Orlando Film Festival: Filmmaker Jake Foy Discusses His Musical More Together, Making Distant Dreams a Reality, and More

Filmmaker Jake Foy is a multi-hyphenated storyteller and one of the most exciting emerging voices of this generation. He’s delivered nuanced and grounded performances in projects including Designated Survivor, Ride, and Wilderness. As a producer, director, and writer, he’s brought much-needed narratives to the forefront, which have impacted audiences on a global scale.

His latest project, More Together, is a must-see musical short inspired by characters and music which have had a profound impact on his life. After years of best friendship, teenage Tom and Lucy finally surrender to spending the night together. As their new love blossoms, and Lucy’s “time of the month” is late, the pair are forced to face the music of adulthood head-on.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to catch up with Jake to discuss More Together, how he made distant dreams a reality, collaborating with Drew Gasparini and his cast, and more.

PC: You were part of the original workshop cast for Come From Away, which inspired you to create your own projects. What was it about that particular experience that reinforced your passion for writing and directing?
Jake: That’s such a great question. The project was very meaningful for a number of reasons. It was one of the first projects developed through the Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College, where I attended school. It marked the first Canadian production to make its way to Broadway in quite some time.

Working on a project that made such a significant impact and originated from grassroots beginnings was incredibly inspiring, especially for a student like myself. It made the idea of creating and reaching a global audience feel more attainable. The show opened in different countries and was even translated into different languages. In terms of reach, that’s as big as it gets.

PC: More Together is making its world premiere at the Orlando Film Festival. Tell us about the short film and the inspiration behind it.
Jake: It’s funny that you asked that first question. My introduction to Drew Gasparini and his musical work was also at that school. Before we worked on the original workshop of Come From Away, I was invited by Michael Rubinoff, who was the Associate Dean of Arts & Animation at the time, to co-direct a summer program for my peers. It was one of my first directing opportunities, actually.

We worked on material from up-and-coming composers and lyricists, whether they were Canadian or American. Part of that initiative was to reach out to those artists, connect with them, and let them know we were inspired by their work. That’s when I came across the story of Tom and Lucy.

“Pinch Me” and “Dear Lucy/Dear Tom” were musical moments in that cabaret, and we ended up selecting them. That was my introduction to their story, back in 2012. It’s incredible how time has passed, and the music has always stayed with me. It’s a beautiful work by Drew, rooted in the true story of two young people he knew in high school. We filmed it just before we started shooting Ride. That’s the origin story.

PC: More Together finds you reuniting with many of the collaborators from Before They Were Them. How have you been able to push each other as artists and storytellers over the years? How helpful is having that inherent trust as you head into a longer-form project?
Jake: It’s absolutely essential to the creative process, and I say that because I haven’t had to work beyond that capacity as a creator. We were fortunate to bring together a collective of highly motivated young individuals. That includes myself, my now-fiancé Nicolas La Traverse, Curtis Brown, and Alison Almeida, all of whom are involved in their own projects. We came together for that short film. Through the early days of the pandemic, we also developed a project that’s still evolving and expanding as we speak. Having them around to build the world around Drew’s existing music and create something heartfelt and intimate meant having people who had similar real-life experiences.

We’ve known each other for quite some time. We’ve worked together during challenging and turbulent periods in the industry, such as COVID and the ongoing strike. It has been a beautiful journey, and we continue to collaborate on future projects.

PC: Drew also wrote an original song for this short. What was it like collaborating with him in that capacity?
Jake: It’s funny how you’re reminding me of things I’ve nearly forgotten. We worked on this for quite a long time. The song is titled “Right for Us,” and I can give a sneak peek of that. I was amazed. “Gobsmacked” is the word that comes to mind, even if it sounds a bit cliché. When I was in college, I was working with his original compositions at a time when working on stage or screen seemed like a distant dream. I was new to the industry as a whole and to heavy hitters who were doing what I aspired to do. Approaching Drew was thrilling, and having a connection to him was exciting. By the time we created the finale of More Together, I had to pinch myself numerous times until I became somewhat numb to the feeling. Knowing that the world would get to experience this story that has resonated with young people for so many years and being a part of it still brings a smile to my face today.

PC: You also have two extraordinary leads at the center of this who not only have to sing and act but also handle comedic and dramatic moments effortlessly. What was the casting process like in finding your Tom and Lucy?
Jake: High praise for Oscar Chark and Angel Echávez, who have gone on to have remarkable careers. Discovering them during the early days was quite interesting. Oscar recently appeared in an Adam Sandler film, and Angel has a growing résumé as well. Finding them was one of the biggest challenges of the entire project. I can confidently say that they were the only two choices we could have worked with.

We conducted a nationwide casting search in Canada, between Toronto and Vancouver. While there were excellent options, our vision required a combination of vulnerability, naiveté, and maturity, in line with the script’s central theme of celebrating choice for these young people, regardless of societal expectations. They needed to strike a balance between wisdom and innocence, which both Oscar and Angel possessed in a complementary way. How did we find them? I think they found us.

PC: Speaking of the more dramatic moments, we’ve discussed in the past how you create space for yourself to tackle those vulnerable scenes as an actor. As the writer-director, how did you do that for your cast, especially in the scene where Lucy leaves the pharmacy?
Jake: A big component of that work comes from prep rather than production. We spent a lot of time with our executive producer, Liesl Wilke, and story consultant Julia Wilke, to delve into the nuances of how to develop the story around the songs with complete detail.

As the director, writer, and producer on this project, it was very important for me to set aside my ego when it came to guiding the more specific moments of Lucy’s journey as a young woman, experiences I hadn’t personally lived. That said, I was adamant about the overarching message we wanted to convey in the project. With Angel, our work on set came from a lot of discussions during prep and even final revisions of the material. It was really, really important to me that all of the young adult contributors helped shape the story and were also able to take a step back to feel that youthful lens.

Angel is quite young, and Oscar was only seventeen when we filmed this project. It was essential to infuse their youthful energy into the project. They were encouraged to bring their colloquialisms and slang that I, as a nearly thirty-three-year-old, wouldn’t be familiar with, to make the project feel fresh.

PC: What you’ve done brilliantly with the writing is that you don’t let audiences dwell on one emotion for too long. Was that something you were mindful of when starting this process?
Jake: That’s very flattering. I look back on my writing on this project as a real learning opportunity. I won’t sit here with so much pride as to say it’s perfect as it is. I think what was beautiful about this was that it became a pimply teenager of my directing career as well as a metaphor for the place that these young people are in.

As far as that balance, I’ve always felt that the best drama incorporates elements of both comedy and tragedy. We’ve almost lost the definition of what a drama is. We think of a drama as always being serious without moments of levity. What’s wonderful about musicals as a medium is that it’s challenging to eliminate humor and levity, even in the most high-stakes situations. Musicals naturally incorporate moments of humor and comedy, even in dark subject matter, like in Sweeney Todd. I appreciate the compliment, and it was essential for us to create a screenplay that could transition well onto the musical theater stage.

PC: One of the beautiful things about making an independent project is that everyone is there for the right reasons and everybody pitches in. We see you make a cameo in the film as well. Was that initially written into the script? What was it like wearing all those different hats for that scene in particular?
Jake: It’s a millisecond that I am there and not credited purposely. That was because casting had fallen through in a really short time, but I went into principal photography knowing that it would be lovely to make a cameo, but a feeling like it would be maybe one too many hats for something that we were taking on so much already.

We shot forty minutes of musical material in five shoot days, which I do have to note because that’s what I feel I can boast about. We set out with such a strongly storyboarded and shortlisted project that we were able to accomplish that on a modest budget of $65,000, which again, I think shows very well in the finished project.

But the cameo happened because the actor who was attached to do that small bit wasn’t able to make it in the very last minute, so on went that graffiti jacket. You’ll catch me if you don’t blink. [laughs]

PC: The cinematography is beautiful.
Jake: Adam Griffiths is wonderful. While he may not be part of the producing team we mentioned earlier, he’s very much a part of the Day by Day Pictures family. Adam also worked on Before They Were Them and was equally responsible for its warm reception due to its iconic musical aesthetics. Reuniting with him for this project was a no-brainer. We look forward to working with him on our upcoming projects as well.

PC: We’ve also discussed the importance of representation, and one of the most exciting things about emerging voices like yourself is the opportunities you’re creating. Angel, one of your stars, shared on social media that she told her art teacher as a child that she could never be a lead because of her ethnicity, but here she is. How does this motivate you to continue pushing the industry forward in the right way?
Jake: It’s such a fascinating question because it’s been such a loaded gun for some time. Angel will appreciate that you’ve found that anecdote, as it’s something she shared with me during the early stages of our creative process.

We actually brought in five writers for our anthology feature project to write from their lived experiences. They come from five different gender and cultural backgrounds. But as it pretains to More Together, as a group, we never wanted to tokenize anyone’s experience, but we wanted to make sure we were meaningfully involving all the details of what life from a different cultural background is like. That was definitely part of the development between casting Angel and principal photography and the values that you might grow up with in a household that has a Christian Filipino background versus where our originating characters came from.

There are some natural overlaps there with some of the values of faith and family that happened to be shared between Angel’s experience and the young woman who inspired the original Lucy character. But in the process, what’s equally fascinating is that we never set out with a mandate to visibly diversify the project in the way that we eventually did, which I think is even cooler. We knew we wanted to make sure that we were fairly representative, but we didn’t know who we would find but we knew we were going to build a world around a very, very strong Lucy, whoever that was. Angel was leaps and bounds ahead of any of her competitors. Sorry for anyone watching this!

It was a total fluke that she was in Toronto. She was planning on visiting the West Coast and submitted a tape before she knew that the dates weren’t going to align. Then we made sure they did so that she could come on board on the project. It’s most exciting to me that we were able to hold those values without impressing them falsely on the project and were able to authentically fold them into the story. I think that’s the coolest thing about Angel leading this project. I think a lot of young girls will respond to her telling of this story and embodiment of this character. It’s really vulnerable and honest.

PC: Their chemistry is incredible. Was there a moment during filming when you realized they had the dynamic needed to bring Tom and Lucy to life?
Jake: No, not really. [laughs] I say that because we moved at a rapid pace. We were prepared to move quickly, and then I received news about Ride. I was supposed to start working on Ride the day after we were scheduled to wrap up More Together. Your questions remind me of things I should be more grateful for.

We didn’t even have the opportunity to do a chemistry test before offering them the roles, as Angel was on a different coast. They first met in the recording studio and would have worked opposite each other regardless of their chemistry. During the few hours we had them together in the studio to work on the songs, they just clicked. They had this perfect, slightly awkward chemistry that grew into mutual respect. Both of them deeply care about the musical theater medium. It’s now clear how fortunate we were with the timing.

PC: As you mentioned, filmmaking can be a rewarding experience but also comes with challenges. You’ve shared on social media that it’s about enjoying the journey. When you look back at this experience, what will you remember most?
Jake: The first thing that comes to mind is having the guts to believe that we could do it. I don’t say this to boast, but because it’s moving to remember that Curtis and I were friends in college. We’ve had our share of ups and downs. When we embarked on this journey, I was still directing Summer Stock Theatre and struggling to find acting opportunities. The dream, which was just a glimmer when I was first introduced to this material, has now become a shining reality, thanks to the belief of many people, not only in me but in themselves and their art. Back in 2010, they had to believe in themselves on the day when Curt and I first encountered Drew’s music. The most significant takeaway for me is that the dreams I have for the future can be just as real as More Together if I’m brave enough to pursue them. To anyone reading, watching, or listening, I feel the same way about your dreams. It’s all doable with time and a little elbow grease.

To keep up with Jake, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.