Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

UPDATE: This story was updated at 12:16 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.

When Syracuse University master’s student Bryson Carter arrived on the film set of “Pizza Movie” in Syracuse last May, he wasn’t sure which crew role he’d pursue.

“That was actually the first time I had ever been on a real set,” Carter said. “Prior to that, the only thing that I had really done was the short films in class and stuff like that, so I wasn’t really versed in that world.”

Carter, studying television, radio and film at Newhouse School of Public Communications, spent the summer interning alongside other students on the set of “Pizza Movie” with one of his professors, Molle DeBartolo.

Directed and written by sketch comedy duo Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher, “Pizza Movie” follows two college students, Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone), as they go on a hallucinatory adventure to get pizza after taking drugs labeled “M.I.N.T.S.”

The movie premiered at South by Southwest’s film festival last month and — continuing the partnership between Liverpool-based production company American High and Hulu — releases on the platform Friday.

But central New York got a sneak peek through the eyes of six SU interns: five graduate students and one undergraduate.

DeBartolo, who joined American High in 2017, co-produced the movie and said she began having direct interns when she started working full-time at Newhouse in 2024.

She said a former Newhouse graduate student, Xuan Yang, “spurred” these internships when she assisted Debartolo on “Summer of 69.” Yang even came back after graduating to help on “Pizza Movie,” DeBartolo said.

“I started creating these mentorship opportunities and by connecting with (students), I was like, ‘Okay, well, this would be a great opportunity. Let’s start making this happen,’” DeBartolo said. “‘Because if you’re here, and I’m already doing this, I would be happy to bring you along for the ride.’”

The stoner comedy was entirely filmed in and around Syracuse. Filming locations for “Pizza Movie” included Le Moyne College and Onondaga Community College for exterior shots, Onondaga Community College to depict a college dorm lobby and at American High’s headquarters to mimic dorm rooms, DeBartolo said.

Carter, who was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, said it was exciting to see places in Syracuse outside of campus.

“For the longest, I just really thought Syracuse was boring,” Carter said. “You always hear about New York City, but then there’s these places outside of New York City that also do these big things as well. So, it was super cool.”

DeBartolo connected Carter with Max Butler, a fellow Nashville native and line producer for “Pizza Movie.” This eventually led to Carter’s involvement in the second season of Amazon Prime Video series “Scarpetta,” currently filming in and around Nashville, where he’s a costume production assistant.

Dawei “David” Wang was the only Newhouse undergraduate intern on the set of “Pizza Movie.” The then-senior helped multiple departments, like art and lighting. DeBartolo taught Wang in a production design class but said she didn’t know him well before working on the set together.

However, through “Pizza Movie,” DeBartolo learned about Wang’s passion for digital media, she said.

After watching an American High TikTok post, Wang pitched them an idea: post American High clips on Douyin, a Chinese version of TikTok. Wang thought Chinese audiences would be interested in videos depicting daily life in American high schools, he said.

Wang, who’s originally from China, now chooses which American High clips get posted to Douyin, translating them and including subtitles. Since launching the account last December, it’s reached over 500,000 likes, Wang said — and it stemmed from his involvement on “Pizza Movie.”

“Molle is like a hero to me,” Wang said. “She gave me the opportunity to take the (“Pizza Movie”) internship, and also while I was doing the internship, she cared a lot about my daily life.”

In the beginning, the six interns stuck by DeBartolo’s side, but by the end of filming, they had found their place on set, DeBartolo said. She and the interns jokingly called the internship a “Molle-ship,” she said.

After studying stage management in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, Xiangyi “Annie” Meng pursued a television, radio and film master’s degree at Newhouse, where DeBartolo taught her. As a “Pizza Movie” intern, Meng worked as a construction shop production assistant.

“The big thing I learned is you can always ask. I loved to ask Molle ‘how this works’ because I have no idea, and there’s no stupid questions,” Meng said. “Learning is always a great experience, no matter what.”

DeBartolo said she’d like to provide a screening of the final product at Newhouse, and despite “Pizza Movie” not having a theatrical release, DeBartolo encourages watching the film with other people to enjoy its “ridiculousness.”

At one point in the movie, Matarazzo and Giambrone’s characters are filmed getting dragged through squid intestines. After shooting the scene, they were covered in goo, but because it was the last scene they shot, DeBartolo said everyone had to hug.

Carter said the end of filming felt like another graduation. He’d known the other interns mostly through classes, but seeing them in a different light brought them closer together.

“I felt like we became like a family toward the end,” Carter said.

Published on April 1, 2026 at 8:58 pm
Contact Joel: jdpelach@syr.edu