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

When devising my horror trailer, my front cover, horror poster and magazine, I really wanted to create a link between the three products that the audience would be able to easily notice. The key link between my three products is the use of a dark mysterious background, for example with the horror poster, and front cover, the moon is in the background with a foggy cloudy atmosphere, and again shown with the front cover there is the woods In black and grey enhancing the mysterious elements.

I knew that the black and dark atmosphere background are an integral link between my three products, as the dark atmosphere is where the main character Anne comes home from and it lurks into her house, the darkness is the antagonist and it produces Insanity. I wanted to portray this constant link within the three aspects of my horror products as I wanted to ensure that the audience was able to realise and understand my products were of the horror genre.

I believe that outside of the house and inside of the house were representative of the horror genre for various reasons. Firstly, the home provided plenty of space and low key lighting as it was dark and the use of lamps and lights which could be dimmed were available which is a convention of the horror genre. I made sure that this convention was visible in all three of my products as effects were used during Final Cut Pro to give a distort dark feeling to the trailer. For example: low key lighting is visible in my horror trailer, magazine front cover and horror poster. To add the darkness within the household and outside it appeal to a primal fear that humans have, as the dark/ a dark area is consumed and surrounded with fear and mystery. It is this fear and mystery which often generates imagination within the mind to think ahead of what will happen next, and it is this imagination that I used to my own advantage when creating my horror products. Another reason using the dark repeatedly as a common link for all of my media products is that the dark/fear of the dark conjure up various amounts of enigmas which is a convention of the horror genre. This then shows the audience with enigmas such as ‘what exact relevance does the darkness have?’

Another way in which I tried to establish key links between my main task and ancillary tasks was through the use of typography for my film’s title, Insanity. I created this as I wanted audience members to know and establish a common link between all of my products and so that they were all instantly recognisable and unnoticeable.I also wanted the audience to be able to make a link between the typography and the horror genre in all of my horror products. For this, I used typography which looked similar to hot red unnoticeable paint whilst the sun shinned upon it. It represents the pure evil in which the dark and sun actually can have and upholds the title of the trailer – Insanity. Demonic spirits/ haunted spirits often feature in horror films as they are surrounded with an aura of mystery.

I believe that my two ancillary tasks enhance a further feeling of mystery and horror to my main horror task which may provoke the audience to go and want to really understand and see the film, as when watched they can understand and solve the mystery lurking within the natural essence of darkness, the light and the demon that keeps being seen.

I believe the amalgamation of all three media products is significantly effective in drawing in my target audience, and I also believe that I used the right amount of horror conventions and scare factors to make the audience feel anxiety, unsettled and most of all scared by the horror aspects of all three while encouraging them to either watch my media products, express their views to other target audience to draw in more people and to purchase my media products.

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