The job description that became Decoys (2023)
Scene from Decoys
“Job Opening: Seeking 15-20 year olds to work as Decoys for the Food and Drug Administration. Decoys will enter facilities where alcohol is sold and try to purchase merchandise without proper identification or legal approval.”
This was the job description I read to my sister when we were looking for jobs. At first glance, it looked like a scam trying to get underage teenagers to buy drugs, but that thought was the inspiration for Decoys.
Around this time in my life, I was feeling left behind at community college and not as “grown up” as the rest of friends who weren’t living at home anymore. This was the emotional side to disrupt the comedic storyline in Decoys.
Being a ‘decoy’ for the FDA was about pretending to be more grown up than you are.
Decoys started a six episode television show where each girl in the friend group encountered a different aspect of “growing up”, then it became a feature length film, then a 15 minute proof of concept.
This production was the largest crew I had ever worked with before and a lot of them were first time filmmakers from the Davis Filmmaking Society.
Even to this day, I feel like the protagonist Andie, but this film is a reminder that I’ll be okay wherever I am at in life.
