Casting!

Shia LaBeouf: As a group we feel that Shia labouf will be a really good same becasue he has featured in many thriller films such as Transformers and Eagle eye which are great successes. I feel he would bring a good personality to Sam as he plays characters like this before.

Judi Dench: As a group we have decided to have Judi Dench as our actress to play as a parent because we feel Judi has a good motherly figure and she could bring a lot of suspense to this character.

Jack Nicholson: We have also agreed to use Jack as our monk in the film becasue he can create great suspense in a character like that. We think he would be good in this role becasue he has been in thiller/ horrors before like 'The Shining' and 'Batman' so he has good experience in these types of films.

Evaluation!

I personally thought that our final project 'The Crucifix' was a really good introduction to a film because it created a good storyline and I thought our actual filming showed this with the character Sam and especially the Monk. I felt that the monk was very effective in all scenes he was in particularly in the dream becasue he had a sense of mystery and suspense about him.
I think that our target audience would want to know more about the Monk after watching the introduction because you don't know much about him.
I thought that we achieved our target of a thriller/horror through scenes like the man commiting suicide and Sam's dream at his house.
I think that our film should be rated a 15 because it would be scary for anyone under 15 but is not gory enough for the film to be rated an 18.
One of the best shots in the fiulm i feel is the one in the dream when we filmed the trees looking into the sky and speeding it up. It is really effective for a dream like that because it adds a bit more suspense to it.
Our first car scenes we had done at first were not good enough becasue of errors while filming like reflections of us filming so we re-filmed them and they were much better second time round becasue they flowed much better and they made more sense to the audience. We also had different types of shots of the car second time filming which made the introduction better.

In this final project I have learnt to film as much as possible becasue it will help in you editing becasue you have much more clips to play around with. Also using a variety of shots like high angle shots, low angle shots, point of view, over the shoulder; all these work well and create more atmosphere in a film. From my last project I have tried to make the film flow more and I think that the final film flows really well, much better then the first project I did.

Editing- technical decisions

In all scenes of out final project we have made each shot slightly darker and have slightly increased the contrast of them to make the film more defined and seem it is darker then it actually is to give a sense of mystery.

We have placed each clip of the car driving in sequence to make the car really flow well from clip to clip which is easy to understand for the audience. The pace of the car was not edited because it was not too fast and wasn't slow enough to edit the speed. The only part we did edit was when Sam saw the monk for the very first time in his car which we put in slow motion when he saw him which makes it obvious for the viewers to see what Sam sees much easier. Through the car scene we have also placed a few fade ins and fade outs because it seems to make some of the clips flow to the next one instead of being very sudden it makes the music also match the speed of the scene making it look smoother and relaxed.

When Sam is sleeping in his bedroom we made the lighting seem very dim with a covered lamp to make it seem it was late at night/early morning. It then cuts from Sam sleeping to The monk in a creepy looking forest with fast images from different views of the monk all in a row. Oscar thought that we should have it in black and white and we all agreed because it made the dream look so much more effective because it made the monk look more creepy and mysterious to the audience. It then cuts back to Sam sleeping then back to the monk, so it goes back and forth. We thought that would be very effective as it creates suspense for the viewers because it shows that he is having a bad dream and u could tell by his reactions when Sam is sleeping.

In the running scene when we have the possessed man being chased by Sam, we have good variety of shots that are focused on the man that flow well together and shots of Sam following from behind. Just like the dream we had jump shots from the possessed man to Sam, back and forth. When the man jumos off the edge we slowed it right down so you can see it in slow motion when he falls which gives it more of a suspenseful shock for the audience. When he goes out of sight we faded it out to a bird flying off a tree because we felt it would create a unique shot from other groups.

The music we decided to edit into our final project was a slow dramatic song which creates a slow suspense atmosphere for the audience. It gets really into the song just before the man jumos off the edge because it represnts something good or scary is about to happen in this scene.

Locations (Appendix D)

These are the locations we decided to use in out final project:

• St. Annes Hill (used for most of the scenes)
  
• Oscar's house (Sam sleeping)
• Dual carriage way next to Thorpe Park (establishing shot of St. Annes Hill)
  

Contribution (Appendix C)

Throughout our planning and filming everyone in the group has put in good ideas towards our final project. The contribution I have made to the planning and filming are:

• Camera shots in car scene.
• Camera shots in Sam's dream of the monk.
• Contributed towards editing, suggesting ideas.
• Provided ideas towards storyline.
• Suggested names for the final project.
• Researched what production companies and distributors to use.
• Suggested what shots we could use or take.
• I was there for most days of filming.
• Contributed to the storyboard(action, effects, props. Sound, speech)
  

Target audience and Feedback!

Our target audience for our film would be from young teenagers aged 13 to adults aged 30 or onwards. It is a very brawed target audience because many people like thriller/horror films which could lead to problems creating this, but i feel that our storyline and how it is portrayed can adapt to all ages of our target audience because it would have most things each person would like. For example, the film would be horrific enough for young teenagers to enjoy it but the adults will relate to the storyline more and enjoy the twists of it.
The adults that we would target our film at would be attracted to the film by the sudden actions from the characters for instence, when the possessed man that is running away from Sam jumps off the edge of the cliff suddenly. I feel that the adults that see this scene would be shocked and confused making them want to know why this happened and how, making them think deep about the story behind the monk and why he is there.
Where as, the teenagers that we target this film at would enjoy it because of the creepy and mystical images of the monk. For example, the dream that Sam has in his house about the monk haunting him. The fast scenes of the monk in black and white would hopefully capture the teenagers to watch more and see what other horrifying scenes would be yet to come.

I think our genre for the film which is a Thriller/horror is shown very well in our filming with the dream that Sam has and when the possessed man commits suicide. The feedback from other groups that have seen it have agreed and can see that it is a thriller/horror.
The feedback we got from other groups was overall good. They thought that our scenes from the dream and the possessed man commiting suicide looked really good and very eye catching. Although when groups watched it they didn't really understand why our actor was running and got confused until will explained to them that he was possessed by the monk then they understood what was going on with him. The feedback we also got was that the car scene when Sam is on his way home flowed well together from clip to clip.

Research on production companies!

We have chosen to use Dimension as our prduction company because it is closely linked with horror films similar to ours like Scream (96-00), Halloween (95-02), 1408 (2007), and The Amityville horror. These films have the same genre as our films so we feel it would fit perfectly.

Miramax Films is a film production and distribution brand that was a leading independent film motion picture distribution and production company. They have been involved with many great thrillers such as Gangs Of New York(2002), Kill Bill Vol. 1(2003), Kill Bill Vol. 2(2004). Just like Dimension, Miramax would also match well with our Thriller film.