Character development

Eva Jones

This is the main character because the film is based around her finding out about the curse she has on her. She is a seventeen year old girl with dark features as this is what is stereotyped in witchcraft/thriller based films. Her mother died a few years ago, it was a tragic and mysterious death. She was hiding a deep secret (she knew about the curse upon her daughter and was killed because she wanted to warn Eva that she was soon going to be captured into the supernatural grasp of witchcraft). Eva finds this out later on in the film.

Evangeline Bancroft

This is the character from whom Eva's curse originated from but in the opening scene is only seen as an image and information is displayed on the computer. She was killed in 1914 at the age of 18 for being associated with witchcraft. The curse involves her being reincarnated every eighteen years of life.

Friend 1: Alexis Swift
She is the best friend of Eva. She is described as very loyal and slightly 'dazed' most of the time. She is very loyal and a key character to the film, although she is a very 'dazed' character and she is also very intelligent 
Friend 2: Peter James
He is a close friend of Eva and Alexis. He is a very strong character in the film due to his leading nature and ability to tell right from wrong.

Friend 3: Jack Matthews
He is slightly older but in the same year and working on the same project.

Friend 4: Faye Blake
She is very smart and witty and her relationship with the group develops within the film.

Friend 5: Marco Armstrong
The more mysterious boy who tends to keep himself to himself yet always listens and always knows exactly what to say.

Recce Shots

We will film at a variety of locations.

One of the locations we will film art is Galleywood Library.

This will be where Eva walks into the library (establishing shot)

 

This will be our third shot where Eva walks along this section of the path.

Visual Moodboard

 This is our visual moodboard for our film Evangeline.

Representations

Representations

What/who is being presented?

• Witchcraft
• Teenagers
• Group of friends studying
• Various icons
• Curses
• Dark Mystery

These are all typical symbols that are commonly represented in a supernatural thriller film.

Audience research

Audience research

Who is our target Audience?

Our film has a BBFC of 12 and is targeted at the age range of 12-18. It is aimed at teenagers and we consider it as a unique film idea which may entice a larger audience.

Other films similar to ours target audience

The Craft

The BBFC rating of the film is a 15 so the first impression is that it is aimed at people aged 15 upawrds towards the age of around 25.

Beautiful Creatures
This film is initially aimes at 'young adults'.

Codes and Conventions

Conventions of a mystery thriller:

• Tension
• Suspense
• Hidden messages/secrets
• Low key lighting
• A woodland area to convey lonliness, creepyness etc
• Various cuts are used - give the audience a good understanding of the narative.
• Periods of silence to exaggerate tension
• High angle shots to establish the setting

Supernatural Films:

• Deep slow music
• Witchcraft symbols
• Detatched houses

Setting:

Our film opening will be set in a variety of locations. For instance our first location will be filmed in and around Galleywood cemetary, there will be several shots included which are going to be taking place in the cemetery and the path parallel to the cemetery. Furthermore there are also going to be a few shots filmed at Galleywood library. Finally we are going to use the schools library to film our final shots where we have access to computers and various books. We have chosen these locations because first of all we think that Galleywood cemetary has the right feeling to it as it is isolated and away from everyone, it also has that eerie feeling to it compared to other cemetery that we looked into filming with.

Icons:  

One of the main icons of our film opening would be the grave where Evangeline lays just behind the grave where Eva kneels down to visit her mother. Another icon to include would be the witchcraft website that is included in the film.


Characters: 

Our characters have a lot of variety within them. We have Eva Jones who is the main character played by Sophie Frain. We also have Alexis Swift. She is the best friend of Eva. She is described as very loyal and slightly 'dazed' most of the time. Peter James is a close friend of Eva and Alexis. He is a very strong character in the film due to his leading nature and ability to tell right from wrong.

Opening Credits for Evangeline

pro company - Haxan Films
distribution - Aurora Studios
filmed by - Olivia Plumpton & Sam Bellman
title - 
actors - Sophie Frain, Olivia Plumpton, Sam Bellman, Tom Richardson, Chay Pollinger, Bonnie Fitch, Lucy Harding. 
costumes designed by - Olivia Plumpton
Music by - Sophie Frain ft Beethovem
editor - Sophie Frain
production designer - Sam Bellman
directer of photography - Olivia Plumpton
executive producer
screenplay by
produced by
directed by
casting by
music supervisor
co-producer

Props for Evangeline

PROPS

We will need a large table in the library for the group of friends to sit around. On the table there will be:

Notebooks, Pens, Paper (the group will be attempting to research for their history witchcraft project). 

There will also be a laptop which will have up a witchcraft  blog loaded already.
There will be books based on witchcraft scattered around the table around the library.

Institutions for our film

We are going to use Haxan Films to produce our film. They are famous for producing the well known and successful independant film 'The Blair Witch Project'.

Music for Evangeline

The music we are going to use for our film opening will be Beethoven 'Moonlight Sonata'

This music will set the tone early in that it will make them feel eerie and mysterious which is what we intend to do.

Titles Research

This is what we came up with after thinking about what font we would use for the title and how we could make it look. The letter 'E' at the beginning represents a witchcraft symbol which we could then use in the film and keep bringing it up during the film. The font itself has a witchy, mysterious feel also fitting into the genre of our film.

This is a font that inspired our group without the initial blue logo behind it. It also has a mysterious, witchy feel to it also which makes it more of a inspiration for our font ideas.

This is other research we done to see what font best fit our title for our film. As you can see they are all pretty similar aesthetically however for the one we have chosen we will not be using the letter 'E' and instead use the witchcraft symbol we created.

Titles Task

The Conjuring

T1: Starts 00:17 lasts 4 seconds

T2: Starts 00:24 lasts 3 seconds

T3: Starts 00:28 lasts 4 seconds

T4: Starts 00:34 lasts 3 seconds

T5: Starts 00:37 lasts 4 seconds

T6: Starts 00:44 lasts 3 seconds

T7: Starts 00:48 lasts 4 seconds

T8: Starts 1:14 lasts 4 seconds

T9: Starts 1:18 lasts 5 seconds

T10: Starts 1:24 lasts 5 seconds

T11: Starts 1:29 lasts 5 seconds

T12: Starts 1:35 lasts 4 seconds

T13: Starts 1:39 lasts 4 seconds

T14: Starts 1:45 lasts 3 seconds

T15: Starts 1:49 lasts 4 seconds

T16: Starts 1:56 lasts 4 seconds

Pyscho (1998)



T1: Starts 00:06 lasts 6 seconds

T2: Starts 00:12 lasts 7 seconds

T3: Starts 00:21 lasts 3 seconds

T4: Starts 00:25 lasts 2 seconds

T5: Starts 00:29 lasts 2 seconds

T6: Starts 00:33 lasts 3 seconds

T7: Starts 00:39 lasts 6 seconds

T8: Starts 00:46 lasts 6 seconds

T9: Starts 00:52 lasts 3 seconds

T10: Starts 00:57 lasts 3 seconds

T11: Starts 1:02 lasts 3 seconds

T12: Starts 1:07 lasts 2 seconds

T13: Starts 1:12 lasts 2 seconds

T14: Starts 1:15 lasts 5 seconds

T15: Starts 1:22 lasts 3 seconds

T16: Starts 1:25 lasts 2 seconds

T17: Starts 1:31 lasts 4 seconds

T18: Starts 1:36 lasts 4 seconds

T19: Starts 1:41 lasts 7 seconds

Film Opening Marking

  

The Edge

This is a film opening called the Edge, one of my favourite film openings I saw. One of the things that was done really well was the editing, mainly the titles they used and how they used them in the film opening. A very creative way which also proved to be very effective as it worked well, also they edited each shot to make it feel sharper and more vibrant. They also used a variety of clever camera angles which played an important role in the film opening. The music they used was a bit repetitive however yet worked well by adding suspense and tension throughout the film.




 

GEMINI

Firstly I think that they jumped into the film too quickly, because the first 5 seconds and there is already dialogue whereas during the first 5 seconds the audience is just settling down so they might miss the dialogue. However I like the variety of camera angles they used in the opening, for example the close up on the pouring of the drink. I also liked the idea of the split between the couple being happy and arguing at the same time in the same shot, and the fact they created a news channel for the project.




Roses Are Red 
I think that they have got the genre across really well in that it is a typical girly film. They done this with the help of the music they used and the use of make up. The title were also very creative and the ideas that they used were very clever. Furthermore the camera angles they used to create the film were also well thought out and inventive. However I think that they could have used one or more different locations because the audience could percieve it as being boring.
 

Film Pitch Evangeline

Evangeline film pitch

This is our final idea that we are going to work around when producing our film opening, we went for the genre of thriller/mystery so its a hybrid of genres.

Institution Task

Marking Film Openings