v0.2, 2026-09-04. Phase 2 deliverable, revised after the four-lens review (docs/reviews/2026-09-04-bible-review.md). Companion: characters.md.
Title: Manufactured Love Form: docuseries, 8 x 40 min (the trailer sells the season; only the trailer gets made) Platform: Bulu Original Documentary Series Logline: Nobody watches a dating show for the love story. Inside the third season of the villa hit Sunburn, the producers, handlers, editors, and one first-week PA explain exactly how they built every hookup, breakup, and villain the audience believed was real.
Premise in one paragraph. Kindling Media is shooting season 3 of Sunburn on a Mediterranean island. The streamer wants a villain by episode 3 and a couple to root for. The story department has already picked both. The problem is that the two contestants who actually fall in love are the two the plan needs apart. Over eight weeks the floor does what it is paid to do: a lie at 2 a.m., a spliced sentence, a bombshell aimed like a dart, a glass that never empties. The documentary crew is in the room for all of it, and everyone keeps talking.
The frame. The audience never sees the finished Sunburn. They see its production. Every interview is a producer, a PA, an editor, an exec, or the welfare lead in a chair. Contestants appear only as the machine sees them: the monitor wall, a raw ISO feed with a timecode burn-in, night-vision bedroom cams, a scene label typed into a log, a magnet headshot on a whiteboard. They never speak to our camera.
Tone rules.
Series spine (8 episodes, for the bible only). 1 Good TV (the plan on the whiteboard). 2 Casting (how the cast was chosen for what would break them). 3 The Shade (how the confessional gets its lines). 4 Heat Check (the spliced sentence). 5 The Bombshell (Skye is aimed). 6 Two A.M. (the lie). 7 The Burn (the couple comes apart on schedule). 8 Aftercare (the cast goes home; the crew wraps; the numbers are great).
Trailer plot, mapped to the R3 beat sheet.
Format. Twelve singles in a villa on Isla Cendra. Couples form and re-form at The Burn, a fire-pit recoupling every few nights. Uncoupled islanders are "burned" (dumped). Bombshells enter mid-season. Production messages arrive on show phones as a Heat Check ("I've got a Heat Check!"). The confessional is The Shade, a cabana with a lens and a producer's voice on a speaker. Prize: $200,000 to the final couple, split or stolen by public vote. Season 3 is in production; the machine is mature.
Real-world mapping (glossary terms). The Shade = Beach Hut. The Burn = recoupling / dumping at the fire pit. Heat Check = "I've got a text!". The Gallery = control room. Isla Cendra = Mallorca stand-in. Lockdown, chaperones, show phones with fake dates, two-drink limit and nosecco, magic pantry, camera hides, robo-cams, tannoy: all as documented in R1.
Look A: the show. White cantilever villa, coral and aqua plexiglass, neon script signs, palms. Daylight hard and warm, skin held golden. Night: string lights, fire-pit orange on faces, deep teal shadows. Wardrobe: saturated coordinated sets, no logos. Hidden-rig frames from high corners, slightly wide, nobody operating. Night vision: monochrome green-grey, grain, hot sheets. Confessional: single, eyes down the lens, bright soft frontal key, saturated patterned backdrop. (R2 style sheet.)
Sunburn brand. Anchor hues sky blue #5BB8E8 and sandy gold #E8B45B, coral accent #FF6F61. Logo: geometric sans with long ascenders rendered as refractive glass over footage. Secondary face: casual monolinear neon script for Heat Check text. Lower thirds: first name only, all caps, pastel plate, whoosh in.
Host. Tilly Marsh. Appears once in the trailer: recording The Burn speech to an empty fire pit with cue cards while the crew resets.
Production company. Kindling Media, London and LA. Crew jackets and hoodies carry a small "KINDLING" wordmark, flame-free, so the joke stays quiet.
Name and stance. Bulu, a streamer that would take a risk on this show. Hulu parody by shape and color family only.
Trade dress, kept distinct. Lowercase wordmark "bulu" in a rounded geometric sans (Outfit or Urbanist class, not Hulu's grotesque). Brand green #00B37E (jade; Hulu is #1CE783, a lighter mint). Ident: solid green field, wordmark drops in with a two-note sonic logo (low then high). Tagline on the end card: "bulu. it's all real."
End card chain (from R3 measurements). Title wordmark 3 s. "COMING SOON / ONLY ON bulu" 4 s. bulu ident 4 s. Optional post-ident stinger 2 shots. Hold 3 s.
Never. No Hulu, Netflix, or Peacock logo, sting, or watermark anywhere. No "Original" typography copied from a real service. Name check clear: docs/research/name-check.md.
Interview sets are Sunburn's own back rooms lit at a quarter level: the gallery, the edit suite, the wardrobe truck, the writers' room, a portacabin. One large soft key off-axis, shadow side to camera, background two to three stops under and cooler. Eyelines alternate sides between departments so they argue across cuts. Control room lit by monitor spill only, blue-white on faces, taped cables, whiteboard of magnet headshots behind. Villa footage quoted as evidence loses 30 to 40% saturation, gains contrast, and carries a monospaced timecode and camera ID. Lower thirds: white on black bar, name, role, tenure, static. (R2 style sheet.)