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

The Task

My task was to create a promotions package for my film consisting of a trailer and ancillary texts which was a magazine cover and a film poster. The combination of the trailer and ancillary texts are designed to promote my film. I deconstructed and carried out research into many magazine covers and film posters in order to produce my ancillary texts.

The Title

I made sure that the title of my film in my magazine cover and my film poster was the same font which is Charlemagne Std. I also warped the text in both to make it more eye-catching. It needed to be eye-catching to attract people to the poster and to the magazine, this is a vital method of enticing people into the watch the film. If the title was not memorable or did not stand out, then audience would not know the name of the film so the audience turnout is likely to be significantly lower. This is why we chose ‘Seized’, a one word title which is punchy and striking. In my poster, I also decided for the ‘e’ to be red whilst the red of the colour is white, this gives the effect that the ‘e’ is handwritten and creates an eerie effect. I decided it to be red as it connotes the theme of danger which is a main motif in thriller genres. This also really stood out upon a black background. I did the opposite for the magazine cover with the font being red and the ‘e’ being white so they link yet there is still some variation. This idea was influenced from the ‘Taken 3’ poster where the letter ‘e’ was replaced with the number ‘3’ also in a different colour, I wanted to replicate this idea as it was eye- catching and appealing to the audiences.

Production Company

When deconstructing posters and magazine covers, I decided to used big budget films as that is what out film would be like. We decided for our film to be produced by Universal as this is renown production company which has produced countless successful and profitable films. We also wanted it to be in cooperation with Heyday Company and our own fictitious production company: RAT Productions. To improve this, I would have made the logo more eye- catching as it was iconic and successful

Prod comp

The process of my Film Poster

For my poster, I deconstructed ‘Taken 3’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘The Gift’ and ‘Maze Runner’. ‘The Gift’ especially inspired me to have a main central photographic image that stands out upon a black ground in order to make it appealing and eye- catching. I also really liked the font in ‘Taken 3’ poster as it was extremely bright. From deconstructing these posters, I copied the structure from a combination them, for example, I used the idea of the title from ‘Taken 3’, I used a similar central photographic image as well as the positioning of the title from ‘The Gift’ and the I put the star’s names in bold at the top of the poster like ‘Iron Man 3’ which is a unique selling point. However, looking back I would have improved the poster by using a man with older looking hands as they are very clean and young looking, this does not fit with the predicted age of the antagonist. Also, as the main image is an extreme close up of the protagonist as she has been kidnapped, I would have asked the actor to have more fear expressed on her face.

When producing my poster, I experimented with the Photoshop software which was new to me. The creative decisions I made were to warp the text of the title to make it more original, I had to experiment with the horizontal and vertical distortion and had to put it in the right place otherwise I made the title look too unusual. I also decided to put the picture of the mill at the bottom of the right hand side of the page and changed the colour to greyscale, this then links to my magazine cover and my trailer. I tried it in different colours using the colour gradient but I found that having a brighter colour drew the audiences’ attention away from the main photographic image.

The process of my Magazine Cover

Likewise, when making my magazine cover I deconstructed ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘The Maze Runner’ and ‘Harry Potter’. I decided to deconstruct ‘Iron Man’ as well as the poster and the trailer as it was also part of a promotions package like what I am producing and I chose ‘Harry Potter’ as that is also produced by Heyday Productions. I was able to use similar features, such as superimposing the main image over the title to show the magazine is successful and easily recognisable, this is shown in the ‘Maze Runner’ magazine cover. I also wanted to have the date and price in small letter in the middle of the ‘m’ of Empire, like the ‘Iron Man 3’ magazine. I also copied the idea of having other stories promoted within the magazine yet the main focus is on the film I am producing; this is why ‘Seized’ is in a large font to stand out. I also wanted to make a shadow of the protagonist to make it more frightening to reinforce the genre.

Focus Groups

However, I decided to show my focus group 4 images (2 variations of my film poster and 2 variations of my magazine.) They had the same main photographic images but swapped between the poster and the magazine cover.

Focus Groups

Here is the feedback I got from my focus groups: Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4

Focus Groups

Therefore, going my the opinions of my focus group, I decided to go against my original idea and swap the images over as they thought it would be the most effective and appealing for audiences.

Comments….

Prezzi

Here is the link to The Development of my Film Poster Prezzi

Here is the Prezzi for The Development of my Magazine Cover

In Conclusion

Altogether, the ancillary texts and the trailer as a whole all link together as they have similar aspects to them such as the font and images which are similar. In retrospect, I would have advertised a social media link, such as a website or a Twitter and Facebook face as this would have increased its accessibly and would appeal to the age of the target audience. This could have increased the popularity of the film as it would be well known so the audience would be bigger leading to a bigger profit.