Social Media Postings

 Hi blog !

Our social is up and active! Our handle is @sproutingshortfilm on Instagram!! 

We already have a couple posts up so yay! As mentioned in an earlier blog, our color scheme basically consists of purples and greens, which is exactly what we are following through with here in this image. One of the most important things we are keeping in mind is branding!! We want everything to look and feel the same. We created a bunch of blank templates on Canva which we will be using based on the kind of post to make sure everything looks the same (which is why our cast and crew announcements look the same but have different colors). Also, this would be the perfect time to mention our two awesome main actresses Estefania and Stephanie (almost name twins ahaha)! They are both super nice and talented and we are so grateful they agreed to act in this project :)




First of all, the main elements: 

A profile photo and the highlight covers! These are the first things you see when you open the account, so we wanted to make sure they looked clean and represented the film well. Since our main color is purple that is what we decided on for the profile image (made by Renn), and then I created these highlight covers where we will be archiving all of our stories!

We will be trying to post every other day to get as much content in as possible. So far we have 6 posts up! 

First a cute little teaser created by Kenna! It obviously had to include the sprout which is basically our brand logo now, and the color green!

Then we had our first main three posts come out, the crew! Kenna, Renn, and I all worked on these three together and i love how clean they came out!!

Yay we all look so cool! These posts are clear, concise, and on brand. Since pink and purple are Melia and Dahlias colors, we all stuck to green (main brand cover). Which I think looks really neat since it really does show us as a unit! We ofc still included highlights of pink and purple in the background and text. Also, we created a logo for our "studio" name (i know we are 3 people but still), RVK (Renn, Vicky, Kenna) studios! it'll be in the top left corner of every post since everything is about the branding (i dent know a synonym for branding I'm sorry). 

Next up our wonderful actresses! 

Since we only have 2 actresses we figured why not just give them their own individual color (which is their respective character colors yay). And of course, just like the crew posts, we included in the green through the font and background.

CRR Preplanning

 Hi blog! 

CCR. These three acronym that traumatized me last year. I seriously struggled with my CCR is AS level for a multitude of reasons, but thankfully this year it is an essay instead of a video (thank you Cambridge I appreciate you). Now to ensure I write up a nice critical reflection (i guess i can call it CR), we are going to start prep NOW, by making sure I know what it is, what is requires of me, and how I will execute it. Thankfully I have a goated media studies teacher that gave us all of the information a couple of months back, so no stress on figuring out what the CR is, and also thankfully I took lots of notes. Heres an image:

CRITICAL REFLECTION AICE MEDIA STUDIES A LEVEL

Ok so basically: 

- 1000 words 
- An evaluative essay that is guided by four compulsory questions: ↓
1. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
2. How do your products engage with the audience?
3. How did elements of production work together to create a sense of "branding"?
4. How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

HOW TO WRITE:

• Intro: Short and straight to the point. My thesis should be focused on a an overall theme/idea shown throughout the entire peace 
  
• Body paragraphs (addressing questions): The questions can be addressed in any order (yay), I may also address more than one question at a time BUT i still have to address all 4 questions and make sure it comes together into one cohesive essay,

WHAT THE 4 QUESTIONS MEAN:
1. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
I should include
-Specific production samples and how I reviewed them
-Specific techniques I researched
-Genre and important conventions
-Specific examples of how research impacted my production choices.

What I would write:
- Discuss the films I researched 
- Include techniques from videos I found online
- Discuss how our genre (coming of age) was super important for our film 

2. How do your products engage with the audience?
I should include:
-Description of our target audience
-Specific ways your three components (media, print, socials) engage your audience (or not)

What I would write:
- our target audience is teens and YA and our film was specifically created to be relatable to almost every teen  
- How our specific design choices engage our target audience (ex: the set design, social media)

3. How did elements of production work together to create a sense of "branding"?
I should:
-Describe the brand I wish to develop
-Discuss how to how/ how not all three components develop your brand 

What I would write:
- Our very cohesive social media 
- The postcard

4. How do your products represent social groups or issues? 
I should:
- Provide specific examples of representation incorporated into the production 
-  Consider if my project successfully develops our representation goals

What I would write:
- Representation: teenagers 


PS: This outline is written more in a format that i understand more easily. This will allow me to fully understand my task, and start brainstorming more complete ideas of what I want my response to be!

Set Decorating

 Hi blog!

The team and I decorated today and it went super smoothy, plus it was genuinely so enjoyable!! I've
always loved production design so much, and its so nice to see Dahlias character start coming to life through her room! My favorite part? The fact that we got to transform an empty room into a cozy space that feels lived in!! 

Here's the before (drumroll please):

And the after (Ta da!!):

The lighting is doing it dirty, but fear not because I have more photos!! 

So first we all got to Renns house after school and we took out all of our props and layed them out to have more more of a visual of what we are working with. It definitely looked crazy and chaotic, but it also allowed us to fully analyze everything we had (especially the stuff we each brought from the list).

So yeahh it looked a little messy (peep the emotional support oreos LOL)

Posters:
Kenna shared with me a Pinterest board full of posters we felt that Dahlia would have up in her room. I went to Walgreens the night before and printed them out! I then spread them out on the floor and organized it in a way that would look cute with the big artist poster and calendar Kenna brought. This is how it ended up looking! Since our color palette is green and purple, we printed out little mini posters of those colors. And the calendar will be used to show the passage of time.

                                                                           

Paper Cranes + Whiteboard: 
Renn is cool and already had these up in his room. We decided they fit the room very well so he transferred them over from his room to the set room! Then the whiteboard in the room (which fun fact is a plank of wood) had to be deep cleaned while Renn in order to get rid of the old handwriting. Then Kenna wrote Dahlias to do list in their very nice handwriting. We also added some extra pizazz to the whiteboard by putting fairy lights around the border! I think its very cute and something Dahlia would do. A lot of this process was just asking our selves "What would Dahlia do?". She is basically our close and personal friend now. 

Certificates + Medals:
Dahlia is clearly stressed out about school. What better way to show it than through adding certificates and medals! She works too hard and wants to show that off, i respect it. It also represents how important her academic achievements are to her, which is why they end up confuming her world. Kenna created the certificates through Canva and the medals are actually all Kenna's from band and colorguard! 

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

Script⋆.˚

The (1st draft) of the script is done!!!!!

Renn is a beast and has already finished the script! Yay! One important thing to mention though: we are shuffling some of the scheduling around. We were supposed to shoot next week, but if we follow through with that it will be rushed. We have barely started our shot list and mise en scene elements. This partly has to do because Renn and I were out for a week at STN. So, to fix this, the next week will be dedicated to finishing shot list, mise en scene, and any tweaks to the script. Then the following week (spring break) will be dedicated to creating the postcard promo and get the social media started. That way we can get straight to filming as soon as the break is over! We had a safety week anyway so this is good and that we we dont rush anything. 

Ok anyways here is the first draft of the script: VER 1 script

Sources⋆˚࿔

Kindle, J. (2024, December 18). What is the "Paul Revere / The British Are Coming" meme? Jokes about making announcements using the lamp-wielding folk hero's painting explained. Know Your Meme. https://trending.knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-the-paul-revere-the-british-are-coming-meme-jokes-about-making-announcements-using-the-lamp-wielding-folk-heros-painting-explained

Group Meeting ˖᯽ ݁˖

Hello blog!!

We had a group meeting today in class! We haven't done one of these since AS level... that was long ago. Anyway here is a photo of all of us: 

The group consisted of Emi, Adriana, Aneesa, Mariana, Fabiana, Daniela, and myself. Emi started us off and then we went in a clockwise motion. Here are the notes I jotted down for each person.
 

Emi Valdivia: Working with Joaquin and Andrew

• Wants to create a dark comedy short film where they critique power struggle, while also making a statement about joining religions for power

• They want to include gore 

• PLOT: Main character Otto completes tasks for devil, loses humanity at the end of the story

• Their script was finished last night!

Group Concerns: 

• Filming locations

Group Suggestions: 

• Film most of the story at a park near our city (the trees there make it look very woodsy as we live in Florida and palm trees throw off the vibe).

• They wanted to include 3 deaths, but for 5 minutes that's a lot so we suggested 1 death maximum instead.

• They wanted to have a scene with a pentagram, but they weren't sure if that was too much, we suggested they create their own symbol for the devil .
  
  

Adriana Vega: Working with David 

• They want to create a comedy short film 

• PLOT: A guy can teleport by flipping a penny, every time he teleports somewhere new he tries to do a kind act but it keeps backfiring on him.

• For the editing they really wanted to use fast cuts

Group Concerns:

• Scheduling (they are both busy people)

Group Suggestions: 

• Adriana was not sure what the ending should be, so we suggested that David finally completes a kind act (without it backfiring) but when he tries to teleport again he drops the penny down a drain.

Aneesa Bajaj: Working with Quinn, Nico, and Zach

• They want to make a meta dark comedy short film that's heavy on breaking the fourth wall

•  Their idea is a camera starting on an initial subject but then it falls in love with another subject, so subject 1 tries to win back the cameras attention

Group Concerns: 

• Developing a storyline that makes sense, especially since they are personifying the camera

Group Suggestions: 

• A light spotlight turning off and on the main subject to represent attention

• Having a mic cut out on the main subject

• Have a the story take place in a studio setting to give context to the cameras

• Both characters should be competing for a casting call (they are both desperate for the role)

 

Me: Working with Kenna and Renn

Group Suggestions: 

• Start and end with voice over to really tie everything together and make the plant symbolism make sense

• Purchase 3 different plants to show the growth of the plant

• Use a focus pull to go from main character to plant 

• Use the main character crossing off dates on her calendar to show time passing (or weeks since plants don't grow that quick)

• Camera is calendar- writing on glass over the camera lense. 

Mariana Aldana: Working with Audrey

• They want to make a drama short film 

• PLOT: A boy has older sister whose excited to go to college, the boy is very laid back while the sister is super prepared and ready to go to college, when she suddenly dies

• Boy starts with a therapy sessions a year later to unpack trauma

Suggestions: 

• The sister should have a Quick death that doesn't have to be shown, like a car crash

• Ideally have an adult play therapist 

• Put date on the bottom of the screen

Fabiana Castillo: Working alone

• She wants to create a psychological thriller short film 

• A guy is getting eaten alive by guilt after killing girl. He starts getting weird mail a year later which makes his fears worse. He’s slowly going crazy.

• He goes to police to confess

Suggestions: 

• Give more context at the beginning of the story on the death of the girl. For example a crash and show the year of crash

• "Time doesn’t pass" by having him confess on the 1 year anniversary of the crash

• Maybe have the character be crazy/ bipolar so he writes the notes himself and just through the movie show the different personalities 

• Have limited dialogue 

Daniela Gonzalez: working with Gaby

• They want to create a music promo 

• Their artist: Annie Lemasters. Gaby met her a couple years ago, she recently moved to Nashville to persue her career as a music artist but they still keep in touch

• She has a very pop vibe like Taylor swift and Olivia Rodrigo

• They want to cover a very dramatic energy as the lyrics are dramatic

• They want to make a story based promo

No suggestions Can you tell i love organizing my blog posts through bullet points? Anyway that was it for the group meeting! I'm glad we had it because it definitely benefited all of us positively, and it personally gave me ideas.