Sasha Vogel is the only student to present a feature-length screenplay for her senior honors film thesis this year. Titled “Well and Good,” the script is a coming-of-age eco-drama that blends climate justice with human relationships. “It basically centers around a group of college students in a climate justice oriented club, who are trying and failing to form a protest, and trying and failing in their interpersonal relationships at the same time,” Vogel explained.
Set in California, the story draws attention to the issue of abandoned oil wells, particularly in Bakersfield. “There are these oil operators who have all these wells … and they don’t [properly plug them]. They just pay a hundred-dollar fee per year to let them sit idle and abandoned,” she said. Eventually these oil wells will leak into the communities, causing health issues like cancer, nosebleeds, headaches and respiratory illnesses.
Although neither Vogel nor her family have lived in Bakersfield, growing up in Los Angeles gave Vogel awareness of the issue. “Well and Good” became a way for her to bring together two parts of herself. “I work at the Office of Sustainability here as a videography intern … and I wanted to find a way to really connect them,” she said.
Screenwriting has long been Vogel’s creative focus. “Being a screenwriter specifically has always been my dream. I think in a perfect world, I would be able to be a full-time feature-length screenwriter. That is my ultimate goal,” she said. “I took Screenwriting I and II with Khary Jones … and he’s now my advisor. It just seemed right to make my thesis screenwriting.”
While this is Vogel’s first screenplay centered on environmental themes, it builds on years of experience writing character-driven, coming-of-age stories. “I’ve written in my classes and on my own time two other feature-length screenplays, but they both were very coming-of-age themed,” she said. “They didn’t really touch on environmental justice or environmental science at all, which is something that I’ve always wanted to engage with in my work.”
Her approach to screenwriting is character-driven. “I get really infatuated with [my characters] and kind of try to figure out the story that they would come from,” she said. “I’m a very heavy outliner, and then I’ll spend months getting down a first draft,” Vogel explained.
The writing process of this screenplay started in her junior year, and early drafts were much longer than expected. With guidance from her advisor, professor Khary Jones, she made difficult but necessary edits, including a major revision to the script’s conclusion. “It was too dramatic for what the story leading up to it had been, so it ended up coming off a little cliché and like losing some value,” she said. “That was hard letting go of that moment because I loved it, but it just didn’t suit the story. I’m very happy with the ending now, it feels much more appropriate and meaningful.”
Learning how to take criticism has been one of Vogel’s biggest growth points during her time at Tufts. “There’s two polar sides, and people either go too hard on ‘this is my piece, and you don’t get it,’ or ‘yes, I’ll do anything you tell me,’” she said. “Finding the balance and learning how to pick out things that are valuable is something that I’ve gotten a lot better at.”
Though Vogel has no plans to direct the film herself, she hopes to keep refining the script and submitting it to festivals and other opportunities. “The goal is to sell it for options somewhere so that another production company could develop it,” she said. “I feel like I don’t have the skills or resources to turn it into the film I want it to be. I would love to give it off to someone else. I think filmmaking is so collaborative. And I don’t have a problem with someone else joining in on the vision.”
In telling a story rooted in empathy and care, Vogel hopes her script encourages readers to look closer at the planet, at each other and at the reasons behind how we act and connect. “I would just want people to come out of the script with a heightened sense of care for the environment and the people around them,” she said, “and also more willing to dig deep and understand why someone might be acting the way that they are.”
“Well and Good” will be explored at the FMS Student Film Festival: Senior Honors Thesis on May 1 in Room LL08 in Barnum Hall.
