Succubus

By Natalie Grant

Evaluation Activity 1

1. This is an establishing shot. We used this simple shot for the opening titles as it allows the titles to happen but not distract the audience from anything that may be going on.
2. This shot shows Sophie looking relatively innocent although she is looking into the camera frame with menacing eyes. This relates to real thrillers as there is commonly a young girl in this genre of films as it gets the required response from the audience.
3. This shot is shown in the form of a flash back, this is quite common in thrillers because it gives a sense of loss and shows the audience how quickly situations can change.
4. In this shot Sophie is feeling the trees leaves as she walks past them. This shows Sophie as innocent and naive which makes the audience fear for her.
5. In this shot Natalie is lying on the ground pale and covered in blood, this relates to thriller conventions as it creates an enigma - who is she? what has happened? & why.
6. In this shot Sophie is walking through the garden. It could be said that she is exploring her surroundings, similar to how a child would.
7. This shot shows Natalie wearing a cross on a chain covered in blood. This has connotations to the religious side of thrillers. Religion is thought to keep people safe, the idea of not going to hell if your religious links in with this - Natalie is religious but something has killed her.
8. This shot is an over the shoulder shot of Sophie looking out over a forest, this follows connotations as forests are known to be isolated and spacious.
9. The shot includes a girl standing amongst the trees in the distance, this adds fear and enigma to this scene as the audience are unaware of who she is.
10. This shot uses a long low angle shot of Sophie standing at the top of the stairs, knife in her hand, twisting it on top of the cupboard door. She looks menacing and possessed which is common in psychological thrillers.
11. In this shot Sophie's movements are very fast and inhuman, this creates a fear of what have come over her.
12. The word 'Succubus' has been painted onto the wall in the background with blood. This is a convention of modern thrillers to have words and sentences scrawled onto the wall in blood.
13. The knife in Sophie's hand was the same knife that 'killed' her so this could be seen as twisted as later in the film she licks the knife. A knife being used does follow connotations as in most horrors/thrillers a knife is used, it is a popular weapon.

By Natalie Grant.

Evaluation Activity 2

This image shows Sophie in "Succubus" on the left and also Jennifer Check as played by Megan Fox in “Jennifer’s Body” on the right. The two characters are alike because they are both a ‘female demon’ that has returned after being killed and needs to kill people to stay alive. At the point shown in each movie here, the main character has been killed, as illustrated by the white dress which shows innocence then covered blood. The characters are different because in our thriller the character is overcome immediately whereas in Jennifer’s Body it takes a while for the demon to possess Jennifer. In our thriller, Sophie is killed in an abandoned house in an isolated place, and then finds her first victim straight afterwards. The gender representation in these photos are relative to the title of our thriller. A Succubus is a female demon that becomes possessed and in Jennifer's Body, we see an example of this. We used the idea in our thriller and this picture shows our attempt at the Succubus demon. Gender is important here because for it to be a 'Succubus' demon, it has to be female. Age is also important in this image as both of the roles are teenage girls, originally looking innocent. The colour of the dress shows innocence as it is white. This innocence is vital for the flashbacks to the party at the end of our clip as it shows Sophie laughing with a friend as if life was normal.

By Ben Marshall

Evaluation Activity 3

why not film4 why not independant budget ... popularity
research into summit and foxsearchlight.
By Sophie Tinkler

Evaluation Activity 4

Name: Alfie Bond

Age: 22

Likes: Rock music, comedy films, sitcom TV programmes, going out with friends.

Dislikes: Soaps, Glee, Katie Price, fake tanned people, Kerry Katona, Twilight & musicals

Bio: Loves going out with friends on a Friday night, always looking for a fun time. Always listens to classic rock music when at home, particularly 70’s & 80’s stuff. Works in the city after studying IT at A Level and works for a popular bank. Alfie likes going to the movies with his friends, he likes most thrillers, his favourites are the James Bond movies and Gone in 60 Seconds. We think that Succubus is the type of film that Alfie may like to go and see with his friends as it contains mild violence and it gives the audience a big thrill.

Name: Ruby Simpson

Age: 18

Likes: Going out with friends, clubbing, romantic comedies, watching tv & house music.

Dislikes: Football, indian food, rock music, needles & spiders.

Bio: Ruby is a fun-loving 18 year old that loves going out with friends after work. Ruby works at a supermarket having left college studying level 2 hairdressing. She's waiting to get a new job which would be in the city because she loves how busy it is, and the added perk of all the shops after work. Ruby likes going to the cinema on the odd occasion but she's not a regular visitor, when she goes the genres she typically watches are romantic comedy, animations and other generic movie types. We think that Ruby may see this movie with her friends as they may like to scare themselves for the thrill.

 

By Ben Marshall

Evaluation Activity 5

By Alex Parker

Evaluation Activity 6.

By Natalie Grant and Sophie Tinkler.

Evaluation 7 - Preliminary Task - Sophie and Natalie.

By Natalie Grant.

Evaluation 7 - Preliminary Task - Alex and Ben.

By Alex Parker and Ben Marshall.

Evaluation 7 - Succubus - Ben and Alex

By Ben Marshall and Alex Parker.

Evaluation 7 - Succubus - Sophie and Natalie.

By Natalie Grant and Sophie Tinkler.

Final Storyboard.

During filming we made numerous changes to our storyboard due to time issues and certain things seemed to suit the film better than the original idea. This is the final version of our storyboard of how we had it in the end.

Our Final Films Rating

We have chosen the rating of our final film to be a 15. This is because there is no use of bad language but there is violence shown. In our film you do not see the killing take place as we feel if you saw the killing it would take away the killing of Sophie’s character being an enigma, this is because she turned into a demon it makes the audience think the killer must have done something to her for this to happen. We also have a knife shown in a lot in our film and there is lots of blood. ‘Jennifer’s Body’ was a massive influence to our film, and this film is also rated 15 along with many other films in this genre, therefore the audience for this genre would know what to expect. As a group we felt that all of these reasons made our film unsuitable to be a 12 or 12A, however we also thought that all of these reasons were not gruesome enough to be an 18. Another reason it is not an 18 is because there is no nudity or sexual content as well as no bad language.

By Alex Parker

First cut of Succubus.

This is the first cut of our Thriller.

By Natalie Grant.

Our film poster.

Sophie and I went to the abandoned house during a double lesson to take pictures for the poster. We took allot of pictures using different rooms and different angles so we would have a wider variety of pictures to choose from, this also helped prevent us from having to revisit the house so we could spend more time on other areas. We put the black paint on the walls as the colour black is a typical thriller colour, and we had it 'leaking' from the wall to give a more twisted affect. The colour black is also bold so it promotes the name of the film without being too overpowering as its part of the original picture and not written on, covering other things. Also in the film 'Jennifer's Body' there's a scene where she vomits black liquid so we thought this would link the two films. Also we had to work with the blood stains which were already on the dress, although this wasn't too bad as it fitted the picture well and it could also represent to the audience how there is violence featured in the film. This is supported by the fact that i have a knife in my hand. The writing on Sophie's arms 'they took over me' also helps create enigma within the audience as it makes them question who 'they' are, this would help with making the audience want to watch and/or buy our film.

By Natalie Grant and Sophie Tinkler

Editing the thriller.

In editing our thriller we had to consider many things such as music, lighting, cuts and consistency. In putting music to out thriller we had to carefully consider which song to use as in the party seen we had to use party music which was copyright free. We decided to use 'all my chicks' as it had a party beat to it, was copyright free and fitted in with the thriller genre. Lighting was difficult when editing as the house scene would have looked better if it was filmed at night and dark but it would be hard to see anything, so we had to film in the day which was too bright, as this was the case we had to use the lighting tools in editing to make the scene look a little darker. In the start of our thriller we used quick cross-cutting to illustrate the speed and pace of the party and also the tension of the demon at the house. In our film we used many cross-cuts as we wanted the audience to see as much as possible because this would make them want to see the whole film. In editing we had to consider consistency and cut out anything that changed from the first time we filmed to the second, so if there was something in the picture that wasn't there before it had to be cut out as it would look unprofessional and fake.

By Alex Parker

Difficulties Encountered Whilst Filming

In filming our group encountered a few problems due to lack of organisation. One of the first problems we had was that our group were relying on others, at the first attempt of the party scene the turnout was low and therefore we had to re-schedule for another day. Also at the first attempt, the lights were not working properly and if we had filmed on this day it would have taken away the look that this scene was a party. Another problem the group had, is that on filming the party scene, I (Alex) could not be there for part of it due to an exam so we had to have someone else around helping in my place. When filming in the house, we had not decided which room we were going to film in, so when we arrived at the house we were looking around for a while trying to decide and wasting valuable time. We also cleared up the filming area to avoid risk of debris and broken glass however there were bits that could not be disposed off such as sharp edges on the smashed windows. The last problem we encountered was not getting enough footage which made the group have to keep refilming and caused problems as we had to make sure all the costumes and props were consistent in where they were positioned.

By Alex Parker

Getting extra footage.

After realising we didn't have enough footage Sophie and I decided to visit the house again to get more footage. On the way to the house we decided what we were going to film and how it fit into the storyline. We decided we'd start with Sophie exiting the room, then her making her way down the stairs, and some footage in the garden.
Once doing many takes on the same shot we felt we had enough footage but decided to possibly come back another day to do some more if needed.

By Natalie Grant

Filming The Party

The party scene first attempt went badly, but we learnt from our mistakes. This time we decided to ring people to make sure they knew to come to our location at 12:20. During this we decided to use a handheld camera for most of it to give the buzz of the party and also during the scene where Natalie is searching for Sophie. We chose to use a handheld camera for the searching scene because it would make it feel more like Natalie is panicking. Then, the take where Sophie was taken down the stairs took many takes because of people laughing and other unplanned incidents.

This scene is the one that looked best because our kidnapped girl is chucked against a wall as Alec dragged her round the corridor. We also hear Sophie screaming and then an added sound effect of Sophie being slapped.

Overall, the party scene went well and with some improvised fighting from Josh and Scott it looked pretty good.

By Ben Marshall

First Day of Filming - House Scene

We all met up in school and made our way to the house in Hutton Mount that we had chosen prior to the filming to shoot as much of the scene as possible. Once we arrived at the house, the girls gave us a quick tour of the house and checked we agreed with the room they thought was most suitable and so we decided to go for the biggest upstairs room.

The first scene we decided to shoot 'clean' Sophie tied to a chair with Alex standing next to her, holding a knife and the book. The first take was good, but we decided to get another one just incase. This take was fairly short, only around 5 seconds long.  This is the scene before she gets killed. We had to be careful when we tied Sophie to the chair to avoid doing it too tight. This was hard as when it was loose it didn't look realistic.

After this, we chose to do the scene after Sophie being killed and this required lots and lots of fake blood. We ran into a problem with one tube of our fake blood very quickly as when we smothered Sophie's hands in it to make the handprints on the wall, we discovered that it wouldn't wash off. We then tried putting fake blood on the dress and saw that it went straight through luckily this was the second bottle of fake blood which didn't stain Sophie at all. A big risk in this part of the film was creating the cut across the neck. We put fake blood across a blunt piece of metal and lightly ran it across her neck to make it look more thin and realistic.

While shooting this scene we had to decide what things to incorporate and what things to leave out and we decided to write 'Succubus' on the wall in blood so that it was visible when Sophie picked up the knife.

After this we decided to film the screams and we did this by putting my hand across the camera so that it was dark and having Natalie and Sophie screaming at different times so that it was indicated that 2 different people had been killed.

Overall, the first day filming went really well and without any major hiccups.

By Ben Marshall

The Abandoned House - Location





This is the setting of the house scene in our thriller. The house is abandoned and most of the windows are kicked in. We thought that this house would be a good setting for a thriller because from the inside the walls look very ‘old’ and ‘burnt’, this is a typical look for a remote desolate house. This relates to mise-en-scene as it doesn’t look like the house has been adjusted for filming purposes. The look that the house hasn’t been tampered with for the filming is helpful as some settings look like people have deliberately changed things around for it. The fact that this house has been un-inhabited for many years helps because the whole house is dusty, dirty and covered in graffiti. When we got inside the house we encountered a few problems, mainly holes in the floor and smashed windows everywhere meaning that glass was a severe hazard. This was made apparent when Alex nearly cut his hand on broken glass after waving out the window at passers-by. Also, the knife was a danger as Ben nearly cut himself on it reaching into the bag for the camera.

By Alex Parker and Ben Marshall



Casting extras.

By Sophie Tinkler and Natalie Grant

Evaluation of a Thiller Opening.

This thriller opening is too random and jumps around too much, there is too many cuts causing the potential audience to get confused. The font used is perfect and so is the music, it suits the thriller genre and so it compliments it quite well. The effects used don't work in the thrillers favour, it got to the point where they actually ruined the emotions being enforced on the audience. The location worked well with what was going on, I didn't feel the costume worked though, he appeared to be running away from something but was dressed like a 'gangster'.
By Natalie Grant.

Party Scene.

Our first try at filming the party scene didn't go well. We knew people would be unreliable but we didn't realise how many people wouldn't turn up. This has made us realise we need a contingency plan. We will be trying the party scene again in a weeks time. Our plan B is simple but not as effective. -  Instead of a party the scene will be the two girls setting up for the party.

By Natalie Grant.

Updated Storyboard

By Sophie Tinkler and Natalie Grant.

Prop hunting.

Sophie and I went to Brentwood High Street to buy and find props for the thriller. First we went into a fancy dress shop on the way up to the Baytree Centre in Brentwood. We found some fake blood in there and we got 10% off because it is for Media Studies. Then when we got into the High Street we went into peacocks.

The first dress is for Sophie, playing the main girl. The dress had to be a plain light colour as we are going to have to cover it in fake blood at some point so we went with white. We also wanted it to be cheap as we didn't want to spend a lot of money of something that was going to get ruined.

The best friends dress just had to be something suitable for a party, we went with this dress as it was cheap and suitable.

 Finding a suitable book was hard as nothing was suitable because it either had an image or writing on the front but in the end we found one in Cancer Research UK.

We went to the Hermit and the Brentwood Theatre, unfortunatly the Hermit wasn't able to let us use the upstairs area for filming and no one at the Brentwood Theatre were able to talk to us at the time so we decided to have a change of plan and spoke to Ms Clark about using the school hall instead and she has allowed us.

 By Natalie Grant.



Required Props for a Thriller

 As a prop for the party scene in the thriller we will get the extras to be 'drinking' but obviously as a safety measure the bottles will be empty or filled with something else. The bottles will be used to make the party more modern and realistic.

 The chair will be used to tie the dead girl to. the chair must be plain and old as it adds to the effect and realism of the scene.

 Blood capsules can be used to show violence in a more realistic way and makes it more believable that the character is hurt. These may be used in a scene in which the killer hits the (not at the time) dead girl.

 This will be used to show the stab wounds and will also be put on the knife used to give it a more realistic feel , and it makes it more intense for the audience to witness.

 This will possibly be used during the 'party' scene. Strobe lights give the affect of things moving quickly in jumps and it could add a panicked feel to the scene as the killer takes his victim.

 The knife will be used as the murder weapon that the killer uses on the dead girl. The knife must be authentic otherwise it could make the soon lose its effect on the audience and makes it non-believable.

 We will hopefully use red contact lenses for when the dead girl becomes possessed with the succubus demon because this will help us show the audience that the character is possessed.

The rope will be used to tie the dead girl to the chair making the scene more believable for the audience.

This will be used to help the audience decide whats happened to the young girl. Although nothing will be actually revealed it will make the audience think further into the events.

By Sophie Tinkler

Location - Haunted house.

We used part of a lesson to go and visit our desired location. The location we want to use for one of the scenes is an abandoned house in Hutton Mount. The house is large and has a variety of rooms to choose from. In the picture above one of the risks is made clear, all the windows have been smashed in, this leaves shattered glass all over the floor inside. Although this is good for a thriller it is also a danger towards us.

This is the only entrance into the building, its around the back of the house. A lot of the other doors leading into the house are boarded up due to the fact that the house is abandoned and nobody has lived there for years.

This was the initial room we wanted to film our thriller in because its the most spacious room in the house. Since visiting the house we have decided differently as the walls are covered in inappropriate graffiti. Along with the graffiti there is also a radiator, the window is boarded up and there is a lot of glass covering the floor. These are all things we wouldn't want in our shots.

This room isn't appropriate as it small and dark. The window is boarded up stopping any fresh air in. The room is too cramped for filming as it would restrict our camera angles and shots available. 

This is the kitchen, which immediately seems unsuitable as we need a spacious room without a cupboard/sink area in it. The room has white walls with fake blood running down them as previous media students have used this house. The room is a mess as many people have been in over the years.

This room is good because it is spacious. A problem would be that there is a house in the background which can be seen through the window. This would defeat the idea of being isolated and in danger.

The burnt and off-coloured walls gives a sense of decay and danger.

This room is a possibility as it is spacious and is not covered in as much graffiti. The off-coloured walls make it more effective as it gives the sense of a decaying, dangerous and isolated feeling which portrays how the girl in the room will be feeling if we choose this room. The only thing distracting the shot would be the chimney in the background of the shot, as this defeats the idea of being isolated.

These two shots are of the same room at two different angles. The graffiti in this room is more appropriate for a thriller. The corner of the room would be perfect to put the chair as it creates an isolated and intimidating feeling. The room is spacious although from these pictures it looks enclosed and isolated.

By Natalie Grant