North Tama High School seniors, speech club members, and friends (l-r) Landon Kucera and Alex Meggers joke around with each other at school last week while discussing their Large Group speech contest entry this year – a comedic short film titled “Landon” which they created along with junior Johnathan Cochran (not pictured). The film was accepted into the state competition taking place this weekend after earning a ‘1’ rating at Districts on Jan. 20. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

TRAER – A comedic short film created by three North Tama High School speech students is headed to the State Large Group contest this weekend and while it’s technically a work of fiction, the film’s creators say the project draws heavily from their real life friendship.

The film – simply titled “Landon” – was created by Johnathan Cochran, Landon Kucera, and Alex Meggers and as the eponymous title states, the roughly five minute film centers on Kucera.

“It’s fantastic,” Meggers said when asked last week to describe the plot. “It’s all about Landon. He’s playing himself but he’s playing a characterization of himself.”

The speech club trio presented the film at this year’s Southeast District Large Group contest on Jan. 20 at Iowa City Liberty High School in North Liberty where they received a ‘1’ rating, the best possible, earning a trip to the state competition in Bettendorf.

While Cochran was absent due to illness during the interview for this story, it was plain to see from Kucera and Meggers’ dynamic that creativity and humor comes easy to this group – as does sarcasm and wit which they tapped aplenty for the film’s script.

North Tama Speech Club members Landon Kucera, center, and Alex Meggers, right, pictured last week alongside their coach Levi LaRue. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“We’re clearly all really good friends,” Meggers said. “All of our real inside jokes have made it into the film.”

Their speech coach Levi LaRue who is also the district’s K-12 technology integrationist and director, described the project as a “mockumentary” made in the style of the hit television show “The Office” which aired from 2005-2013.

“It’s about a student [Landon Kucera] who thinks his life is really great, so he hires two guys [Meggers and Cochran] to make a documentary about it; they present him a 12 second video and the rest of the film is him asking about certain times [or] events and how he remembers them versus how they are filmed,” LaRue explained.

“Art’s imitating life.”

After filming Kucera’s character for a week, the mere 12 second video Meggers’ and Cochran’s characters present confuses Kucera.

The film then flashes through four humorous juxtapositions that compare what was actually filmed versus what Kucera’s character thought was taking place.

“Landon plays [his character] very well,” LaRue said.

“Because it’s me!” Kucera exclaimed, causing all three to laugh heartily.

The idea for the film came about last year, Meggers explained, shortly after the 2023 Large Group District contest.

The three students wrote the bulk of the script for the film while they were traveling back and forth to Redhawk football games this past fall as part of the North Tama Tech Team.

They began filming right after winter break; the bulk of the scenes take place in the North Tama High School.

This past week they had plans to reshoot a few scenes, Meggers said, before taking the film to the State contest on Saturday.

“We’ve shown it to a bunch of people, they thought it was really funny,” Meggers said.

One of those individuals who found it funny was their judge at Districts who said she thought Kucera’s character was “very relatable.”

“All of [her comments] were positive,” Meggers said.

And while both Meggers and Cochran are “kind of mean” to Kucera’s character in the film, Meggers was adamant that’s just part of their humor.

“[In the film Kucera] is oblivious and gullible. He’s unaware of what’s going on and [he’s] in his own fantasy land and we’re trying to bring him back to reality,” Meggers said. “But, yeah, it’s a fiction film.”

“Yeah, I’m completely fine with it,” Kucera said before both he and Meggers broke out laughing for possibly the twentieth time during the interview.

“They’ve been friends since middle school,” LaRue added. “[We call them] the old married couple.”

The first five seconds of the film — the entirety of which will be available to view on the school’s YouTube channel after this weekend — sets the stage, Meggers explained, for much of the film’s humor.

In the opening, Kucera deadpans to the camera, “Hi, my name’s Landon and I think my life’s pretty great.”

If their real life friendship is any indication, the ‘life’ behind the ‘art’ in the short film “Landon” seems pretty great indeed.