Rose Levillier

BIBLE OUTLINE DRAFT

Title: Love at First Spell

byline: Rose Levillier

LOGLINE: (Always evolving)

A love-obsessed high school senior relies on the support of her witch family as they navigate messy and dangerous love magic to attract the perfect match. 

OVERVIEW: (no more than three paragraphs):

An overview to outline your unique world, stakes or character's place. Draw a picture of what the show is? Describe it for someone who does not know even your basic premise. Can you introduce dynamic characters, plot or world? How does the audience relate to your compelling story?

Steph Klein is a high school senior from Seattle, Washington. Her lonely home life has kept her life goals focused on being liked by everyone she meets. Her charismatic and charming nature has given her praise and attention from those around her, but she craves a deeper admiration that she feels will only be gifted with an everlasting romantic relationship. Tired of her constant battle with romantic flings, she enlists the assistance of her best friends, Coda and Lucia, as well as a little bit of love magic. 

With all of them being novices, they quickly find love spells to be challenging and messy. Even the simplistic glamor spells prove to be unruly for this group of witches. They work together to craft the magic they believe will attract Steph’s everlasting soulmate, and then work together to fix the horrible creations they make in the process. 

Steph’s relentless search increases her frustration and obsession over time, causing disconnections in her relationships with Coda and Lucia. Steph has always been reckless in love, but her impulsive actions begin to affect her romantic interests and her friends. Coda can’t hold back their tongue, and finds themselves growing reluctant to help Steph out of the tricky situations she gets herself into. Lucia feels stuck in between these two, and finds herself mending both the magic and relationships they collectively take advantage of. 

STRUCTURE:

What genres does it draw from? What are overall themes employed? What are goals inherit to the world.

Something meets something... the rationale is key to understanding. Continue to paint the picture. Media inspiration.

Love at First Spell acts as a coming of age, fantasy, and romance story. It plays with themes of love, friendship, magic, identity, and self-love. It feels like if Turning Red meets The Craft.

CHARACTERS: (Two to three paragraphs per character)

Develop the character's place in the world, what powers they have but also, what physical/emotional flaws do they need to overcome? Whose show is it really? Who is driving the show? Dig deep!

Character dimension=complexity. Can we still relate to them?

((Needs work)) Stephanie (Steph) Klein is a charismatic, smiley cheerleader who has an addiction to love and attention. Being an only child had her surrounded by her parent’s love for the first ten years of her life. After their divorce everything changed; her mother moved states and started a new family, and her dad’s career as a truck driver left her at home alone for long periods of time to fend for herself. Steph carried the weight of abandonment around with her and attempted to mask it by cultivating a community of friends and lovers. She is popular in school based on her success in cheerleading and her ability to adapt to any friend group and please every teacher. She has grown a skill of pleasing people to gain the affection and admiration of those around her. 

Though she does not have to try to please her next-door neighbors. The two siblings next door, Coda and Lucia,  have been her besties since Steph’s family first moved in at the age of five. They stayed up late at night talking through their windows, even creating a rickety bean to travel from window to window when their parents denied constant sleepovers. Growing up together they shared different phases of their lives; emo phase, boy band phase, and their most recent reality television show phase. They also tackled their identities together. Late talks filled with vulnerability allowed Steph to admit her attraction to multiple genders in the middle of a Bachelorette binge, where she was accepted with the simple echoes of “haha same”. 

When Steph isn’t pining for affection, she is collecting hobbies and interests to fill her brain in avoidance of her anxieties. She stays after school frequently for cheerleading practice, assisting Coda in their stagecraft, and stopping in at random clubs to cheer on her colleges. She’s quite the social butterfly, and can blend into any crowd as she has perfected her chameleon skills. Out of school, when she can’t hang with the Cruz siblings, she’s perfecting her makeup skills and dramatically crying while listening to Beach Bunny. 

Coda is a senior just like Steph, and the older of the two Cruz siblings. Up until high school, Coda was shy and reserved at school and around strangers. They found it hard to speak up without the encouragement of Steph and their sister. While in the comfort of their own home they were loud, expressive, and determined. They found their footing in high school once joining the theater department and climbed their way up to be the president of their high school's drama club. It was here that they began to recognize their anxiety and discomfort in their skin stemmed from gender dysphoria. Being cast in more masculine roles in a department that lacked boys allowed them to begin to express themselves in a more genuine way. They came out as nonbinary to Steph and their sister first, and they helped negotiate a plan to tell their parents. It was a theatrical event with a three minute song and dance routine with the other two in charge of back up vocals and confetti duty. 

At home they were the jokester and told stories at the dinner table to entertain their family. Their parents insisted on always having family meals, where Steph was always invited, and always had Coda lead grace as their words livened up the room. Not much changed after Coda came out; their parents were confused by the dramatic display as they already knew Coda was different. Coming into senior year Coda was very self assured and confident. Their attitude towards life turned to taking things head on as they really leaned into their Aries rising sign. They turn down every romantic encounter that comes their way, and there are a lot of them. They see romance as a weakness, as something that is not worth their time. They find themselves mocking Steph’s romantic decisions, but is always there to comfort her and plot revenge on her exes. 

Lucia Cruz is the younger of the two siblings, being two years younger than Coda. At home and in her friendship between Coda and Steph she is the mediator. She settles arguments, translates her mother’s Spanish, and makes sure her dad always feels included in big family events. She’s always watching out for the people around her, but secretly hopes others did the same for her. She finds it easier to keep her anxieties to herself, which led her to take up tarot. Tarot was an outlet for her to analyze her feelings, as well as feel like someone was listening to her. 

At school she is one of the top students and tutors in her free time. She doesn’t have to try very hard to excel in her classes, she grasps onto new knowledge quickly and is always excited to learn and participate. Her parents' pride in her intellect and compassion has guided their actions to spoil her. She’s always given extra gifts at birthdays, even on Coda’s, extra snacks in her lunch box, and no matter what she does she is never in trouble. In her parent’s eyes she can do nothing wrong, and sometimes this immunity gets to her head. For her last birthday she was entrusted with the responsibility of owning a small black pug which she lovingly named Dingle. 

KEY LOCATIONS: (One paragraph per location) 

What are the backdrops to the story? What does the world look like (visually and emotionally)? Make sure these have purpose!

They are located in Seattle, Washington where the gloomy rain often plays into Steph’s low lonely moods. Many scenes take place between the homes of the two neighboring families. Steph’s room is a little empty and childish, not many items have changed since she was twelve. Pink covers everything, from the walls to the bed set, which is still accurate to her preferences. But the rest of her home is inactive and barren.

The Cruz ' home is energetic and vibrant. Their mother is always cooking and the two siblings are always entertaining each other. They share a room with a window facing Steph’s, which allows communication whenever they are apart. Coda and Lucia’s room decorations are clashing but comforting. Coda never quite left their emo phase, which is shown through music posters and their own expressive drawings. They have several medals from thespian festivals that chime while they dangle from their bed post. A lot of their clothes are scattered around the floor and under their bed. Lucia is much more organized and keeps the room smelling nice with several plants taking up their floor space and hand from the ceiling. Their signature colors, purple and green, are scattered throughout her decor and match the color of Dingle’s collar. 

Other scenes take place at their high school. They go to a rather large school with deep pride in their sports teams. The school colors are red and white and their school mascot is a red horse named Stud. The atmosphere is usually chaotic in the halls but a snooze fest inside classrooms. 

Create a sense of what the world can be.

3-5 EPISODES: (One paragraph per episode synopsis/logline) 

Breakdown of a typical episode: (From cold open to end credits).

Convey what an episode looks like. Make it provocative.

Pilot: Introduces the characters, world and stakes.

Finale: End of season

Pilot: It is the day before Steph's senior year, and it opens with a break up with their current fling, Vivian. A crying Steph joins Coda and Lucia in  a metaphysical shop where Steph lays her eyes on a large book of love magic. Coda and Lucia are reluctant to accept the purchase as a good idea, but can’t stop themselves from assisting in payment to cheer their friend up. Back in the sibling’s room, they work together to plot Steph’s “Senior Sweety Soulmate Search” and begin with a glamor spell to make her stand out on her first day. But after a poor execution and the accidental inclusion of pug fur, Steph wakes up with a pug face. The school day consisted of group efforts at hiding their friend’s face and trying out solutions from their spell book. But as the day went on Steph’s actions and appearance continued to become more dog-like. After Lucia’s vicious research, they found their solution to be rerunning the spell without any shortcuts or poor planning. 

After a couple boring dates from previous spell casting, Steph asks Lucia for a tarot reading to better understand the person they should be looking for. The description left Steph feeling her soulmate was one of the school's major athletes. Feeling impatient, Steph asks her friends to assist in a spell to make Steph irresistible to speed up her vetting process. The next day at school, everyone was making efforts to talk to Steph, pull out her chairs, and make her day at school easy. She loved the attention and accepted it all selfishly. Ignoring Coda and Lucia’s warnings, Steph goes on a date with their school's favorite quarterback. He admits his love to her, but is interrupted by similar confessions from a group of classmates who crash their date. As the small signs of affection begin to turn messy, Lucia busts out a counter spell that puts an end to Steph’s irresistibility and saves her from a mob. 

Finale: It is the day before prom and Steph is focused on creating the perfect evening with her new partner. Having felt she found her soulmate, Candy, she is in planning mode to make her night as magical as she has hoped. After skipping a nail painting get together with Lucia and Coda, Steph learns Candy wants them to join her friend group to celebrate prom. Steph breaks the news to the siblings through text, which causes them to argue through their windows that evening. Coda and Lucia call out Steph’s behavior and end their friendship. In a burst of anger, Steph casts a love spell on Candy. That night, Candy’s behavior turned controlling and jealous and she slowly turned into a monster. After a frantic apology from Steph on the dance floor, Coda and Lucia help her undo the love spell and heal Candy before she ruins the prom for everyone else. Steph breaks things off with Candy, and reunites with her friends. She gives up her search for her soulmate and puts that energy into healing and growing her friendships with Lucia and Coda. 

CREATOR CREDIT:

Why are you the only person(s) to envision this show?

The lessons I want Steph to learn are lessons I’ve had to experience myself. I also have insight on deep friendships similar to the small family that Steph has created with the Cruz siblings. I've always been interested in spiritual and magical practices and aesthetics, which is helpful to creating an animation with a dramatic representation of those qualities.