PAPPY HOUR is a dark comedy about the dysfunctional bunch known as the Mulligan family and how one daughter, Jean Mulligan, wants to fulfill her father’s last wish at a funeral. She unlike her family, believes in her father, while other members have their own agendas or otherwise see him as a deadbeat.
Jean Mulligan arrives in town for her father’s funeral, and she knows her father had this final wish to have his ashes dumped in the river. She seems to expect her brother will go along with the plan and help her dump his ashes, but that isn’t the case. In fact, he is vehemently opposed to helping her, and the rest of her family just makes it worse. Jean has to rally them in order to get their help in the end.
The idea for this film came about while I was still in the film program at the University of Texas at Austin. I put it away for a couple of years though, because I wrote it in my Intro to Screenwriting class. That is to say, and I will be honest, the script was not great. It had several issues and the characters felt like they lacked in depth. So I put it away, glanced at the script from time to time, but it wasn’t until three years later, when I had written other things and become a much stronger writer that I knew how to fix it. I figured out how to make these characters unique while also staying true to the absurdity of the original idea. Once I had a polished draft to send out, I made a wish list of directors and department heads I wanted for the PAPPY HOUR team. I heard about one director, Nell Teare from a friend of mine. I saw her reel and she quickly moved to the top of my list. I sent her the script and she just replied “Andrea!!! I love it!!! Let’s sit down.” I was elated. Before I knew it, she, Julia Swain (the director of photography for PAPPY HOUR, also at the top of my department head wish list) and I were meeting together.
Nell Teare is a director, producer, and actress whose credits include a mixture of theater, including Tony award-winning MEMPHIS, over twenty book trailers for FILM 14, numerous shorts, an original musical, ROCK AND ROLL’S GREATEST LOVERS, a one-woman show entitled STANDUPERA, and webseries BROKE A$$ RICH KID, GUBER, YOU. ME. US?, THE HUNT. Julia Swain has shot for high profile clients including National Geographic, MTV, VH1, Coca-Cola, and ARRI. Her feature credits include CASSIDY RED and GOODNIGHT, GRACIE. She has been credited with the ASC Vision Award.
At the climax, the short erupts into a fight sequence that I am so excited to make happen. There is a very fun finale to the fight sequence too. I’ll give you a hint. In a way, a fire is put out. All of the PAPPY HOUR team is so excited to make this film happen, but the reality is we need help funding it. Our Kickstarter is up now, and quite literally, it takes a crowd. If you are interested, check us out!
Andrea Millard – Writer/Executive Producer of PAPPY HOUR
Website: https://kck.st/2HL04OH
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