Aeternum Supplicium Evaluation

1. Aeternum Supplicium Evaluation Tom Curran A2 Media

2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

3. Aeternum Supplicium is a hybrid genre of Tragedy and Horror, It uses a lot of the generic traits most horror films have. The music for example is extremely dark in places and climaxes when the film arrives at an important scene. I chose to render the film in black and white after watching Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. The dark colours give a whole new edge to the film and help create a dark and mysterious atmosphere, one that could not be created through brighter colours. However in most Horror films the lighting is very dark and minimal colour is used, of course it is a lot harder to execute when filming with no budget with a rather inexpensive camera.

4. Important Shots This is the shot after the establishing shot, It shows the audience that the character is upset and there is already a lack of equilibrium which defies Todorov’s narrative theory. This is not always the case in horror films as there often is an equilibrium that gets disrupted and then resolved however throughout my film my no equilibrium happens I though a head and shoulders shot would suit this scene the best as I didn’t want it too close and I wanted the audience to be able to see his body language. His costume immediately tells the audience that the film is set in the past.

5. This shot shows a clear relationship between the two characters. At this point the non diegetic music is extremely melancholy played by an orchestra, her words “You must stay strong Darling” are purposely said at the time an Oboe solo is heard to highlight the sadness in her voice. This is often done in tragic films however I wrote the story to fit with the music I used. The shot used is a medium shot so as to fit both characters in to show their close relationship with each other. I also used candles to add atmosphere to the scene because candles are a sacred symbol to show eternal light and it is quite appropriate as her light is going out, the same concept is used in other scenes including candles.

6. This scene shows Robert and his daughter embracing as the mother has died. The scene shows a close relationship between father and daughter, this also shows that the death of a loved one has brought the family closer together which is a common trait of tragic films.

7. This shot shows that the character has gone mad, the music is very dark at this point as he self harms. The mis-en-scene is typically gothic as he has book open and is chanting Latin, it is very similar to older horror films. The camera angles then cuts to a close up of his chest as he cuts into himself

8. This is a shot from the climatic sacrifice scene. I used slow motion here to create an effect which makes it linger on the moment and make the audience actually realise how dark it is that a father would kill his own daughter. Slow motion is used a lot in dramatic films to help lengthen the moment. The same scene is taken from a different angle to help create variety.

9. This high angle shot is used to show that the character is weak and at this point in the film he is very weak and vulnerable as he takes sanctuary in a church.

10. This is one of the last scenes in the film, Roberts suicide. Close ups showing the detail of how he goes about his death are common horror film conventions, I first noticed this whilst watching F Final Destination, before they die you get a detailed view of how they are killed.

11. The final scene is of Mathew; Daisy’s Husband watching his Father in laws burning corpse! The music at this point is quite sad. There is no equilibrium at the end really which defies Todorov’s narrative theory. However overall the film does follow the generic forms and conventions of most Horror/tragic films.

12. Poster My poster is a close up of the mask that Robert uses when he’s in his deranged state of mind. I wanted to keep the colours black and white just like the film apart from the slogan as the red stands out and the red represents the blood spill of sacrifice. The idea of the close up face was inspired by a poster of a horror film called Frightmarewhich I saw on the wall in a cinema. My film and Frightmare are different however I thought the idea would work well for mine, and overall I think it looks really good.

13. Radio Trailer This was one of the hardest things to research to get an idea of how a radio trailer should sound. It had to be short however I had to be fast paced and exiting. I heard a radio trailer for Taken 2 on the radio and Liam Neeson was simply talking about the film with dramatic music playing in the background. It was simple yet effective so I made mine similar. I recorded my sister interviewing me about the film and simply took some audio clips of key moments from the film. I’m not entirely sure if it fits in with the forms and conventions of other radio trailers as I haven’t heard enough to say.

14. 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

15. For my ancillary texts I wanted to keep the idea of having a dark disturbing theme so therefore I kept the black and white colour scheme in the poster. This is to show the target audience the nature of the film and so when they watch it they know the film will be in monochrome. The radio trailer was used in the same way using music, I included music by the composer who’s was music was used for the film so the listener would get an of the nature of it. Everything done in it easily relates back to the film in nearly every way. Listen to Radio Trailer here

16. 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

17. When I posted the video on YouTube I set it to leave the comments enabled so I could get a general feel for the audiences reaction to the film. The comments left are not particularly helpful but they do give an idea of the age range of people who watch the film. This is a screen shot of the comments left. The film also has so far achieved 5 likes and 0 dislikes.

18. I showed the film to my family, friends, my media class and also other classes have seen it. After they had watched it I questioned them on it. The comments I received were mainly positive, a few were saying how dark and sinister the film was with a few (including my Mother) accusing me of being sick for writing such a disturbing script. Overall however the people enjoyed it, which is what matters the most. Something that was said quite frequently however was that the narrative was slightly vague in some parts especially the transition from the character being sad to suddenly having a murderous desire to kill his daughter. I took this into consideration and realised that it is very vague and now think I should have had a scene that makes a clearer transition between the two scenes.

19. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

20. Programs used for the planning and making of the film. I used the following to plan my film: Word was used in the planning so that I could write ideas down to format into a near document. This was the easiest program I used as it is only used for text which doesn’t require a great deal of IT skills to use. Power point was used for the evaluation. It is perfect for it as it creates an interesting layout for the information so I am not just limited to the use of text and pictures. I chose to use a dark background in the presentation due to the fact that I wanted it to relate to my film, poster and radio trailer.

21. Adobe premier pro was the program that was used the most as it was the one I used to edit my film. At first it was quite complicated to use and I encountered some problems with it however in the end it worked and it turned out to be an extremely useful program. Photo shop was used to create my poster. I was already extremely familiar with this piece of software as I used it last year for my music magazine. It was very useful and not hard to use. Audacity is audio editing software and is what I used to create my radio trailer. It is simple to use as all I had to do is plug in a microphone and press the record button. It gave me pleasing results.

22. Conclusion Overall this experience has been great fun and I have really enjoyed making my film and working with new people and my cast. Everyone who helped did a great job and I am extremely happy with the outcome of my film!

23. Thank You for reading :D