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