Script: updated

The script we first created did not portray the characters individual personalities, therefore we decided to develop it in order to give the audience hints as to what each of the characters are like.

There is not much dialogue in typical opening scenes, but ours contains some. The speech helps the audience get an understanding of who the main characters are including names and what might the film be about. It gives the audience a feel for the personalities of the characters and lets them pick favourites. Our script/screen directions are below...

The script:

[Instrumental of Beethoven's Moonlight Stanza is played whilst shots are shown of Eva walking to the church yard. No dialogue. shot pans up then cuts to library scene.]

Alexis, Marco, Faye, Peter and Jack are all in the school library. Three of them are seated around the main table in the order Jack, empty chair, Faye, empty chair and Peter. Behind on the row of computers is Marco and Alexis, Marco is seated in the gap between Jack and Faye facing away from the camera. Alexis is also seated facing away from the camera but in between Faye and Peter, she soon moved to the main table and sits between Faye and Peter.

Alexis: Soo you guys? (pauses) [picks books up from desk in front and moves them to main desk leaving what she had on the screen up] what actually is witchcraft?

Marco: [places head in hands pushing hair back out of face] (mumbles under breath) This is going to take forever.

Peter: [gesturing in Alexis' direction whilst moving basket ball of the chair next to him onto the floor] Alexis come here. I found a definition. [pushes back laptop screen, points and begins to read it out]. {shot cuts to Eva walking into graveyard and crouching down by grave and speech becomes a voice over.} Witchcraft the practice of the mythical arts for example magic, this can either be black or white depending on the intended use. Which craft can also be linked back to the 1500's a time of spells, potions and the invocation of spirits. (fades out)

Title Evangeline is shown on screen. Shot then cuts back to the library.

Faye; [scrolling down website, pushes up glasses and moves hair behind ear] This website is actually pretty interesting. [looking up at website and writing down notes]

Jack; [looks over Faye's shoulder at her computer screen] Hmm yeah I think I looked at that one [continues with what he was writing] *coughs* [scrunches up piece of paper and throws it at peter in a basketball playing fashion]I wonder where Eva is. I know She said she had to go somewhere first but ugh I swear shes been hours, [Tilts head back] I just want to go get food.

Peter; No idea, I'll call her. [reaches down into sports bag and pulls out phone, calls Eva]

This scene shows Eva walking after she has visited her mothers grave. she receives a phone call from Peter and picks it up.

Eva; Hello (pause whilst peter answers) yeah ill be there in a minutes (pauses) okay bye. [put phone down and speeds up her walking]

still on scene of Eva voice over is being played.

Faye; Listen to this quote from the bible. "Leviticus 20:27 man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” Its talking about witchcraft.

Eva is shown walking into the library up the stairs and towards the group.

Eva; hiya [walks over to Alexis] sorry im late took longer than I thought.

Alexis: Ah hi Eva, come on lets go. [stands up and starts to pack away her belongings.]

Eva: [looking at James] you guys ready. [everyone gets up apart from Marco and begins to put their things away, and then leaves. Marco then puts his things away and walks out following the group. Camera pans across to Fayes computer that she had left on and zooms into the screen leaving an image of Evangeline up and the audience to realise that she looks like Eva.]

26/11/14 Filming #1

Today we went to Galleywood to film the outside shots taken of Eva. This included scene 1 and 3 (taken in around the cemetery) and scene 5 taken of Eva walking towards the entrance of the library. Sam and I took turns in filming the different shots and Sophie played the role of Eva. We took several takes of each shot to enable high levels of accuracy when editing. Taking several of the same shot mean we can choose the best ones to put together when editing.

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 and also the struggles of trying to eliminate it. She is a seventeen year old girl who is described as outgoing and strong willed. Her mother died a few years ago, it was a tragic and mysterious death. She was a loving woman towards her daughter but also seemed slightly mysterious. 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.

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.


These 5 characters (and Eva) are a group of friends who have been put together for a history project in school to research about witchcraft. When they find out about The Evangeline curse and delve deeper into it, they all help Eva to find out what she can do to stop it hitting her once she turns 18. It turns into an adventure, a race against time to keep Eva alive past her 18th birthday.

Eva, Marco, Alexis, Faye and jack are a group of students who have been put together for a history project, about witchcraft where they have to create a presentation and present it to the class. By doing this they discover the Evangeline curse and attempt to delve deeper into it hoping to find a way of protecting their friend from the terrible curse that lays in her tracks. This is the first film in a series, where the mystery continues and more trouble lays ahead.

The characters in more detail:

Physical description: Eva

• Roughly 5'3"
• British with Indian and American roots.
• Brown/Redish bellow shoulder length hair.

Eva Louise Jones is the main character of the film; she was born in a small town in the south of England in the year 1994. She is the only Daughter of Marc Jones and Anya Jones, her father is a trained psychologist who is currently retired and working as a lecturer at the local college, her mother was once a medical doctor. Eva currently lives with her father and her grandfather in a large country house near the local church. She is currently attending her final year at sixth form studying three A Level subjects History Art and Chemistry. The plot is based around Eva discovering that she is a witch but not only that there is also a curse on her meaning she will not live past the age of 18. In the film she is currently 17 and 11 months meaning that there is only one month to her 18^th birthday. Her personality is outgoing easy to get along with and genuinely strong willed. She is a creative individual who often strays from the crowd.

The main character Eva, will be played by an actor with dark hair and dark eyes this is because most films of the genre supernatural thriller and because of the 'stereo types' about the way different hair colours on girls make their personalities different. Brown hair is the perfect stereo type for our film as it is more mysterious.
                                                        

Eva will also be shown wearing dark shadowy make up this is because it gives her a mysterious and slightly Gothic feel.                            
                                                         

She will be wearing dark casual but dressy clothing for example dark jeans, black boots, a black top and a Maroon knit cardigan.
she is roughly

Eva’s mother died years ago in was a sudden, tragic and mysterious death. She was a loving woman who always strived to help people. She was always there for Eva when she needed her, being the shoulder to cry on and her best friend. She was married to Marc Jones and had been for 20 old years they met in high school and were in love ever since. She wasn't the type of person to hide things from people if she had something on her mind she would say it, but little did people know she was hiding a deep secret. For she knew about the curse that lay upon her daughter, and when she prepared to inform Eva of this curse in hope that they would find a way of stopping it she was gruesomely murdered by an unknown figure who left only a note, written repeatedly on the walls surrounding her dead body it read ‘she knew’. (This is a key part of the film and is referred to as part of Eva’s ‘flash back’ in a dream)
 

Evangeline Bancroft, identical to Eva Jones in appearance and build, she is one of the ‘past lives’ that Eva Jones unknowingly lived. She was a Californian glamour model well paid and well lived. She died in the year 1914 at the age of 18 due to being accused of witchcraft by her alcoholic partner; her death was a result of this. The way of death was unknown but her body found lying in the middle of the road with the numbers 499 calved onto her left forearm. These numbers are significant to the film because they represent all of the past lives ‘Eva’ has lived Evangeline being the 499^th and Eva the 500^th since the curse was set.

                                                               

Alexis Swift is the best friend of Eva she is roughly 5’7” with beautiful curly red hair. She is very loyal and a key character to the film, although she is a very ‘Dazed’ character she is also very intelligent and extremely good at doing whatever it takes to find out the truth. Her and Eva have been best friends since the age of 6 when they met at an after school club. She is an only child to two parents one Tom and the other Susan Swift. Both her parents are lawyers meaning she comes from a very well off family; both her parents are very strict so along with hers and Eva’s rebellious nature results in her getting in trouble a lot.

                                                       

Peter James is a very close friend to Eva and Alexis at roughly 6’ with short mousy hair. He has a strong build and is very athletic. He is a strong character in the film due to his leading nature and ability to tell right from wrong. He has grown up alongside Alexis as they are Cousins and have always been very close, it seems that he has a romantic eye for Eva and cares for her a lot. 

                                                                

Jack Matthews is 18 and in the same history class as all of the other characters, he other than Eva is the oldest one there, he has thick messy blonde hair and blue eyes. He is also very sporty and a very good friend of Peter, and is currently in a relationship with a girl called Mindy who is a Gymnast.
                                                         

Faye Blake is 5’6 with beautiful long hair and brown glasses. She is smart and witty, she doesn't initially have a strong bond with any of the characters in the beginning of the film but the audience get to see this develop as the film progresses. She comes from a less well of family than the other characters.  She is the ‘nerdy’ yet ‘popular’ girl that all of the other kids are jealous of, most people would think that because of this she is not a very nice person and doesn't have much respect for anyone but in fact she is the complete opposite.

                                                                       

Marco Armstrong short with long mousy styled but messy hair, he is the more mysterious character as he tends to keep himself to himself. Marco struggles a lot in school and often gets frustrated when he can’t get something right the first time but this doesn't stop him from giving up as he always pushes through right at the last minute. He is always listening yet saying little but when he does he always knows exactly what to say.

                                                       

                                                        

PD 24/11/14

We had already created our fake witchcraft blog but we hadn't uploaded a photo of Evangeline as at the time we didn't have one, over the weekend part of our group met up for part of one of the days to take the photo and get ideas for the poster we were yet to create. We selected a few photos that we thought were appropriate for what we needed (a Marilyn Monroe inspired model photo-shoot from the early 1900's) The three best ones are shown below. 

Sophie was the model we used to take the photos of because she plays the part of Eva and the character of Evangeline has to be clear to the audience she looks like Eva. She wore an old fashioned style lace white dress and a large black hat. She wore a subtle amount of black eye makeup, red lipstick and foundation.

         

From these we then in class picked the one that our whole group believed was best and worked further on that image editing it to make it look even more suitable we edited it a few times changing the colour schemes and placing them all together we chose our final one. 

We decided to go with this image because it looks elegant how the actor (model) is not looking at the camera and it looks quite natural how she has her mouth open and shoulders slightly tilted. It is in black & white which suits the old fashioned theme of the witchcraft blog and makes the photo look professional. The way the photo is blurred and slightly 'off-angle' makes it look not too perfect and staged.

Shooting schedule

This is the schedule of the different times/places we are going to go and film.

Script

This is the script for our  opening scene. We tried to keep the dialogue minimal within these first few minutes of the film because we did not want to give too much away to the audience. Most of the dialogue takes place between the characters in the library but sometimes their voices will still be heard when the film cuts to the shots of Eva walking. Giving it a feel of her loneliness at the time she is walking and it also sets the mood because the speech is about witchcraft and the shot is of a mysterious girl walking through a lonely/dark area. This leaves the audience intrigued and asking questions.

We decided to change and develop the script to improve it. Our new script gives a sense of the characters individual personalities and can be found in a separate blog post. 

Marketing

How are we going to market our film?

We are going to create a series of posters in order to promote our film in a direct and visual way.
We have also decided to create a trailer to promote our new film which would be shown at prime time on TV, as well as the use of....

• Billboards
• Social networking 
• YouTube advertisements
• Public stunts

These are some examples of some film posters which have ideas to ours:

Beautiful Creatures

The secret circle (this is a TV series but i liked some of their poster ideas)

Twilight

The Craft

Representations

What/Who is being represented?

• witches
• teenagers (school students)- school bags, pens, paper homework project, 

• a group of friends:
• a geeky girl
• a sporty boy

The main character is a teenage girl. She has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes to make her relative to the genre of thriller/ mystery because this is often what the female characters look like in these films becausue it can be portrayed as quite 'mysterious'.

Codes and Conventions

Our film is a mystery thriller but with the theme of the supernatural (witchcraft). We have included most of the following points in our film opening which makes it relevant to the genre.

Conventions of a mystery thriller:

• tension
• suspense
• hidden messages/secrets
• low key lighting
• woodland area to show they are alone and helpless
• many cuts are used to build suspense and give the audience a good understanding of the narrative
• periods of silence
• high angle shots to establish the settings

Supernatural films:

• deep slow music
• supernatural (e.g. witch) symbols
• detached house (isolated)
• piano/classical music used to set the scene and confirm the equilibrium
• 
  

Storyboard

This is the story board we created for our film. We have filmed each image and included a voice-over to make it easy for someone to understand how each shot will look. The images were drawn by me but our storyboard was a group effort because we had to decide on the shots we wanted, their order and how they would each look.

Shot list

Audience Research

Beautiful Creatures
This film is aimed at 'young adults'.



The Craft
This film is rated a BBFC of 15  


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.

Costume design/ Character appearances

This is the main character from 'Beautiful Creatures'. She has dark, naturally wavy hair (nothing too styilised), dark clothing and black boots.

Our character Eva is going to be dressed similar to this with dark clothes, black boots and natural looking hair.

    These are the main charaters form 'The Craft'. They often are seen in dull coloured clothes: Black, white, beige and navy. They come across as quite gothic, similar to the main character in Beautiful Creatures. This is also the approach we are going to have when designing Eva's costume.

Beautiful Creaturse and The Craft both have characters with dark eyeliner/eyeshadow and a dull red lipstick. We will take this into consideration when styling the actor for Eva.

What we need to do!

19/11/14 Recce shots of the exterior filming location

Today we went to the locations of the exterior shots we are going to film in Galleywood. We knew we wanted our film to open in a woodland area near the church in Galleywood and going to the location before filming allowed us to analyse the surroundings and experiment to achieve the bast shots. We identified the different angles and camera positions we could use. 

Here are some recce shots we took...

Visual moodboard

This is our visual moodboard for our film Evangeline. It includes other films relating to ours and also an explanation as to why we made these links.

Characters

Eva Jones (& Evangeline Bancroft) - played by Sophie Frain

Alexis Swift (Eva's best friend)- Issy Payne

Peter James (close friend of Eva/Alexis)- Lee Hart

Jack Matthews- Sam Bellman

Faye Blake- Bonnie Fitch

Marco Armstrong (slightly mysterious)- Jimmy Allway

Props

We will need a large table in the librbary 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 someone on the table is using and a computer behind the table with the witchcraft blog loaded up on the screen. On this blog there will be a photograph of  the late witch 'Evangeline' which is who the film spirals around. The photograph will be of the actor who plays Eva (Sophie Frain) so it is clear to the audience that Evangeline looks like Eva. However the girl in the photograph will be wearing old fashioned clothes. The photograph will be 'black and white' to make it look like it was taken many decades ago.

Witchcraft books on the table in the library
Printouts of witchcraft to go on the table
3 laptops
basketball
gym bag
glasses for Faye to wear

pens
notebooks
phone x2

PD:18/11/2014 Lesson (+photos)

These are images of our group working on our blogs (Sophie, Sam and I). Today we established the institutions we will use, where we will shoot our film and the music we will use.