In the summer of 1995, teenage runaway Mari Miller begins a secret relationship with David ‘Kent’ Kenton, a reclusive man in his thirties, confining themselves to Kent’s large, crumbling house on the edge of the woods. Tentative affection and understanding between these two lost souls soon turn to cabin fever and self-destruction as they become withdrawn from the outside world. Like “Brontë done in the style of Licorice Pizza”, Night Owls & Early Birds – the feature-length version of Sophie’s award-winning short film Night Owls – is not only a character study of how people interact behind closed doors, but it’s also a film about the human experience and how much our perspectives on life can change with age, asking whether it’s better to look at the world with experience or through innocent, hopeful eyes. For Sophie, this is the project that’s been on the tip of her tongue almost all her life; she wrote her first draft when she was fifteen, the same age as Mari at the start of the film, and returning to the project now that she’s in her thirties has given her the unique position of being able to see and write about the characters’ troubled relationship from both perspectives. She describes this cathartic process as feeling like she’s speaking to her younger self at times! There is a pitch deck and spec script available for this project, co-written by Sophie and the award-winning screenwriter Tommy Draper, and development meetings with interested studios have begun. Please get in touch via the Contact page if you’d like more information. (Featured concept art by Laura Vann-Leeds)