Senior week: A screenplay

Abstract

Throughout the thesis process, my goal was to capture, compare and contrast Ocean City during the summer and winter in a screenplay format. Unlike many other vacation films, I focused on the regular and off season of Ocean City to better understand the temporary, ephemeral nature of beach towns during the summer compared to the practical unseen cities they turn into during the off-season. My thesis tells two parallel stories about a group of high school seniors vacationing in Ocean City in the summertime, and two elderly senior citizens living in Ocean City in the winter. Each story to employs a coming of age narrative for its respective protagonist, allowing the reader to compare and contrast how the setting affects their overall transformation. In doing so, my main research question became: How does the ephemeral nature of vacation towns, and the experiences and memories attached to them, influence or change coming-of-age narratives in film?