A cinematic proposal
The
Yay
A Bay Area visual lookbook
Gold teeth, gloss tips, sideshow smoke. A love letter to the Bay — and an invitation to the woman at its center.
Genre — Coming-of-age drama + mild comedy
The Bay is about five Asian American girls — "5-foot-giants" — overthrowing the patriarchy by unapologetically being themselves. With the world at their fingertips, they realize navigating the changes of their city, culture, and identity is not as easy as it seems.
What will stay intact? What will break? Who will they become? Does anybody leave whole? And most importantly — will they remain true to who they are?
Welcome to the Yay Area.
It's Insecure + Euphoria, with mild hits of All American and Entourage.
Hyphy, but make it couture.
Our Bay isn't a postcard. It's the Bay Bridge at golden hour seen from an Oakland rooftop, the burnt rubber of a sideshow, the glint of a grill that says exactly where you're from. Every frame treats regional detail like high fashion.
Grill Gold
Coliseum Green
Oxblood Gloss
Asphalt
Fog Cream
THE BAY is The Debut for a new generation. Same raw DNA, real budget this time. Five girls out of the Bay — Vietnamese, Filipino, Khmer, Chamorro, biracial — raised in the America nobody puts on a poster. Daughters of boat people and overseas workers, who crossed an ocean so these girls could grow up loud.
This isn't Fresh Off the Boat. It isn't Bling Empire. Nobody's translating what Lola said. No Disney third act where the trauma resolves over dinner.
It's raw.
It's gully.
It's unapologetic.
— as awkward and uncomfortable as growing up actually is. The cast and crew will reflect that, in front of and behind the camera.
Close & tactile
Macro on skin, metal and lacquer. We feel the texture before we see the face.
Overhead geometry
Drone frames turn the city into graphic marks — tire tracks as typography.
Golden-hour only
Warm skin against cool water. No flat daylight, no grey filters.
Jaylene
The Protagonist
"She didn’t ask the Bay for permission. She just made it look the way it feels."
Every ensemble has a center of gravity. Someone the others orbit without being told to. In the Bay, that’s Jaylene — the choreographer who built a stage out of a neighborhood, and a family out of whoever showed up to rehearsal. Five girls. One pulse.
This isn’t an audition. There’s no one else on the list. The role, the choreography, the producer credit — all of it was built with you in it. We’re not asking you to become someone. We're asking you to bring exactly who you are.
The girls
Green, gold, blue, chrome and leather — the cast already lives in the palette.
Pages from the world
Now that you've met them — the locked pilot pages. How the night ignites, and the backyard where the whole plan gets named.
INT. JAYLENE'S HOUSE – BATHROOM – NIGHT
Black. Then a click – a bathroom light, buzzing on.
Close on ritual.
A lash, held on a fingertip, pressed to a lid. The blink after. An earring – small gold hoop – threaded and clicked shut. A tooth gem, blue, pressed onto a canine and catching the light like it has somewhere to be.
Gloss dragged slow across a bottom lip. Contour, three shades, blended out with the side of a hand. An edge brush laying baby hairs in perfect swoops along a hairline, one stroke, two, a spray of holding gel that fogs the mirror.
Five girls. One bathroom. One mirror economy.
Tools pass hand to hand without anyone looking – a pit crew that's done this a hundred Fridays. A wand handed off before the sentence asking for it is finished. A spot on the counter cleared before the hip needs it.
EXT. JAYLENE'S HOUSE – BACKYARD – LATER THAT NIGHT
Hard cut from the loudest room in Oakland to the quietest.
A fire pit. String lights. Crickets. A dog barking three yards over, then giving up.
The whole world in their hands an hour ago – and this is where they chose to bring it.
The spread is deeply unglamorous and deeply correct. A tía-recipe pot on the patio table, still warm. Hot Cheetos. Boba half-melted in the cups. A store-bought tres leches with one fork already standing in it like a flag.
Comfort food. Not content food.
OLIVIA – the girl with three alarms – is in a full sleeping bag PLUS a blanket by the fire. Cocooned like a burrito with a skincare routine. Only her face out, and her face is annoyed at being warm.
An invitation
Jaylene, the Yay is calling.
Let's talk. No pressure, just the story and a seat at the table.