Foundation Portfolio: plan

Concept 

Title: Swing
Target audience: Mature students/people interested in thrillers about abductions

GENRE CONVENTIONS

Character: Through our film, we aim to reveal the suspense of the character through how she is dressed and what she is doing in the moment of when she gets distracted off through the woods. Having her playing with her toys or doing something normal and not unusual lets the audience think that nothing is going to happen to her. An advantage for creating suspense through our character is also by her being a young child. Audiences really don't intend for the first death or abduction to be a child, especially a young innocent child like our main character in our film.

Setting/Time: The filming of our short thriller film will take place during the evening time. We plan to film at this time because the golden hour and natural light from the late sun will help create that natural suspense we aim to send towards the audience when watching. We set to film at our main character's real house, this also helps our character to feel more normal when acting the suspenseful scenes because she will be reminded that this is her own home. The glow from the evening dusk time will bring suspense through it's shadows and stillness. This will also help create that dark shadow theme we will be looking for when filming our thriller. We have chosen our film 'Swing' to be shot in the woods because of the contrast of how safe and secure the little girl's home is to the space and feeling you feel when your in the woods. The are in the woods are more crowded, especially by the tall trees, and it becomes harder to see anyone following you or creeping up behind you. 

We looked at this video which helped set the idea of how we want the woods to look like or almost look like in our film:

Plot: Our film's plot involves a little girl as our main character. She is playing outside with her toys and things, and her mother tells her to not be too long outside and to not go into the bushes. She then ignores her mother's wishes, by getting distracted with her playing and wonders right into the bushes. She then sees a swing set, which was just swinging mysteriously by itself. She walks towards it and that is when dark shadows of a bigger figure shows. She notices, but ignores it. Until someone swipes her away from the scene. 

Props/Costumes: The props and costumes used for our film are all going to be related to the themes of suspense and darkness.  We intend for the colours of black or dark grey for the stalker/kidnapper that watches over the little girl, our main character. For the little girl in our film, we aim to have her wearing colours of brightness, usually pink or purple is what a young little girl would wear. But we want her to wear this just to symbolise that she is a young child. Same goes for the stalker in his dark black clothes, which will also help them hide in the dark shadows in the bushes/forest.

Filming/Editing choices: For our foundation portfolio, we will be aiming to use a lot of establishing shots and wide shots of the area where we are filming. We really want more of the naturalistic image of our scenes to help with the advance of suspense we aim to build throughout our film. 

Sound: The sound that will be added into our film in the background will contribute with the making of the suspense theme we aim for this film. We look to have some background effect sounds, especially for the establishing shot scenes. 

PLOT SYNOPSIS

Our film will be 2 minuets and 30 seconds. We aim to have a variety of different kinds of shots such as, a lot establishing shots to show how our scenery will be looking like, especially in ways to help create that suspense feeling we are looking at for our film. More shots in hand held movements, we are aiming to try use the camera in a hand held position to follow the area of the house around till we see the little girl playing with her toys outside. Using shots like these and more, we aim to show our thriller full of suspenseful, edgy themes through the slow movements of the camera. Almost as if we are the stranger following her into the woods even though we aren't. Our little girl as our main character will be sitting outside playing with her dolls and toys in the evening time, around 4-6:00. Her mother will then be shouting out to her to remind her that its almost getting dark and to not walk away into the bushes that is out of her sight. Our little girl will then start to get distracted by her playing with her toys that she starts to wonder off into the bushes without really realizing that she is disobeying her mothers wishes. At this moment, the sky will be darker but not too dark where its pitch black, we intend to film this during the late evening when the sun is just setting down and it has that dark "glowy" during the golden hour sky. She will then see a swing set that appears in her eyesight just in the middle of the woods, and that is the moment where shadows of a bigger figure is seen sneaking around near her, trying to get closer to her every time she takes a step closer to the swing set. We are looking into having this film have a slow pace, especially when filming it. This is just to create that eerie, abduction feeling for our audience watching.

CHARACTERS

Main characters:

Lily

• a 9 year old little girl
• acted by Libby Armstrong 
• her mother is also mentioned in this film
• Lily's outfit/costume in this film will have a lot of pink and "girly" colors just to show more of how she is and how her personality is. Through these colors we chose for her, this will help symbolize a clearer image of what kind of little girl she is and how innocent and young she is
• Her teddy/doll will also help symbolize her age and innocence to the world
• When she wonders off into the bushes, this also does help show to our audience of how much of an explorer she is as a young girl

Stalker

• a older man
• acted by 
• he is a character that is a very important part to this film
• he has no relation to Lily
• we necessarily have no name for our stalker
• he is first seen creeping up in his shadows behind Lily when she is wondering off into the woods on her own
• his outfit/costume will be all black. This will help represent his darkness and his deluded mindset

Minor characters: 

Lily's mother

• not an important character as much
• acted by Stephanie Armstrong 
• she is only seen when she is yelling out to Lily from the house to remind her to come inside soon because its starting to become dark and also to not walk into the woods especially all alone

Location

We will be filming at Libby's house. Around late evening time from 4-5pm or 5-6pm.

This is our location:

Story Board

Lighting

For the lighting of our film 'Swing' we have planned to shoot our filming during the dusk hours of the day, close to the late evening but not when it is too dark. We want the natural dark glow from the sky when we film, so it is still very clear enough to see through the camera what is going on because in our last film it was hard to capture some scenes properly due to the darkness.

This is what the golden hour looks like at our location of our film:

What also helped with the planning for lighting was this video suggested by Teacher Bianca:

Call Sheet

• Tiana: 02109113749
• Deborah: 0224693390
• Mackenzie: 02041196155
• Aunty Steph: 0212524746

Filming Equipment

For our film 'Swing' we will be using these products as a part of our filming equipment:

Camera:

Lighting kit:

Sound: