FOMO fills the frames of Penn State student’s documentary

Time waits for no woman — it does however change zones.

Last spring, Penn State senior Courtney Testa was confronted with the challenge of making a short film about growth or growing up. It was a broad topic with an inversely proportioned budget, but those kinds of constraints are nothing new to Testa.

At the dawn of her senior year, she took the reigns of Penn State Network Television as the student-run organization’s president. Prior to that, Testa had produced two of the network’s flagship series, “The Valley” and “PSU Matchmaker.”

The key to succeeding in that kind of hardscrabble environment is pretty simple.

“Come up with an idea that works for all the things we had going for us,” Testa said.

First things first: Testa and a group of other students from across the pond were in London studying with the Institute for the International Education of Students.

Whatever Testa and her partners from the University of Georgia and the University of Redlands came up with would have to involve a boatload of students learning what life was like in close proximity to Big Ben.

As would befit a large cadre of curious young college students, all of them were anxious to get out and explore as much of London and the European continent as possible.

“We almost started competing with the number of countries and places we were able to travel to,” Testa said.

Testa and company decided to use this as inspiration and thus “FOMO Documentary” was born. FOMO, for those outside the loop, is shorthand for fear-of-missing-out.

This could cover everything from envying the jaunt your friend took to the Eiffel Tower to wishing you had ordered that steak on your brother’s plate instead of heart-healthy omelet with goat cheese and peppers.

In the modern age of Facebook, Twitter and social media, this seemed like an especially potent topic.

“It’s so easy to compare yourself to other people,” Testa said.

The completed film is three minutes of candid interviews with their fellow students speaking about the aspects of life on which they are afraid of missing out.

According to Testa, their answers were surprisingly candid.

“They were really open with all the questions that we had. They weren’t surface answers,” Testa said.

Others must have agreed. The documentary was one of five finalists in IES’ Study Abroad Film Festival. It didn’t wind up taking the top prize, but Testa has no regrets.

She rounded out her experiences in London with a summer internship with MTV and is looking forward to pursuing similar work once she graduates.

“We were really happy with how far we made it and just how far a reach our film was able to get,” Testa said.

“FOMO Documentary” is available to watch on YouTube.

This story was originally published September 10, 2016 at 11:30 PM with the headline "FOMO fills the frames of Penn State student’s documentary."