Planning

this page includes:

Initial Overview
Production Company/Logo
Plot&Story
Moodboard
Script
Storyboard
Animatic
Equipment Needed
BBFC Rating/Target Audience
Marketing&Distribution
Promotion
Proposal
Pitch/feedback

Crew
Props&Costumes
Character Casting
Auditions/Selection
Talent Release
Location Recce
Location Selection
Location Release
Risk Assessment
Shooting Schedule
Shot List
Equipment
Budget

Initial Overview

Our crew is planning and producing a Horror Thriller,

and these were our initial ideas for the two-minute narrative:

Idea No.2

A girl is lying down on her bed, about to fall asleep. She hears a noise which is from a murderer. During the two minutes, the girl searches for the murderer holding a frypan as her weapon, and the man with a bat to hit her. Two minutes finish as the man and the girl see each other, and the man smiles creepily.

Idea No.4

Vincent has died due to falling down the stairs. When he wakes up, he finds out that he is in a locked, tattered room. In there, he finds out marks of past owners; fingernail scratches, bloody fingerprints, and a letter about the rules he must follow to survive.

Idea No.1

A girl does her self-learning for after-school activities. After that, she realizes that all of her classmates have gone home and now she is alone in the school. While going downstairs, she realizes that there is someone who is trying to follow her back. She runs away to the gate but realizes that the bodyguard has gone home and locked the school gate. As she turns around, a knife stabs her stomach and it starts to bleed. The next morning, the police come to her school to get the criminal. Unfortunately, the only evidence left was a white mask.

Idea No.3

Alice always likes to play in the playground next to her house, and she always sees a boy whenever she goes out. One day, she finally asks him why he is always in the playground. And for once, she notices on the ground, he has no shadow. The boy smiles and points toward a small memorial at the end of the road.

Idea No.5

Alice meets a friend at a park and decides to play with her at the park every weekend. However, the reality is that the friend is a spirit that is stuck in the park, which is the place where she died. Alice, who doesn’t know that shocking truth, doesn’t doubt her friend's identity.

Production Company&Logo

I chose 3 production companies' logos that I think are attractive and wrote the parts I like:

1. Dimension Films

What I like about: I like the simple and bold font which makes me focus on the production company name. Also the composition of the words 'Dimension' and 'Films' looks bold and unique.

2. Walt Disney

What I like about: I like the cursive font for the production company name, and the small drawing of a castle which is simple but shows Disney's identity.

3. Universal Studio

What I like about: I like how the production name fits between the Earth drawing, as well as the simple font.

Our crew came up with this mindmap of the production company names we have thought about:

Our group came up with this mindmap of the production company names we have thought about:

As this name can be used with the abbreviation "SOS", which fits well with our genre, we've decided to go with my idea:

"Sound of Silence".

First Draft

Second Draft

Our crew came up with these drafts of our production company's logo, and the third one became our final:

Our crew decided to go with this logo because the abbreviation 'SOS' is easily identifiable, the font is neat and easy to read, and the use of an eye is imaginative and can be our crew's identity.

Final logo

Plot&Story

At first, we decided on Minh Chau's narrative as it got the most votes among the 12 initial ideas.

However, our crew decided to change the narrative after filming the film opening for the old plot, due to a reason that the old narrative's message being difficult to convey to the audience only within 2 minutes, such as the idea of 'Duc' not having a shadow. Therefore, we had to change the narrative to my idea and film our opening again. Here are both the old and final versions of our narrative.

Old Narrative

Title: Trapped in Deception

The general idea of the old narrative:

2015 Vietnam. Phuong likes to hang out with a boy named Duc who always stays in the playground next to her house. Every time she meets him, he always is in the same clothing. And then she finds out that Duc is a spirit stuck in the playground. Duc asks Phuong to fulfill his final request to rest peacefully, and throughout the process, Phuong finds out the real reason behind Duc’s death, which was masked as a car accident is that Duc’s family’s rival company wanted him dead as a revenge.

The first two minutes of the old narrative:

Several scenes of Phuong hanging out with Duc with a radio news about an unfortunate car accident resulting in a death of a young boy. One day, she finally asks him why he is always in the playground and wearing the same outfit. And for once, she notices that he has no shadow on the ground. Duc smiles and points towards a small memorial at the end of the road, adorned with a bouquet and a framed picture of the boy. Startled, she panics and runs away. Thinking she has put sufficient distance between them, she turns back only to find Duc standing right in front of her. From a distance, we see Phuong screaming alone, revealing that Duc is only visible to her.

Phuong:

13 years old
Curious
Imaginative
Compassionate
Was always left alone by her busy parents, which forced her to seek friends in her neighborhood.

Duc:

13 years old
Calm
Observant
Perceptive
Died in a car crash and has since been stuck in the place where he died.
His last wish is to find the real reason behind his death.

Final Narrative

Title: Trapped in Deception

The general idea of the final narrative:

2022 Vietnam. Phuong meets a girl named Thuy at a park near her house. Phuong thinks the girl is nice, so they quickly become friends. However, due to an unknown reason, Thuy is found dead in the river at the park. One week later, Phuong unknowingly hangs out with the ghost of Thuy. After Thuy has revealed her death to Phuong, the two children decide to discover the truth hidden behind her death. As the ending approaches, the real criminal that pushed Thuy to the river is revealed: the heir of Thuy’s parent’s rival company as revenge. Along the way to discovering the truth, Phuong gets targeted to be assassinated due to the reason that the rival knows she is catching on. In the end, Phuong also gets pushed to the same river by the heir, signifying that the truth will never be revealed.

The first two minutes of the final narrative:

The film starts with a 25-second new report about Thuy's death in the river at the park. 1 week passed after the new report. Phuong's dad takes Phuong to the park where Phuong and Thuy played before Thuy died. Dad doesn’t know Thuy is the girl he saw in the news report. Phuong, who also does not know about Thuy's death, unknowingly plays football at the park with the ghost of Thuy, who is only visible to Phuong. Thuy accidentally kicks the ball too far and knocks the frame of herself in the memorial next to the river. As Phuong goes to pick the ball up for Thuy, she notices that the face in the frame is Thuy, and gets horrified. As the 2 minutes end, Thuy says "Want to know the truth?".

Phuong:

13 years old
Curious
Imaginative
Compassionate

Thuy:

13 years old
Athletic
Observant
Perceptive
Died in a murder and has since been stuck in the place where she died.
Her last wish is to find the real culprit.

As our final narrative requires us to cast two young actors, we have decided to open an audition for year 7~ year 9 students in our school. We are aware of the responsibilities that we have to take and plan to get permission from the teachers and parents.

For the old narrative, we have decided to pick an old playground as our setting because it will suit to the genre and context more than a modern/clean playground.

For the final narrative, we have decided to pick a clean park that has a river as our setting.

As both narratives do not contain any violence and only convey a psychological sense of horror thriller, we considered this narrative as appropriate and achievable to film. We believe that there will be no harm or violence during the process of filming.

Moodboard

Location (old narrative)

Characters (old plot)

Mise-en-scene (old narrative)

Location (final narrative)

Characters (final narrative)

Mise-en-scene (final narrative)

Characters (old narrative)

Script

These are the scripts of the old narrative:

First Draft

untidy
not in formal structure
gramar mistakes
unnatural wordings

Second Draft

formal structure
few unnatural wordings
no scene title

Final

formal structure
natural wordings
detailed

These are the scripts of the final narrative:

First Draft

character name is 'Duc' instead of 'Thuy' because we changed the gender of the character.
few grammar and spelling mistakes
unnatural wordings

Second Draft

few structure mistakes
gender not changed
some lines are unclear

Final

character name and gender are changed
no grammar or spelling mistakes
correct structure used

Storyboard

These are the storyboards of the old narrative:

First Draft

It is messy.
Difficult to identify a few drawings and words.
Few parts lack detail.

Second Draft

We converted our storyboard digitally to make it visually appealing and to make it easier to convert it to animatics.
We added the production logo.

Final

We finalized our storyboard by fixing some unnatural transitions and vague drawings of the characters' compositions. We also added some more technical elements to ensure it's in detail.

These are the storyboards of the final narrative:

First Draft

It is messy.
Difficult to identify a few drawings and words.
Many parts lack detail.

Second Draft

Did not include the production logo.
Much clearer to view.
More detailed drawings and descriptions.

Final

We finalized our storyboard by adding our production logo in the corner and fixed some drawings as well.

Animatic

Old Narrative - First Draft

Undetailed storyboard.
Meets the film's length.

Old Narrative - Final

Meets the film length.
More in detail.

Final Narrative - Final

Meets the film length.
Includes transitions.

Equipment Needed

Camera
Tripod
Clapperboard
Light diffuser
Wireless mics
Premiere Pro
After Effects

BBFC Rating & Target Audience

Our film is available for age 12+, as our film does not include any sort of
physical violence, or cursing words. Also, the age of our characters is young (13 years old),
therefore young audiences can afford to watch our film with no worries.

Content
There is no offensive language, violence, or any sexual content involved in our film.

Themes
Our film includes an easy narrative and an appropriate theme for young audience.

Intensity
The film does not include any sort of disturbing scenes.

Revised Target Audience

As our film includes young actors and our narrative does not include any gorey scenes or strong action scenes, it is more suitable to have a young audience base.

Age Range: 12 - 18 years old

Gender: both Male & Female

Income: low-income class and middle-income class

BBFC Rating:

Marketing & Distribution

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Robert Eggers - "The Witch" (2015)

Budget: $4 million

Target Audience: adult viewers who enjoy atmospheric and psychological horror

Marketing Method: their official websites, social media accounts, and online platforms to release promotional content

Distribution: DVD, streaming platforms, and cinemas.

Jennifer Kent - "The Babadook" (2014)

Budget: $2 million

Target Audience: adult viewers who enjoy psychological horror and thought-provoking storytelling.

Marketing Method: Relied on festival exposure and trailers in social media

Distribution: cinemas, VOD, and streaming platforms.

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Our crew will promote our film on social media as our target audience has a young age range of 12-18. Nowadays, young people rely on social media, therefore they can easily get to know our film. However, our promotion method could not reach out to some of our potential audience if they do not rely much on social media.

Our film will be distributed to the online streaming platform (Netflix) and in cinemas. As some young people tend to prefer watching films with their devices, we have chosen both ways to distribute our films.

Promotional Methods

As our target audience is the young generation, we will select Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube advertising methods. This will effectively promote our film because nowadays young people rely on the internet so much.

This will include:

An introduction to our actors
Poster
A short trailer

Proposal

Since the three of us are huge fans of the thriller and horror genres and have seen a lot of films in these categories, we have decided to focus on these themes for our film. We have chosen to subvert the genre convention of "intense suspension" with "ominous undertones" and "amazing protagonists" who must "overcome obstacles". Our target audience is between the ages of 12 and 18, so to appeal to this demographic, we chose to create an easy-to-follow narrative with characters who are similar to the audience's age range to give the audience a sense of familiarity. Using the psychographic audience theory as a guide, we concentrated on comprehending the values and emotions of the audience to make a film that appeals to them. The setting of 2022 in our film forms consensus with the target audience as they are living in the same generation. The tragic conclusion of our film, which ties back to our original title of "Trapped in Deception," symbolizes the never-ending cycle of deception that individuals fall victim to and draws viewers in. The combination of horror elements and young protagonists is unusual and unique.

Since many young Vietnamese have Netflix subscriptions and are likely to watch newly released films that Netflix recommends, we feel that using Netflix as our distributor is the best option. However, we also want to release our film in theaters; we don't want to restrict it to just internet streaming. We estimated that the total budget for the film, including distribution costs, would be about 150 million VND. We feel a national release would be ideal given our setting and characters. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok will be used for marketing purposes to promote our film. Since young Vietnamese people use these social media platforms frequently, our promotion will more easily reach our intended audience base. To create anticipation before the official release, we would upload the movie's trailer to YouTube and post it on all social media sites.

Pitch/Feedback

The Pitch of the Old Narrative

This is the video of our pitch for the financier to select our film. We received lots of feedback from our peers. They were positive overall; many compliments were about our detailed plan and ideas. However, one thing that some students mentioned about was the age range of our target audience. They commented that our previous age range (13-25) was too broad and unclear. After reading all the feedback, our group finalized the age range of our target audience to 12-18.

Crew

Ye Eun Park

Editing

Tri Nhan Ngo

Sound & Camera

Minh Chau Dang

Camera

Props & Costumes

Old Narrative

Phuong's T-shirts (characters/vibrant color/childish design)
Phuong's Shorts
Duc's plain white shirt
Duc's shorts
Frame with Duc's image
White Bouquet

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Final Narrative

Phuong's white T-shirt
Phuong's Shorts
Thuy's plain gray shirt
Thuy's shorts
Dad's red shirt
Dad's black T-shirt
Dad's black pants
Frame with Thuy's image
Dried Bouquet
Football

Characters Casting

Old Narrative

We asked a few young students who are interested in acting in our school, for them to be our actors.

Fortunately, 2 students out of the 4 we asked accepted and entered our audition.

Final Narrative

We asked a few more students interested in acting in our school, to choose the actor of "Thuy".

Fortunately, one student out of the 5 we asked accepted and entered our audition.

Audition / Selection

Old Narrative

Final Narrative

Our Actors

Old Narrative:

Tran Nhat Anh NGUYEN

Age: 13

Role applying: Duc

Experience: attended drama lessons in school

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Thao Vy Ngo

Age: 13

Role applying: Phuong

Experience: Performed in a school musical "Rock of Ages"

As a crew, we chose Thao Vy as 'Phuong' and Nhat Anh as 'Duc' for the old narrative. Our selection is because they are the same as the characters' age range. Moreover, their acting and confidence satisfied all of us, and as they had few acting experiences, we considered them the best actors to work with.

Final Narrative:

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Ha Phuong Chau Nguyen

Age: 14

Role applying: Thuy

Experience: Performed in a school musical "Rock of Ages"

Thao Vy Ngo

Age: 13

Role applying: Phuong

Experience: Performed in a school musical "Rock of Ages"

Emma Goldie

Age: 36

Role applying: News Anchor

Experience: Performed in school shows and tv shows

Tri Nhan Ngo

Age: 16

Role applying: Dad

Experience: Performed singing in school assemblies

As a crew, we again chose Thao Vy as 'Phuong', Phuong Chau as 'Thuy', Emma Goldie as the 'News Anchor', and Tri Nhan as the 'Dad' for the final narrative. All actors are skillful, and has high confidence in performing. Based on their acting and performing experiences, our crew chose to go with these 4 actors.

Talent Release Form

Thao Vy Ngo

Tran Nhat Anh NGUYEN

Tri Nhan Ngo

Emma Goldie

Ha Phuong Chau Nguyen

Location Reece

Address: Song Da Building CT5 Me Tri

Useable: No (The owner didn't allow us to film.)

Advantage:

Lots of rides.
The Vietnam flag emphasizes the setting of our film.
Large enough to film an extremely long shot.
Has a river nearby which reduces travel time.

Disadvantage:

Sometimes children are playing.
There is a sign stuck on a wall which says '2023', this doesn’t fit our film's time set.

Address: VOV Me Tri

Useable: No (The playground got destroyed after we visited.)

Advantage:

Lots of rides.
Very large.
Surrounded by old buildings and cars.
Public space.

Disadvantage:

Lots of car parking around in the park, and entry can be dangerous.
No river nearby.

Address: Ng. Thì Nhậm kéo dài, Khu đô thị, Hà Đông, Hanoi City

Useable: Yes (The playground is a public space, therefore we do not need the location release form.)

Advantage:

Very large.
Fewer people visit.
The river is inside the park.
Has lots of playground equipment.

Disadvantage:

No disadvantages.

Location Selection

Our crew decided to film in our third option.

This location has a vast space for us to film in different areas to make our film look more visual, and this place has a small amount of people therefore it would be easier for us to film without distractions.

Location Release Form

As the place we have chosen is a public space, there is no owner for this place.

Risk Assessment