I got the initial idea of wanting to make a musical for my senior thesis film in December 2021, and I got the plot idea for my film on April 17th 2022. After 239 days of work (April 17-December 12), my thesis has been completed!

My pro-production process started a little different than other projects I have done before, which was writing the score for the three dance sequences, then develop the storyline and script around it. I composed the three songs for the dock, park, ballroom, in the span of May-August 2022. The songs were then passed to my choreographer (Mena Salazar), and she choreographed all the dances and I made dance rehearsal schedules with her, along with my assistant choreographer (Kaiden Hancock), and my two talents (Taylor Landau, Enrique Nazario).

With scenes finalized correlating to the songs, I started location scouting in early August with my co-producer (Hannah Sam) as well as applying for film permits. Although my first permit for the park got denied due to a scheduling conflict, I was able to find another park and it worked out perfectly with my vision. I then started planning the visuals with my Director of Photography (Hannah Sam) and she made some storyboards and little edit with talent placements. I then made a look book with all visuals included and passed that to my production designer (Aiyanah Duddey) to get the costume and props started.

Dance rehearsals started a month before filming and it was really challenging given one of my talents does not live in Tampa, so dance breakdown recordings were made. The process was really fun as most crew learned the dance along the way. Afterwards, traditional film pre-production was resumed. I asked Professor Walker about getting insurance for an off campus private location, purchased equipment insurance, and made prep memos for crew, as well as production schedules, call sheets and had a production meeting with crew.