On Guard is a dramatic sports film set in the world of saber fencing, but it is primarily a character study. Jaime is an unstable and demanding young woman who is never satisfied with herself. Jaime was the star of her club until a new competitor made his way there. For months she tried to beat him but never could. Jaime demands perfection of herself. The only way she feels validation is if she can perform at fencing. Everything else is secondary, from her relationships to her happiness. This new competitor, Taylor, is everything she is not. Friendly, relaxed, naturally talented. He can talk to anyone and attempts to talk to everyone. Jaime is closed off, and angry. In an attempt to spark a new friendship, Taylor reaches out to Jaime, offering to fence one-on-one after hours.

Our story begins one month after that text, once Jaime feels ready to accept this challenge. She finally agrees and is on a mission. She has to prove that Taylor isn't better than her once and for all. Will she be able to beat Taylor? Will she let her guard down and accept a potential friendship with her greatest rival? That you have to find out. Our goal is for the audience to better understand Jaime by the end of the film, the psychology behind her behavior, and how futile her mission is. It is a story about obsession, expectation, and self-hatred, all under the surface of one simple bout.

On Guard is largely inspired by my experience as a saber fencer throughout middle school and high school. I spent years as a competitive fencer constantly held back by my psychology. I always put too much emphasis on the results without paying any mind to the process that would get me there, and that resulted in frustration and a lack of fulfillment, taking away from the joy that the sport had provided. This behavior is reflected in Jaime and is what makes this story such a personal one that I feel I have to tell.

Sports psychology is not a subject that is often discussed in sports movies when it is a subject that is ripe for exploration. The motivations behind why you chase success in a certain sport inform how you approach performing the sport in the first place. It is a fascinating connection between mind and body that should be given more attention. Being an athlete of any kind is just as much about mental strength along with physical strength. While most sports films are about inspirational stories about perseverance or teamwork, I wanted to make a film that explored another side of an athlete's mentality.

We are taking aesthetic and story inspirations from other tales of obsession and inner conflict.

Raging Bull is one of the greatest sports films ever made not because of its focus on showing good boxing but for how it portrays its main character Jake Lamotta. The way Scorsese shoots the boxing scenes is our primary influence on how we will be shooting the fencing sequences of our film. They are intimate, dynamic, and fast-paced. Quick cuts followed by sweeping shots to take in the environment, long close-ups of the main character his head completely in the game. Raging Bull is the prime example of purposeful sports filmmaking, and that is the bar that we are reaching for.

Whiplash is an intense character study that gets right down to the why of what drives people to obsession. While Andrew Neiman is a character reference for Jaime, the filmmaking behind it is also a source of inspiration. The way that the jazz performance scenes are shot, very quick and precise inserts followed by illustrating the physical toll the performance is taking on the performers. This is the emotion we are trying to capture, the speed precision, and intensity inherent in fencing, coupled with the personal effects it has on our characters.

FX's The Bear writes its characters with such complexity and depth, and the way that these characters come into conflict is fascinating to behold. There are all the times when they are arguing while trying to do something else, often cooking, but then there are the quieter times when two characters stop when they are doing and just listen to each other. The background sound goes out, the cameras get closer, and everything disappears except the emotion that the actors are communicating. That's what we want to achieve in between the fencing sequences, while Jaime and Taylor are talking to each other.

This film serves as my thesis project as a film student at Elon University. The two things that we are lucky enough to have access to are the camera equipment that we need to shoot the film and the incredible actors attending Elon as acting BFA students. We have already cast two incredible performers to play Jaime and Taylor who will bring authenticity, depth, and gravitas to their roles. However, they did not have a background in fencing before preparing for this film.

To me, it was more important to get performers who could bring authenticity and truth to their characters than it was to get performers who already knew how to fence. But I am uncompromising in the fact that I want the actors to be the ones doing the fencing in the film. So, we have begun training both of the actors in fencing and by the time we shoot, they will be ready to fence on camera. Naturally, a few months of practice won't make anyone competition-ready, which is why we are planning for very specific choreography and running the actors through exactly what they need to know. We will have very specific shots planned so we know what pieces we need to put this film together. This choreography is planned not just to showcase what the sport of fencing can look like, but to illustrate the thinking, emotions, and strategies of both characters to further show what these people are like to the core.

The plot has been constructed to have a very simple structure. It follows two characters in one location throughout one night, just under an hour. It's almost in real-time. This simplicity on the writing side will allow us to focus on what matters, which is portraying complex characters poignantly and subtly and allowing the craft of filmmaking to do the heavy lifting. This is a film that is meant to immerse the audience, to get them to stop thinking about the fact that they are watching a film and more peering into the life of two small people.

We are aiming to shoot in February of 2025, but we cannot do that if we don't have the funds we need to make this film a possibility. We have to pay for a fencing studio that we can shoot at, borrow the fencing equipment that the actors will use, and pay for the food that our crew will eat. Filmmaking is a mammoth effort every single time no matter what the scale of your film is. It takes a lot of time and effort and we need the support of crowdfunding to give us a chance of making a quality film.

The film is premiering at Elon's BFA Showcase, where my classmates and I will debut the culmination of all our work and learning in four years of filmmaking. From there, we will submit to several prestigious film festivals, targeting those that focus on student films, sports films, or dramas. We plan on submitting to festivals such as the RiverRun Film Festival in Winston-Salem North Carolina, notable for being an academy award qualifying film festival. That means that if we get an award for our film at one of those film festivals, we have a chance to send this project to the student academy awards. That is the quality bar that we are reaching for.

Our budget accounts for the minimum amount of money that we need to make this film a reality, however there are ways that we could increase the quality of the final product with more funding. Our stretch goals include getting more customized fencing equipment for the actors to use. This will allow us to bring more specificity to their characters by having sabers and gloves with specific colors to further differentiate the two characters while they are fencing, and give them jackets and padding that are specifically tailored to their physicalities.

Thank you in advance for your support,

Will Calkins

Writer and Director of On Guard Short Film

To stay updated on the project, follow our Seed&Spark page or on Instagram @onguard.film