Evaluation Question 2:

How effective is the

combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

Our brief for our ancillary task was to create 2 posters, one being a film

magazine front cover and the second being a single page spread film review

for the magazine. I believed it was essential that the individual products

worked well together with the short film production.

Ancillary Task - Poster

Images

The images used on the Ancillary task poster were taken during the photo shoot with the cast. I manipulated these images on Photoshop to fit the poster. I cropped and then blended them into the background image so the actors appear to be coming out of the background and changed the image to make them look more like cartoons, I felt this would be appropriate as action comedies tend to show humour in their film posters.

Background

I decided to be very creative and make my background look like an explosion, I did this as I felt it fits well with the genre, being an action comedy. A typical convention of action films are that they tend to have a lot of explosions. I also added ‘BOOM’ and ‘POW’ to connote this. There are images of grenades and targets coming out of the explosion to suggest the genre of the film will be action. I have also added a clock at the bottom left hand side, this helps show the significance of time, and our short film shows a loud ticking clock at the beginning, again to exaggerate that there will be a race against time, which tends to be the case in the majority of action films.

This is the image of the explosion I created, I did

this using Photoshop, and gradually added the

significant elements around it, such as the target

and grenade. The remaining parts of my

background have been left a plain white as I did

not want to over power the poster with too many

colours.

Fonts

I downloaded the font for my main image using a website called ‘Dafont’. The font really appealed to me and I felt it fits the poster very well. It seems to have an Austin Powers look to it and fits the poster very well.

I downloaded this font using ‘Dafont’ I then edited it to make

it fit the poster. I decided to keep the font in capital letters as

it looks strong and bold as in action films.

The font used for the cast names is the same as the title although

it is not in capital letters, its similar to a fonts used on comedy

posters therefore I felt it was appropriate.

Colour

I’ve stuck with a colour scheme of 3

colours, black blue and grey with a

white background. As the majority of

the audience for the production are

males I decided to go with a strong

shade of blue. Magazine posters tend

to stick with 3-4 main colours so they

do not look to over powering, I have also stuck with this.

Codes and Conventions

when researching film posters I realised there were many codes and conventions to consider when creating a film poster, I have stated the main ones below.

BBFC

Film Credits

Date/In

cinemas

Company

logo/nameFilm website

Facebook/Twitter

page

Cast names title

Ratings/

Quote

Tag line Main image

Ancillary task – Single page

spread

Images

Below is the main image I have used for my magazine review page. After researching many magazine reviews I found the main image tends to be taken from a specific moment in the film, therefore I decided to print screen a shot from the final film production and add it onto my review page. I feel this gives a professional look to the review page and the picture fits well. Both of the main characters are also present in the image. The image had to be edited using Photoshop as the lighting was very dull, I changed the filters to heighten the contrast and brightness which lead to my final picture (below)

Fonts

The fonts I used are similar to those in magazines. I used ‘Times New Roman’ for the main article, this is a font which is very popular and tends to be used most. It is familiar with the audience and very easy to read.

I decided to change

the font of the title

from the regular

style. They usually

tend to be plain and

bold, however I

wanted mine to

match the genre of

the film, therefore I

downloaded my

own font and

adjusted it to fit the

production.

My tagline is a

typical style you

would see in a

magazine. I tried

to duplicate this to

make my review

page look

professional. It

consisted in using

3 different fonts of

different sizes.

Colour

After researching Film Review pages I found the colours tend to be very subtle, I decided to stick with this as I wanted my final outcome to look professional. I decided to use Orange, Red and Grey as my main colours, these are the main colours used in ‘Empire Magazine’ a film magazine, and I decided to use their colour scheme as a guideline for mine. However I altered the tones to be slightly brighter as it looked a little bit dull.

Codes and Conventions

Looking at existing posters I found there are many codes and conventions to include on a film review poster, I have stated these below.

Main image

Plot Title

Article (columns)

border

Release dateTag line

cast

Running Time

Web address

Company name

Verdict

Page number

Date

Magazine name