I have been quarantined with my boyfriend Jared for well over a month now. We’ve mostly gotten along, but do dream of a day when we can have a bigger apartment (or house? do people still have those?) so that we can have our own space. The thing about being quarantined with someone is that you start to want to be home alone. And that’s when the idea hit: what if we did a shot-for-shot remake of the iconic scene from Home Alone, but instead of making my family disappear, I made my boyfriend disappear?! Luckily Jared is a huge fan of Home Alone and didn’t take this “alone” thing personally.
We love making parodies (he produced I, Nancy, a parody of I, Tonya that I wrote and we shot a few years ago.) So we planned a full nine-hour shoot day in our apartment. Is that insane? Yes! It wasn’t easy, and I’m surprised we made it through! We kept saying how helpful it’d be to have a PA around, since we had to do everything from sound to camera to lights. But we’ve done it before! The last time we shot something very dumb in our apartment, it got into the Tribeca Film Festival (have you seen Owen Wilson Dates Himself?), so we persevered and made it happen. Jared has an incredible eye and edited it to look as close to the original shots as he could, given our limited resources and old phone cameras. But putting this video out in quarantine felt great because we made something fun that people can relate to! I’ve gotten sweet messages from people saying that it brightened their dark day! That’s worth carrying lights around my apartment for no pay. I don’t think my parents have watched it yet, but that’s OK. As long as Chris Columbus has and plans to hire us, we’ll be fine!
