2018 Half-Hour Pilot Finalist Samuel Josephs

Conception

A hunky astronaut terraforming the moon returns to Earth to help announce his pro-life pop star wife's candidacy for governor of Texas when he vomits and faints on Live TV - he's pregnant with an alien baby, and life begins at conception.

My name is Samuel Josephs and I’m a screenwriting student at the University of Southern California, a dog walker, a radio host, a comic book artist, and a drag queen. My ultimate goals would be to create iconic show-stopping hit movies and tv shows and then use my money and fame to launch myself to become the first drag queen president and change the world (although Washington did wear a lot of wigs–who’s to say?).

The inspiration for Conception came from “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler, Juno by Diablo Cody, and Spongebob M-Preg fanart by anonymous weirdos on the internet. In making Conception, I wanted to explore the abject craziness of America today, but at its core, Conception is about bodies – what bodies do we desire? How can bodies change? How do we categorize other bodies? What makes a human body? This obsession with bodies comes from the terror of having to live in a physical body each and every day, and as a drag queen, I am hyper-aware of the presentation of my body. I also wanted to capture my other obsessions: female pop stars, bodily fluids, love, space exploration, parents, government secrets, sex, Mexican food, and famous men with six packs.