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

Main product: Horror film trailer:Ancillary texts: Horror film poster + Magazine cover

Film trailer

My main product was the film trailer I made named “Dolly”. As a team, in class we created an Aperture Productions company and gathered our research which would then help us in the making of the trailer.

So here in the trailer I made sure that the name is appealing to my target audience ( both male + female in the 16-34 age category). With the combination of both ancillary texts and the main product I was able to appeal to a wide range of audience and therefore provide an interest to them through effective advertisement in the poster and magazine.

In the making of my main product, I used iMovie as it allowed me to use a wider range of effects, transitions and soundtracks more comfortably. I’ve tested the way this programme works first and once I saw the benefit of it I began making my trailer.

I was able to add a softer and quieter soundtrack at the start and then add a more faster passed and suspicious effect to attract my audience. Also, having a little girl as my main actress allowed me to refer back to my audience as I saw that most of them would feel that horrific effect if there was a child in a horror movie. Therefore with relation to my ancillary texts I was able to connect the whole imagery together to promote my film further.

As shown in both main product and ancillary text, I had my main actress throughout my horror film and within both the magazine cover and film poster. This would allow me to promote my film by not simply having the title or a slogan of the film as the main selling point but also the actress and have her wear the original costume from the trailer itself.

Film poster In my first ancillary text I made sure that the way the title is presented, with fancy/bloody font style, is not only presented this way on the poster but also in the trailer, so that I show a brand recognition in more than one piece of product.

The slogan for my film will provide me with a unique selling point as it stands out on the poster and is once again an effective way to have both within the poster and film trailer.

The billing block will allow me to be more original as conventionally it would (most of the time) be included in a film poster.

Throughout the making of my film poster I used Photoshop CS6 which allowed me to create the horrific/mystical effect. My actress is not looking directly into the camera and I deliberately took a long shot image with my actress positioned on the side so that a suspense is created. Here I got her to sit down in a black dress which was also included within the trailer and magazine cover. Also I have made her seem much smaller within the room, to promote this idea of a child’s innocence being corrupted and played upon. Having this still image of her simply sitting down would allow me to reach my target audience by not having much revealed and create this soft atmosphere with horrific elements emerging around her.

Magazine coverIn both of my ancillary texts I used soft colour fonts, so that nothing is too extreme in a bold and vibrant colour. This will bring my products together creating that recognition of the use of soft colours, although they are mostly red yet, in different colour shades of this red, from a dark red colour on the main cover line to the soft and light colour font used in the film’s slogan. Also I chose the title of the magazine to be “Illusoire” as it would bring together my products to the meaning that the storyline of the film is perhaps an illusion of this false reality. For my cover lines I used recent and popular films to catch the audience’s attention and they will also relate to my own products in some way, so if the audience have an interest in my film they may also be interested in further films presented in these cover lines. This once again would go together with my trailer, if the consumer had the chance to see the trailer, they may see the relation to other similar films already made and want to go to see “Dolly” for themselves too. I used the original mask from the film trailer and simply wrote WIN! On the top so also catch the audience’s attention to this magazine, so that, if they saw the trailer first they would know its from the film, but only after will it be up to them to turn to the page and see if its to win a poster of the mast or a duplicate of it.