Pond

After looking more into the three ideas I finally decided to pick 'Pond' for my final film idea.  I was drawn to the fact that I always love the more unusual characters in film and books, such as Golem from Lord of the Rings, and ever since I was a young child I have been fascinated by the fantasy creatures such as fairies and mermaids, and general creatures of nature rather than man made such as Frankenstein's monster.

I was also drawn to the idea that from my research there seems to be hardly any none-pretty female creatures.  They're bodies are usually perfect and slim.  As such I could find zero swamp/pond creatures there were female, the closest I could find was the King Arthur tale of Lady of the Lake, but she is described as a beautiful maiden.  If I was to create a swamp/pond creature I would like her to not be beautiful, if one was to life in such an environment chances are they wouldn't look stunning.  I also don't want her to be completely human, humanized but not human.


I am still stuck on the general plot of the film.  So far the story is of two sisters who don't get on too well and both have different interests and views on life.  They come across a swamp creature deep within a forest.
I want it to be clear that from the beginning of the film, the sisters do not get on simply for their differences in personality and their age gap, but at the end their family values help them overcome the danger that threatens their lives.
I want my film to have a mystical feel about it and the creature's home (a small deep dark swamp in the middle of the forest) to be dangerous but a beautiful utopia.
One of the focuses of my film will be the character performance, the way the characters interact with each other and behave but with no dialogue.
Story wise, so far I have the sisters accidentally come across this swamp creature and that the creature pulls the youngest sister into the water to show her her beautiful home. Although the sister is amazed by the creature's beautiful home she can't stay long under the water and struggles from the creature's grasp for air.

How to end it?

In a way the ending is one of the most important parts as that is usually were the message/moral lies.
Once the sister tries to struggle the creature doesn't understand why she wants to leave so badly and that humans can't breathe underwater, therefore the sister begins to drown. I'm not sure whether the older sister should save her or the swamp creature should?

My first ending idea was the swamp creature eats human children as a treat but the younger sister discovers children skeletons at the bottom of the creature's home but then I wasn't sure how to end that? Do they kill the creature? Do they trap it forever? And overall I don't think I could squeeze that much into a 3 min film.

I think I would prefer for the creature to be misunderstood and just wanting company.  Basically the creature wants what the sisters have but don't appreciate, a family.    


Here are my first rough character concepts for the swamp creature (I have no idea why there are lines going through the pictures? Blogger error?)

I'm still not 100% on if the pond creature is a good or bad creature? As this does effect her design,  I also have made her too pretty and model like in some pictures, more research is needed on animals to make her seem less human.