Activity Evaluation 4

This mood board has been designed to emphasise the target audience that the opening sequence of The Prophet has been made for.

The target audience we decided would be male and female students aged 15-25 year olds as the theme suits this age particular age gap.This is partly because of the genre and plot of the film. We believe that the film would appeal to both males and females because there is a good variety of different characters in the film i.e. the main character is male but his victims are all females. However the target audience would have depended on the way in which we filmed the opening sequence. If we had decide to do it with a more religious aspect, it may have appealed to an older audience of both male and female. Although, our initial idea was to focus more on the killing of the victims rather than the religious reasons why. We used the 10 Commandments purely as a link between the murders rather than as a focus point of  the film. This would have possibly ruled out older audiences as it has a slightly niche storyline but gives it a horror aspect that people under 25 will enjoy.

The title has been designed so that by looking at the mood board we hope to create an effect which gives away the theme of the opening sequence. For example by looking at this title it becomes obvious that the sequence is thrilling and spooky.

An example of someone who would be interested in our film

This is Georgina, she is nearly 17 years old and is in her first year of sixthfrom in South East London. She enjoys spending time with her friends and listening to music and spends most of her money on music, DVDs and going to concerts and festivals. She listens to varieties of music ranging from indie-rock bands such as Arctic Monkeys to heavier bands like Bring Me The Horizon. She is going to her 4th year at Reading Festival this year with her best friends. Her casual wear would be a short dress with tights or leggings and dyes her hair regularly a variety of different colours. She enjoys shopping in places like Topshop, H&M and New Look.

Her favourite television program is The Big Bang Theory but she is a sucker for horror/thriller films. She loves them so much because she always scares herself watching them, but the suspense makes her want to carry on. She enjoys trying to figure out the plot from the beginning of the film and is clever in the ways that her theory's develop as she tries to work out the stalkers and the killers. However she is not a fan of gore and so a thriller genre like The Prophet is probably more suiting to her. Some of her favourite films are The Usual Suspects and Se7en.

We think our film would be suitable for Georgina because the genre suits her taste and consists of no gore which she particularly despises. The Prophet is targeted for boys and girls under 25 so Georgina would be able to watch the film with a group of friends and it is filled with suspense which will keep her interested. 

Activity Evaluation 6

Here we created a Prezi for this evaluation activity. We answered the question "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"  Please follow through the Prezi to see our answer.

Activity Evaluation 6 on Prezi

Activity Evaluation 7

Final Project

1. Tracking Shot - the victim is followed with the camera, the shot must be steady and the person in the frame must be kept near the centre of the image.

2. Establishing Shot - the shot shows an introduction to the new location, this is to clarify to the audience where the film is taking place and links the different shots.

3. Close up - the shot highlights the importance of the object and forces the audience to focus on the bible.

Preliminary Task

Looking back at our preliminary task, although some shots were used there wasn't much variation and most were simple. There were points where we did not consider what was in the previous shot and so several objects/lighting do not match up on the following shot. The 180 degree rule was broken at points and as this was the first experience of editing, the editing at times seems rough and so conversations do not look or sound as natural.

Activity Evaluation 3

For this activity we used soundcloud to answer the question "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"  In order to listen to the answer please follow the link below:

Activity Evaluation 3 OFFICIAL

Activity Evaluation 1

Generally these shots in particular are quite typically associated with the thriller genre as they are used in order to introduce the the storyline and characters in the film. It is also used in order to scare and entice the audience. 

1. Point of View Shot

This shot is typically used for a stalker and can appear as a point of view shot. This is to introduce the character and also the murderer and to begin to assemble the storyline of the film. The character already appears to be vulnerable as she is unaware of the person standing behind her. This shot sets up the storyline as it introduces the idea of the characters appearing to commit suicide on their own which attracts and engages the audience as they are unaware of why they are doing this.

2. Opening Credits

This shot is used in order to present the credits, in terms of the particular design of the credits we wanted similar credits to those used in Seven which was our inspiration for the opening sequence. This is why we used a dark background, when experimenting with different fonts and effects we found the final design to be most suitable for us. The image of the bible in the background was used to connote the storyline.

3. Tracking Shot

For this particular shot it was used in order to add variety to the shots and also in order to add context to the sequence as the audience may appear confused if the shots jump from one location to the other, this shot links both locations together.

4. Establishing Shot

This shot is used in order to introduce the new location, this location is isolated and is a typical location for a thriller as the victim appears most vulnerable. The shot is still for a couple of seconds and builds up tension and makes the next shot appear more dramatic as the audience is unaware of what the victim is about to do.

5. The Victim in the woods

This shot reveals part of the storyline and adds tension as the audience are still unaware of why the victim has committed suicide. This shot is typical in a thriller genre as it is difficult to film as the actor would be placed under harm, this is the easiest way in which to reveal what has happened and to get the desired effect. 

6. Last Shot

This is the last frame seen by the viewer and it clarifies parts of the sequence shown earlier. The genre is shown clearly through the storyline, music and camerawork as the murderers face is never shown, only his body. The flashbacks to the victim also emphasises the man seen in the sequence is the murderer. The prop seen in the clip, which in this case is the bible, highlights the murderers religious beliefs and also links a previous frame in which the victim's arm is seen branded with a cross. The setting/location of this frame connotes the murderers mental instability. 

The last shot seen is the title of the film which slowly separates out of the screen, this is the only time other than the credits, that special effects are used. 

Activity Evaluation 2

We decided to use Jonny in our film because he took a real interest in the thriller genre we had decided on and we felt he looked a lot older than his age, which fitted the age criteria we had chosen.

We deliberately went against the stereotypical look of a psychiatric escapee patient to differ our film and give it more of a niche aspect, making it less predictable and more interesting. We made sure Jonny was clean shaven and well groomed to stay away from the typical rough look of a psychiatric hospital escapee. We dressed him in a white shirt, black skinny trousers and a skinny black tie, making him look smart and sophisticated unlike the stereotypical dark, rough look that hospital escapees often have in films. This look also made it look easy for Jonny's character to just walk out of the hospital without anyone noticing, unlike a typical escapee who would often be running or breaking out.

As The Prophet was inspired by film Seven, it felt appropriate to compare the serial killers in the two films. Kevin Spacey who plays the serial killer John Doe in Seven fits the stereotype we aimed to differ from perfectly. Unlike Jonny, Spacey has a typical rough look with his shaven head and bruised and battered face. He is also dressed in prison clothes which contrasts with the costume we gave Jonny. Both characters are also very smart in the way that they plan the murders specifically, both with a religious aspect linking them together. However this religious obsession appears stronger in Jonny's character as he is shown clutching a bible in his escape. 

The way in which the killers murder their victims is the biggest similarity between the two characters. John Doe in Seven murders seven people according to the seven deadly sins. This idea influenced us to have our murderer character have a link between the murders. From this we decided to use a similar religious idea with the 10 commandments. However Jonny's character cannot kill the victims himself as that would be going against the commandment "Thou shall not kill." and he psychologically forces his victims into suicide, giving the film its psychological thriller genre.

In Seven, John Doe writes the name of the deadly sin being committed on the wall at every murder. We used a similar idea in The Prophet where the murderer brands the victims body with the Christian cross. This helps link the murders and brings a more niche, religious aspect to the film.

Filming Day Two

On Saturday we began to film the rest of our opening sequence, starting at our first location at Spring Park.

Several shots were filmed including shots of the victim hanging from the tree which will includes several shots being edited together as it wasn't safe to have the actor actually hanging. We also composed a tracking shot of the victim's body being carried off and some diegetic sound from other characters in order to give some context to the sequence. 

We then travelled to the next location which was Bethlem Royal Hospital and filmed the tracking shot of the murderer escaping the hospital. 

 

When we were watching back the film several parts had to be cropped as you could see part of the victim's arm holding onto a tree and another at Bethlem as someone else can be seen in the shot. We have also had to put some shots into slow motion in order to lengthen the shots in order to fit with the non-diegetic sound we are planning to lay on top, and for them to look more effective. 

However we have discovered that some shots need to be re-shot in order to get more variation and a piece of music that we were initially going to use has now been removed so we need to look for more music to use.

Filming

Tomorrow will be our second and most important day of filming - we will be filming the scenes in Spring Park and Bethlem Psychiatric Hospital.

The plan so far is to meet at 12pm at the entrance to Spring Park to do the beginning of our filming, we will then move onto Bethlem once we are satisfied with the filming in Spring Park. We have informed all of our actors of this and unfortunately some of them could not attend this session due to work and family reasons. However we have done our best to replace these actors with people who will feel will have an equalling amount of experience and proffesionality. We are lucky with this as we have left it quite late to film, due to problems with our orginal filming date, and are making use of our friends and family who are willing to cooperate. We will record these changes at an appropriate time after we have done our filming.

We have had our props and costumes prepared for a couple of weeks now as we had them ready for our orginal filming date during half term. As my Dad has his own construction and engineering company, we were quite lucky in the fact that he was able to provide several of the props we will be using. These include the rope that our victim will be hanging from, the sheets to cover the body with, the clipboard for the forensic to read the victims details from and the 'stretcher' that the body will be carried off on. I also took the liberty to loan several bibles from the school library today so we will have the option of using each one in the shots to see which looks most effective.

We have asked for each of the actors to provide their own costumes as there is nothing too specific apart from smart clothes - the boys will probably be wearing suits or dark clothing and the girls just dark clothing. The only thing we will be providing is a lab coat for the forensic to wear as Florence has her own for biology.

Hopefully everything will go to plan and the weather will be suiting to our criteria. However, as this is our last chance to finish our filming as the deadline is next Friday, we will have to do our best filming in whatever conditions. I don't think anyone is too worried about filming, we just need to make sure we produce work that we feel is most effective and that is the best of our ability!

We will let you know how filming goes and any changes or updates will be recorded here after filming.