How This Filmmaker Created a Series on High School Reunions

A high school reunion is NOT everyone’s cup of tea. For many, it’s just too many memories of teenage insecurities, social hierarchies, and all the awkward situations that puberty and adolescence lands us in. Filmmaker Jake Diamond explores the mess that can be a high school reunion in his latest show, delving into the unrealistic expectations and inevitable comparisons that arise when former classmates meet. We spoke with the filmmaker about his creative process and the insights he gained while crafting the series, Doin’ Great.

1. Can you briefly describe the story of Doin’ Great in your own words?

Jake Diamond: I originally came up with this idea because I’ve always been haunted about what success in life really means, whether that’s wealth or status or where you are in life or who you have a relationship with or anything.

So, especially in my 20s and my 30s, I always felt like I was behind people or everyone else knew what they were doing or had already done it or were much more talented. I didn’t have talent or anything and I just seemed to be kind of floundering along with whatever I was doing while everyone else just, in my opinion, had it together. So that’s where the inspiration for the web series came from.

2. Adding in the high school superlatives was a nice touch! What was the inspiration behind that creative decision?

Jake Diamond: In high school, you could say that’s where status matters the most. So the idea that these four friends were supposed to have unbelievable success in career, wealth, or whatever it is in life that people consider success, coming back to their 20th reunion, having completely failed in all regards, made it interesting to me. Because it’s the 20th reunion, it is a chance to catch up with people and see where people are.

I kind of feel like the main vibe is, am I doing better than everybody else? Please, hopefully I am. Or am I not? Or that person looks terrible. They look worse than I do, right? It’s not all that, but there’s a lot of that.

So I thought that a 23 year reunion was a good sort of setting for this.

3. How did your long history of being an editor influence your approach to directing or writing?

Jake Diamond: My experience as an editor helped me tremendously with this shoot. We were on a limited budget. We had limited time. And I knew we had to get everything, and there really wasn’t going to be many chances for a reshoot. So that’s why I wanted to go ahead and we shot with two cameras.

I knew I was getting coverage whenever we shot anything, which was essential. There wasn’t going to be time to take the camera and move it, shoot one thing, do close-ups, move it around. There just wasn’t. Now, there’s other complications with a two-camera shoot, but it helped tremendously. In all these shoots, there’s always blooper reels and extras and things that didn’t work.

And we barely had any of that because it’s like if we didn’t get it on the first or second try, then there really wasn’t time for anything else.

4. What made you decide to make Doin’ Great a web series instead of a feature film or short?

Jake Diamond: The reason I made Doing Great as a web series is because it felt like the arcs of these characters were too long to have it in just a short or feature. It was always meant to be a TV series, and we’re still working on that. It was always meant to be a TV series, and we’re still trying to make that happen.

ABOUT DOIN’ GREAT

Doin’ Great catches up with 4 stars from Atholle, PA on the eve of their 20th High School Reunion. Each one was a superstar in their own right in high school, but over the years life has not exactly gone their way. But it’s never too late to start again…or is it?

Watch Doin’ Great for free on Reveel