Wesley Wang’s short film “Nothing But Everything” features some familiar sights for New Jersey viewers: Cedar Grove High School and the Holland Tunnel.
The 12-minute film, which has been viewed 7.2 million times on YouTube and screened at film festivals across the country, including the Garden State Film Festival, is now being developed for the big screen.
The film rights to Wang’s short film were acquired in April by TriStar Pictures, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The film will be produced by award-winning director Darren Aronofsky through his company Protozoa Pictures.
Two of the five days of filming took place at the high school, which has been used as a location for recent productions such as the horror film “I Saw the TV Glow” and the television series “The Hunter’s Anthology.” Part of the day was spent filming a car driving through the Holland Tunnel from the New Jersey side, while other scenes were shot in New York City.
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Wang, 20, who grew up on Long Island, said two years after shooting the film in the Garden State in July 2022, he still couldn’t imagine it becoming a studio production.
“I knew this film would probably be better received than any of my other short films because it was more personal and also much bigger and I had more confidence in the style and story. But I had no idea,” Wang said. “Looking back, I have to say it was a great experience.”
“Nothing but everything.” on the big screen
Wang, who is entering his third year at Harvard University, recalled an email he received last fall from veteran director Aronofsky. Aronofsky is known for the 2009 film “The Wrestler,” which was shot largely in New Jersey, and his 2022 film “The Whale.”
“When he reached out, I literally found this email from one of my favorite directors. It was just a crazy moment,” Wang recalls. “He’s a Harvard graduate, but I don’t even know how he found my email. He contacted me and emailed me, ‘Can you drop out of Harvard?'”
Wang was particularly a fan of Aronofsky’s 1998 debut film, “Pi,” which tells the story of a Manhattan-based mathematician trying to find order in the larger world using numbers. That film influenced “Nothing, except Everything,” about a high school student searching for order in the chaos of the number 7 while preparing for graduation and pursuing a romance with a classmate.
Wang had raised $45,000 for his short film through the crowdfunding website Indiegogo and money saved from chess lessons. When it came to finding locations, he couldn’t find what he wanted in his hometown of Jericho, Long Island, so he decided to look west to New Jersey.
That’s when he became aware of Cedar Grove High School, Wang says, and thanks David Schoner Jr., a Cedar Grove resident and deputy director of the New Jersey Motion Picture & Television Commission, for alerting him to the school as a filming location.
“On weekends and in the summer, people come by who are actually shooting stuff and looking for a location. It was perfect for us because they have experience in this area,” Wang said. “David was our contact because he knew how it works here. He took us on a day of location scouting, showed us where all the lights are, what we should use and what is allowed in the school.”
Wang looked back on filming at the high school with joy.
“It was incredible. It’s just a very beautiful school, even the Cedar Grove football field,” Wang said. “That’s another great place to have the stadium lights shining down. It’s a really beautiful place.”
Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news in your local community, subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @ricardokaul
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