Introduction:
Good Choice, Joseph is an offbeat comedy-thriller about choice paralysis, inspired by my own experiences with decision anxiety. It follows a character who has become so overwhelmed by decision-making that they find themselves unable to make choices altogether, until one day when they happen upon a mysterious, supernatural cassette player which can tell the future. It is my debut as a writer/director, making it an especially personal and significant project for me.
Inspiration:
The idea originally came to me while I was studying at university, and the themes of the story played on my mind more and more as the looming threat of graduation approached. It was a whirlwind mix of anxiety and self-doubt about what to do with my life, and I couldn’t help but wish that I had some kind of omniscient voice to guide me through everyday decision-making.
I was also acutely aware whilst writing the script that this was a story which didn’t directly tackle any pressing social or political issues, and as such, the subject of choice paralysis felt largely unexplored in the media I had consumed up until that point. As minor an issue as it may be in the grand scheme of things, I found the writing process to be cathartic as it gave me an opportunity to verbalise a struggle I’d been quietly dealing with in my own life for years.
The Process:
Good Choice, Joseph features a voiceover narration which dictates the pace of the storytelling within the film itself. As a result, our production process actually began a couple of months before filming, when we captured John Rose’s voice lines in a recording studio. In the intervening time between this session and filming, I edited John’s voiceover and created a storyboarded version of the film to fit it.
In order to match the timings of the final film to this storyboard, we had a Bluetooth speaker present during filming so that Oliver Dickens could pace his performance to match John’s narration. This had the additional benefit of giving Oliver something to play off as an actor, seeing as he was the only performer present on set.
Filming took place over a day and a half, with interior scenes filmed in Hackney and exterior scenes shot in my hometown Southend-on-Sea. The conditions in Southend were horrendous; it was a bleak mid-January day, and the wind was gale-force. All the exterior audio we captured during filming was completely unusable due to the high winds, and was entirely replaced by foley in post-production. This includes me voicing the character of Joseph himself in the finished film!
What It Means to Be a Finalist:
We are so proud of Good Choice, Joseph as an example of what young filmmakers can make together with limited resources, and for that hard work to be recognised by the Worcester Film Festival team is incredibly gratifying. I cannot overstate how excited we are to be able to share our work with the audience at WFF 2026.
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