Blue Summer
Written & Directed by Mike Ambs
Logline
A gruesome discovery in the fields of an abandoned theme park upset the quiet, small-town longings of a young girl as she watches her family, her community, and her grip on reality unravel in the aftermath.
Synopsis
There’s a forgotten theme park about an hour west of Detroit full of old west saloons, life-sized cement dinosaurs, and rusted-over water slides; it borders the west-shoreline of Devil’s Lake (yes, that is the Lake’s real name), and looks out across a small-town that once thrived from the midwest tourism. It's a surreal, isolating place to grow up.
Josephine (Jo) is a quiet, imaginative girl caught up in her last summer before freshman year at Manitou High when the body of a young woman is discovered in a field, revealing a violent, mysterious side of her sleepy small town.
Jo and her three friends (Dani, Ryan, and Shane) find themselves on the outside looking in of a disturbing murder/disappearance that unravels the isolated community; there are no clues for the four young friends to follow, no insights into the escalating police investigation; only their youthful imaginations combined with a new, profound sense of paranoia. The idea that something, someone in their town is a killer.
Even in her own home, Jo feels a growing coldness. All her life, Jo's parents have attempted to shelter her from upsetting truths - this summer is no different. Her parents make every effort to hide an abusive, unrepairable marriage, all while pretending the gruesome discovery never happened. All of which only fuels a growing need for Jo to seek answers elsewhere, even if it means putting herself in harm’s way.
'Blue Summer' marks a loss of innocence, a loss of "home." A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a murder mystery that explores what it means to see the world and people around you as complicated, flawed, even dangerous. It is a story grounded in actual events, seen through the eyes of an imaginative young girl.
Casting Call
Searching for local non-professional actors for the roles of —
Jo
Josephine has lived in the sleepy mid-west town of Manitou since the age of 3; she and her best-friend, Dani, are about to enter their freshman year of high school together. Jo comes from a quiet home - her mother is religious (very involved with the church in town), her dad is distant (often working late or hiding away in the garage), her older brother (who used to be very close to Jo growing-up) is now out-of-state for college.
Jo is rapidly forming her own strong ideas about herself and the world around her. When Jo personally makes a gruesome discovery in the fields surrounding Devil’s Lake, it sets into motion a series of internal traumas she is not yet emotionally-equipped to make sense of. Jo, Dani, Shane, and Ryan spend the summer looking from the outside-in on a murder mystery that shapes an informative time during their lives, and changes the way they see the world and people around them.
Ryan
Ryan is spending the summer with his dad in Manitou (he lives during the school year with his mom in California). His parents have been separated for as long as he can remember, but this is his first time in the Manitou area after recently relocating out of Detroit.
Dani
Dani and Jo have been best friends for as long as either can remember. They’ve done everything together over the years; from their classes, to softball, to church events with family. This summer marks the first hints of their interests and personalities drifting apart.
Shane
Shane and Dani are madly in love with one-another, and as a result Shane is spending more and more time with the usual duo as they begin their summer. Shane is all of 110 pounds soaking-wet, but he is desperate to be a star on the football team to impress his family.
Mood Board
Mood Mixtape
The soundtrack for ‘Blue Summer’ is heavily influenced by the horror/suspense films of the late 80s. This decision is not strictly stylistic, it is rooted in the growing paranoia of the four friends and town at large, the film sounds like the characters feel.
Director’s Statement —
Many elements within 'Blue Summer' draw from personal memories.
The freshman who jumped from her roof, a rope around her neck as her parents slept inside. The junior who slammed his motorbike into the creek, dying on impact as the sounds of a summer carnival carried on without him. The unassuming lake-house that hid several bodies in a shallow grave just under the bedroom window.
With 20 years of hindsight, I look back now at the young, smiling faces in our Class of 2000 photo and see a group of strangers ill-equipped to understand these shared traumas.
The painfully-small town I called home was (and still is) surrounded by a dozen road-side attractions: Prehistoric Forest, Stagecoach Stop, Mystery Hill, to name a few, all of which saw their best days in the mid-50s. It is a place that, for some, feels safe, for others, suffocating.
Like most children of the 80s, the world around me was shaped through the eyes of Richard Donner and Spielberg, much of my perspective was influenced by the idea of the young hero. The losers kill the clown; the goonies find the treasure; the bookworm saves the Empress.
These films helped to heighten my quiet, uneventful town as a place that could, at any moment, become the center of a great adventure. If I only looked close enough. This was the fantasy world.
In the real world, major events happened outside of my control or immediate-understanding. People I loved passed away. Parents divorced. Childhood-homes sold. The more beyond-my-control real life felt, the deeper I dug into fantasy.
Investigating strange rumors of lights racing silently between the trees before disappearing over the very same creek-bed. Camp-side stories of a young girl running barefoot away from approaching headlights in the dead of night. The slow realization that the quiet, sprawling farmland I knew so well was home to strangers with violent histories in faraway lands.
'Blue Summer' brings these two worlds together. A community seen through the eyes of four young friends who believe they can band together to save their town from an unknown killer, only to feel blindsided by traumatic-events outside of their grasp; events that leave deep emotional scars, and shape who they become during the most informative years of their life.
— Mike Ambs
Outline
We’d love to hear from you! Additional materials for ‘Blue Summer’ can be requested below.
Note — these materials are intended for people interested in a producing capacity. General inquiries can be found here.
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