Sprout the Plant

Hi blog! 

Uhm so basically how do we control a plants growth?? 

One very important question Mrs. Stoklosa brought up during our meeting last week was “how are you going to make the plant grow?”. As group we thought buying three of the same plants at different stages of growth would cut it (it won’t, apparently stores only sell plants at the age). ALSO we would have to for real take care of the plants and we would have to make sure they dont die... thats difficult. So after a lot of back and forth we settled on fake plants! Plural because we will be buying 3 of them and cutting them to different heights (our original plan didn’t suck too much, it just needed re working!). To make it look real we will be using real soil with the fake plants.

Here are some images of what we were thinking of purchasing. 

ALSO, the plant pot: 
We want to look into purchasing two pots, one will be the OG pot Melia gifts Dahlia and the second one will be the the pot Dahlia decorates at the end of the short film!  

SOURCES

Baost. (n.d.). Baost 10pcs artificial bean sprout fake vegetable plastic green plant flower arrangement home kitchen decor. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Baost-Artificial-Sprout-Plastic-Arrangement/dp/B087TB1P7F

Threshold. (n.d.). 6" Mini tabletop schefflera artificial plant. Target. https://www.target.com/p/6-34-mini-tabletop-schefflera-artificial-plant-threshold-8482/-/A-87993600

Social Media Stuff

Hi blog! 

Kenna and I have officially started planning the social media! We chose Instagram as the social media platform since it is the most popular platform for both advertising short films, and our target audience (teens and young adults). Before anything we established the color palette for the brand and social media posts, here is an image: 

The green shades are meant to represent Sprout the plant, and they will be the overall main color used throughout the posts. The pink represents Dahlia, and the purple represents Melia; both of those colors will be used as accents. We still haven't decided on a font, but we know whatever we choose has to legible while matching the rest of our brand. We will be creating a set of templates for all the kinds of posts we need (in order to keep it uniform and similar). That way, depending on the kind of post, we pick a premade template and just drop in any images and text. 

Kenna and I also wrote down the list of posts we want in chronological order! Here it is: 

There will be more posts than this, these are just the first handful :)

Dahlias Room Mise en Scene

Dahlias room

 Hi blog!! 

LOTS OF UPDATES!!! 

Kenna, Renn, and I called for 2hrs!

A lot was discussed I’m really excited!! First off the script is 100% totally completely finished (for real this time).

You can read it here!

We reviewed all of the previous critiques Mrs. Stoklosa gave us, and we are all really satisfied with this final script . Plus, we finally have a title! 

“Sprouting”

I personally love it because it really represents that “growth” that we ware going for without being really straight up (plus we renamed Tom the plant to Sprout the plant, super cute in my opinion hehe). 

Apart from that we also established important dates: 

PRODUCTION DAYS 

• 2/24 decorating the set (Dahlias room) and meeting up with the entire crew for introductions!
• 2/25 start shooting 
• 2/26 film 
• 2/22 film

**I will be creating a shot list and splitting up what we film for each day.

Okay now for the actual content for this blog: Dahlias room (mise en scene). During our long call, Kenna showed us her mockup, and using that we created a list of what we need and who can provide which prop (we are trying not to break the bank by decorating the room with items we already own).
Here is the mockup: 

Here is the list: 

- headphones 

- hang paper cranes from the ceiling 

- kennas color lamp 

- posters 

- calendar 

- playbills 

- vickys fairy lights 

- trash can kenna

- vickys/kenna squishmallows 

- kennas trophies and medals 

- kennas dried flowers

- renns plants

- vickys lego flowers 

- print out fake certificate 

- honor roll corner (print out)

- printed photo of dahlia and melia (frame from kenna)

- anything renn wants to add in 

- kenna gets the pot (x2) + sprout the plant (x3)

Here are some photos of what some of our props look like: 

Poster

Headphones

Medals

 
Kenna also created a mini shopping list for a couple of items like the flower pot, and I will go to Walgreens sometime before we film to print out all the posters we want her to hang in her room! We overall want it to be a safe space that really represents Dahlia as a person. 

Postcard Research

 Hi blog! 

Today I will be researching different promo postcards for our short film! I'm going to be dead serious, i searched up "promotional postcards for short films" and almost every single result was from an AICE media A level project LOL. I quickly looked at a couple but Its best to use a real example so I set out on a quest to find real promotional postcards. Here is an analysis of two I really like:

#1 ALL AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL FILM INVITATIONAL POSTCARD

Ok I picked this one because it was actually handed to me at the STN convention as a way to promote this film festival.
WHAT I LIKE 
- The integration of NYC icons 

- Creation of brand 

- Established color scheme 

- Niche, individual, and concise aesthetic 

- QR code 

- Instagram handle

- Website URL

- Use of both images and graphics 
- Text and font is legible and clear

- Catchy phrase that helps define the purpose of the event immediately


WHAT I DISLIKE

- A little cluttered, I have no idea where to look first. But at the same time its really cool and pretty soooo that makes it acceptable-ish to my standards!

#2 1917 FILM CINEMARK PROMO POSTCARD

WHAT I LIKE 

- Simple and iconic film cover, it kind of makes it feel like a collectible
- Its actually a real postcard! 

- It looks very clean

- Established color palette 
- Fonts are concise 
- The contrast of black on the front and white for the back 

- Gives a synopsis of the film
 

WHAT I DISLIKE
-Very little room for "selling" the event
- Too much like a postcard 
- Could have done more with the front, it kind of just feels like a poster 
- The back is clean but bland

 

I really want to try and apply a lot of the stuff I like, and avoid what I don't when we create the card! Renn, Kenna, and I will exchange research and definitely come up with a mock over the break. Also quick sidenote: I found this super useful Youtube channel that delves a lot into design rules and such. I will be watching more of his videos soon and try to apply that into our work. 

@GarethDavidStudio

Sources:

Minuteman Press. (n.d.). Quick postcard printing. Retrieved March 16, 2026, from https://minutemanpressaustin.com/product/quick-postcard-printing-copy/

All American High School Film Festival. (n.d.). Classroom posters. Retrieved March 16, 2026, from https://www.hsfilmfest.com/classroom-posters

Stoklosa Script Critiques

 Before I get into our filming sites, we sat down with Mrs. Stoklosa to discuss our script. She read the full thing and gave us important feedback, I made a checklist with what we have to fix according to that: 

- Make clear that Tom is the plant (maybe we can have a “hi my name is” sticker on the pot? I think that would be cute!)

- FIND MEANING TO PLANT! Throughout this writing process the plant took on a lot of different meanings and symbolisms, so we should all agree on one before moving on. Obviously the plant can be interpreted by the viewer however they want, but it’s good that we as the directors can come to a consensus. 

- Cut some montage for time 

- The argument doesn’t have depth!! Confrontation does not equal a conflict. So basically: 

CHANGE CONFLICT 

- We could chance the argument to be over Dahlia being overly intense with school, Melia should be worried about Dahlia stressing and she wants her to find joy, which leads to the confrontation/conflict. Our current conflict over the boy is kind of stupid and I appreciate Stoklosas honest feedback. 

We will set up a call to review all of this again and make changes to our script! I watched these two very helpful videos that will hopefully help us in fixing the script. 

Filming Sites

 Hi blog! 
In this post I will be discussing filming locations!

- DAHLIAS ROOM

📍Renn’s brothers empty room 

Never have I felt so thankful for someone’s brother to be off in college! Having access to an empty room allows us to design our set and not have to worry about it being scooted around. Renn’s brothers room is perfect because it has a nice window and has a bunch of shelves and a cool whiteboard. I walked in there for the first time and was SO HAPPY. I personally don’t have any empty rooms in my house so that kind of blew my mind. We can take the room and transform it to be truly Dahlia's. That being said, money doesn’t grow on trees so Kenna is planning the mise en scene with props we already own! 

- LIVING ROOM 

📍Renn’s living room 

Honestly his living room works perfectly, and it’s much larger than Kenna and mines. Plus he has double doors in his entrance so it’s fancy. 

-EXTERIOR OF PARTY

📍My community clubhouse 

Since she isn’t hosting the party we are assuming it’s like a clubhouse situation ?? It’s mostly because there’s benches right outside and we really wanted them to sit on benches instead of a street curb. This one is still a maybe so I’ll keep you updated. 

NOT A FILMING LOCATION BUT PLANTS
Renn comes in clutch for the millionth time with his moms collection of plants: 

This photo doesn’t do it justice. His mom has SO MANY PLANTS they take up that entire corner in his home!! We want to place them in Dahlia’s room and then buy a separate plant for Tom. We need to show growth so we are planning to film out of order so we can snip Tom shorter and shorter (we can’t really grow a plant and sit around and wait for it to grow) 

˚‧⁺Progress Updates·.༄࿔

Hi blog!! Lots to unpack in todays post. 

First of all there are updates with the script!! Kenna, Renn, and I hopped on a two hour call today to review the first draft of our script! We changed nothing story wise, just a couple dialogue changes. Kenna and I read the first draft of the script on our own first and left comments that we then touched on during the call. View our updated script here!

Oh also our characters finally have names!! Dahlia (protagonist) and Melia (friend). These names are plant related hahah. We didn't want to be overtly obvious so we chose more not very obvious flower names.

Dahlia

Melia

Sooooo pretty right?! 

After that, we had an in depth conversation about what we have to get done over the next week and over the break. 

Here's the breakdown 

Vicky:
- Create shotlist
- Draw storyboards
- Review everything with Renn

Renn:
- Create postcard using our decided color scheme

Kenna:
- Create a chronological list of social media posts with Vicky's help
- Start social media postings
- Plan out all of the films mise en scene with Renn and Vicky's help

Sources⋆˚࿔

• Stewart, M. (2022, September 27). More beautiful dahlia blooms in my garden. The Martha Blog. https://www.themarthablog.com/2022/09/more-beautiful-dahlia-blooms-in-my-garden.html

• Wikipedia. (n.d.). Melia azedarach. Retrieved March 8, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melia_azedarach