Creating: The Newspaper Article 1890, The Chant, The Torture Pictures

The Newspaper Article 1890

We created this newspaper using Pages on the apple macs. In our film it was used during the beginning of the trailer to capture the narrative of the film and give an ambiguous idea of what the film includes. It shows that the college we filmed in, and the teenagers we followed are all victims of the past and history of the present college they attend. Spirits are around, Devil's attack them and mysterious events are encountered.

We decided to put a story on the bottom of the front cover with the date of 1890. This is a crucial point because it is immediate evidence of the past and history of which the story is based on.

The Chant

We did research on witchcraft and found that during the time of the civil world war, Matthew Hopkins is perhaps the most notorious name in the history of English witchcraft. He's believed to be responsible for the killing of around 300 women. After gathering more research, we found a poem by Samuel Butler, an early defender and critic against witchcraft (1612-1680). He was an English satirist. His most famous poem was 'Hudibras', published in three parts 1663, 1664 and 1678, and which immediately became popular for its biting satire against the Puritans. He wrote:

Hath not this present Parl’ament

A Lieger to the Devil sent,

Fully impower’d to treat about

Finding revolted Witches out?

And has he not within a year

Hang’d threescore of them in one Shire?

Some only for not being drown’d,

And some for sitting above ground.

Whole days and nights upon their Breeches,

And feeling pain, were hang’d for Witches

And some for putting knavish Tricks

Upon green Geese or Turkey Chicks

Or Pigs that suddenly deceast

Of griefs unnatural, as he guess'd

Who after proved himself a Witch

And made a rod for his own Breech.

From Samuel Butler's - Hudibras (first published in 1663).

We then improvised and changed the poem to suit our film. To make it realistic we wanted to give it an olden look which we did by dabbing a wet tea bag on it and then burning the edges.

Step 1: (Teabag Mixture)

Step 2: (Dabbing Teabag on paper)

Step 3: (Burning)

Final Product:

The Torture Pictures
We created the pictures by using uncopyrighted images through google search engine. We felt we needed to use them to show more historical background and storyline of the happenings in the past. Also, they met the horror conventions of suffering, terror, horror, mystery, evil and sinister.

We used the same techniques as above to make it look olden. The only difference is that because we were filming the college students finding the evidence in the library, we emphasised how long it had been there by scrunching it up and piling it altogether.