Meet our screenwriter

BEHIND THE BUOY STORY

Michelle Potter grew up in a small town in Illinois about an hour from Chicago, then moved to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania when she turned ten. She’s currently a senior graduating in May, majoring Media Studies and Production. She has stayed highly involved in Temple Smash as a sketch writer and director. Aside from school, Michelle aims to write and travel as much as she can, and when she’s not, you can find her watching movies and television.

She notes her ideal future for television is a one in which all writers, directors, producers, actors, and everyone involved in the production of a show are able to tell their stories without the boundaries that have been put on the industry. She hopes to cultivate an environment in her career where everyone in the creative industry of television gets an equal opportunity to create shows that people can relate to and enjoy, and actors and creative professionals of all races, genders, religions, and walks of life get the same opportunities as everyone else. Her dream is to see a future of beautiful, truthful, and passionate shows created by beautiful, truthful, and passionate people.

Michelle’s favorite part of writing Buoy was getting to know all of the characters. She admits it was tough trying to find a balance between telling their stories in a way that’s relatable but funny at the same time. At the end of the screenwriting process, she loved each of the characters she wrote, and hopes that at least one person can resonate with each of them and feel invested in their story as they watch the film.

Being a young adult is definitely not easy, and finding your way in life is probably one of the hardest things to get through in life, and is something that we all have to deal with -

Michelle’s hope is that the audience is able to relate to some of the struggles that these characters go through as they try to figure out who they are, and laugh along the way. And of course realize that, the bad days will pass. No matter how hard things get, we are often a lot stronger than we think, and can make it through just about anything - even if that means just overcoming a particularly bad shift as a Lifeguard at a YMCA in the Midwest.