In college, my thesis film was a docufiction about an ambitious filmmaker trying to tell a story about a struggling town and its residents. The film explored themes of artistic intention and subjectivity. Following graduation in 2024, my peers/professors encouraged me to continue working in this mode, which involves numerous location scouts and castings with non-actors before writing a script. For Palm, rather than focus on the themes mentioned above, I focused on an overlooked yet crucial job in a climate-threatened city. The allure and iconography of palm trees in LA were the genesis for this project.