

The lights in the theater rise, and people line up to offer Reeves congratulations and praise. That night, Reeves hugged people he had never hugged before. 

That night, he learned that many people related to The Boy. 

“I want people to think about why they’re here, what their greater calling is or what their passion is,” Reeves said. “What it is that gives their days meaning? [How do they learn to] accept the less sunny parts of life?” 

As Reeves and his girlfriend walked out of the theater that night, she told him to look at the sky. 

There was a full moon. 

Author's Note: Definitely one of my most "cinematic" stories. I wanted to transport the reader in and out of the short film, theater and have them travel alongside Reeves during his creative process. I had to write, rewrite, cut, drink caffeine, then write some more to get through this profile. In the end, created a "cinematic-lens zooming in-and-out" effect successfully. It is definitely something that I will work to perfect and utilize in the future.

photo credit: Micah Reeves