Evaluation Question 2:How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary products?

The ancillary products are a vital part of the production and development of the main product. They help to attract particular audiences and bring awareness of the main product. The ancillary texts are a clever way to advertise to the audience alongside sell the main product. It is vital that both pieces are interesting with subtle implications of that particular horror genre, alongside only minor hints of the plot and the importance of not giving too much away.

By analyzing existing horror film posters like Shutter (2009) and Hostel (2007) I gained appreciation for the fact they that did not have blood and gore however still managed to be equally as scary as the ones that did. Shutters poster was very disorientated and it was difficult to figure out what the picture actually was, this made the general poster become unsettling as this undefined image could represent so much more than a disorientated face In many cases the more psychological the poster then the more effective it was. I only added in a mild element of body horror in my own poster (I added in a few splatters of blood on the face of the demented girl) because of this but mostly stuck to the psychological factor.

I personally found that the suspense built up quicker when the tag lines were really effective and decided to put very unnerving concrete sentences in my trailer and my poster. I used a few taglines in my trailer to build suspense such as ‘four teenagers’ later followed by ‘one psychopath’ and ‘you can’t stop the screams’. The taglines were being used to create a sense of mystery and to create suspense for anyone watching the trailer. It is a good technique for making the audience want to see more.

The sentences were chosen from DAFONT and therefor I was able to select the ‘horror’ fonts and I was able to chose this one. I think this font was different and the fact it deteriorates signifies the fait of the young teenagers.

The poster that I got lots of my inspiration from was Sinister (2012). Not only did this help me with ideas for my poster but it also helped me with many aspects for my horror trailer. Below is the photo of Sinister and next to it is a screen shot of one moment in my trailer. We really loved the idea of only using gore if it was being used in a psychological way and Sinister did this perfectly. Dragging the bloodied hand across the walls worked really well and was a part that many people liked in our horror trailer. We decided to take this idea from the Sinister poster however use it within the trailer and made sure to adapted it to be unique and different.

I understood the necessity in creating a visual link between the main product and the ancillary tasks and therefore decided to make my poster have many similar aspects to that of my main product (creepy picture, unnerving sentences and dark colors.) There is an endless list of generic features that contribute well to the success of the horror poster. The style of the film title and dark colors enhance the unnerving feeling we get when looking at the frightening poster. In both my main product and my poster I used colors to connote different hidden meanings. Inside the typography was a dark matt black color that symbolized the darkness in the psychological killer and also the fate of the young teenagers. Below I have a still image from my main product and a photo of my ancillary task. I believe these two photos both show the use od the dark color alongside an unsettling image.

I decided to use a medium shot on the poster due to the fact it was a perfect alignment for adding text around the psychological killer and having the deathly character directly in front of you was also very affective. Jordyn who plays the demented girl is holding a doll that has been destroyed and ripped to pieces this is being used to symbolize the danger of the character and her lack of care and understanding for people. The doll automatically represents her dangerous side due to the fact she has a rope tied around its neck. The poster also needed to have some necessities such as our studio’s logo and the age rating.

Next I had to create my magazine cover. Although the ancillary products share similarities I also understood that different platforms offered different ways to sell a product and therefore challenged my film magazine cover and gave it a very feminine outlook. I researched into ‘Total Film’ magazines and saw that many of the magazines had a sophisticated look and weren’t always fixed upon the genre that the person on the cover participated in (e.g. not always a horror magazine even if the person on the front has starred in a horror film.)

This total film magazine has everything I wanted on mine, a glamorous and sophisticated look without going overboard on the genre that the lady participates in.

I decided to target my magazine at a female audience and edited it to be quite feminine and modernist, I believe this gave my magazine a really different look however it still fits the criteria of being a film magazine. I think that my magazine cover expresses genre of film in a very different way and it leads the readers into reading it without being too over the top, it has simple sentences that allows them to understand the context of what is inside without giving too much away. You can see this when I use the sentence ‘lets talk horror’ as it portrays that horror is a genre that will appear in the magazine however doesn’t give the impression that it’s just horror based and does have other things available to read as well.

When choosing my image I wanted a very glamorous look. I wanted the photo to show the actor in their normal everyday life like many of the Total Film magazines do. This appeals to the audience in a very different way to the other two products due to the fact it engages the audience in as they are interested in the actor’s everyday life. Below I have selected another TOTAL FILM magazine that I think also fits my particular style that I was aiming for.