Dead Girls is the fever dream syndicate of Gone Girl and The Hunger Games, blending dystopian reality with true crime.

A lonely young woman becomes dangerously obsessed with Who Will Be Found? — a dystopian reality TV show where viewers can place bets on which missing girls they think have the best chance of being found alive. When her mental health starts to decline, she contemplates faking her own disappearance and exploiting Missing White Woman Syndrome in a desperate attempt to finally receive real love and affection.

We sensationalize missing white women in the media and turn their misfortune into entertainment. We take advantage of their tragedies by making videos about them on TikTok in attempts to get likes, views, and a cheap sense of fulfillment. At the same time, we fail to highlight the disappearances and murders of Women of Color, and let their stories pass us by.

As a woman growing up in the United States, my biggest fear has always been something horrible happening to me. I'm cautious of who to trust and I avoid going out alone at night. When I do have to walk home alone after dark I'm hyper-aware of my surroundings, constantly looking over my shoulder with my keys in my fist. To think that if I ever disappeared people on the internet might take advantage of it for their own financial gain, internet fame, and entertainment leaves me disgusted by the empathy gap created by popular media. And if I were a Woman of Color, people may not look for me at all.

I know I'm not the only woman that fears the loss of her bodily autonomy in America, especially in this cultural moment. With the overturn of Roe and very real fears of losing more control over our bodies at the hands of the US government, it becomes increasingly important to bring awareness to the myriad of ways we co-opt women's bodies in the media for our own self-interest: including, but not limited to, the cases of missing and murdered women.

With the pervasive impact of social media increasing our cultural habit of turning women's tragedies into entertainment, it is imperative that we make this film now. By addressing these issues head on and publicizing them in an entertaining form of media, we have the potential to make a real impact.

Team Highlights

1. Writer/Director has had 3 feature-length films produced with Tubi Originals, the latest of which went #1 on the platform.
2. Producer's last short film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2024.
3. Actors attached have starred on Star Trek: Picard (Paramount+), One of Us is Lying (Peacock), Cobra Kai (Netflix), Chicago Med (NBC), The Good Doctor (ABC), Cruel Summer (Freeform), Into the Dark (Blumhouse), Queen Sugar (OWN), Homeland (Showtime), and more.
4. Social media director has a following of over 100k followers and 200k weekly viewers across social platforms that will be utilized to market the project.
5. Cinematographer studied at the American Film Institute (AFI), one of the top film schools in the country.
6. For our last film, we secured 200% of our crowdfunding goal here on Seed & Spark.

Please see the Team page to learn more about our individual collaborators.

Tone & Mood

The visual style of Dead Girls is a juxtaposition between the idealized, romanticized world of the Dead Girl, with the dark, gritty truth of becoming one.



Who Will Be Found? presents a dreamlike and surreal atmosphere that romanticizes the idea of the Dead Girl. Bright lights and vibrant colors almost dress the program up like a game show, selling the tragedies of young women as entertainment. Belle, our protagonist, becomes obsessed with this show, and buys into the romanticized ideals of missing white women…

...but all of this is juxtaposed with reality.

As we go deeper into the Dead Girl world, we’re greeted with raw, dark tones and wide-angle lenses. Longer lenses will be used to highlight the romantic ideals we open with; wider lenses will be used to expose the truth. The color red will be used to signify Belle’s descent, a growing force throughout the film.

The soundtrack will have an original score with a pulse-pounding, eerie, yet distinctly feminine tone, as if Billie Eilish were tasked with composing the score for a thriller.

The Budget

Our entire budget for pre-production, production, and post-production is $25k. We have already raised $10k from private investors, and have decided to open up a crowdfunding campaign to help us raise another $10k. The final $5k will also come from private investors.

Here is where your money will go:

PRODUCTION

Production costs include cast, crew, locations, food, travel, equipment, and more. Below is a visual breakdown of the costs of production.



POST-PRODUCTION

Post-Production costs include the editor, colorist, sound editor, composer, PR, festivals, and more. Below is a visual breakdown of the costs of post-production.

If we exceed our budget, any extra contributions will go toward that final $5k of our budget, so please feel free to contribute even after we’ve reached our goal.

Timeline & Plan

As you know, we have already attached the majority of our team members, and plan to have the entire film financed by the end of November.

From December - January 2025, we will complete the rest of pre-production. This includes finding our locations, planning out our shot lists, making production design choices, rehearsing with the actors, and all other logistics that go into planning a film shoot.

In February 2025, we will go into production. With a 10 page script, we will be able to shoot the film in 2 days on location in Los Angeles.

From March - June 2025, we will be in post-production. This includes editing the material that we shot in production, having a composer come in to create music for the film, sound editing, and VFX. If you purchased the Early Digital Download or Digital Download + BTS Reel incentive, you will receive the link to both at the end of this post-production process, over a year before it will be available publicly.

From July - December 2025, once the film has been completed, we will commence festival applications. In order to get the film seen by as many people as possible, we will be broad in our application approach. Much like applying to colleges, we will apply to our safeties, our targets, and our reaches in terms of festival prestige and acceptance rate.

Finally, in 2026, the film will premiere. Our aim is to premiere at a major film festival like Tribeca or SXSW to bring maximum press to the film and create higher chances for attracting industry attention to a feature. This short is a proof of concept, meaning that its based on a feature-length script. By performing well on the festival circuit, we hope to open doors for funding opportunities for the feature. We cannot share the film publicly until its festival run is complete, so we strongly encourage you to purchase the Early Digital Download incentive if you wish to watch the film next Summer.

And then in 2027, we can hopefully start the process of getting the feature film made!

Thank you so much for your support on this project. Without backers like you, independent short films that are crucial to starting the careers of young filmmakers would never get made. Please consider re-posting the social media graphics linked here on your story to spread the word about our crowdfunding campaign, and make sure to tag @DeadGirlsFilmHQ on Instagram or @DeadGirlsFilm on TikTok when you do.