How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?BY SOHAIL H QURESHI

Introduction For my A2 Media Studies coursework it required my group and I to create a film trailer and with the film trailer we had to create two ancillary task. The ancillary task were to make a Film Poster and a Magazine Cover for the film. The genre my group and I have chosen is Horror for the film trailer, and so I put together the codes and conventions needed in a horror trailer and the ancillary tasks. Having a unique selling point for my film into three different media products. The reason I have done this is to make the film expand in the media industry, attract, keep the audience engaged and interested in the film. By doing this for my film, it will increase the effectiveness of the whole package. This also will show what house style and colour scheme for my products.

Film Posters • Looking into Film Posters of other Horror genre films, I

found out in my research that film posters are very important when advertising your film and how they can attract the audience to your product. After researching and annotating real film posters, I found the purpose of a poster and it became clear to me that the purpose of a film poster is to advertise the film through the image portrayed, the tagline, title, the actors’ names and the design/colours. Using these codes and conventions to make the poster sellable, attractive and connected with the other products. These different elements would be shown throughout the three different ancillary products.

Colour – the horror genre colour scheme has been used well in this as the colours represent the theme of paranormal disturbance. The colours Black, Grey and Brown connote the mystery and the fear of the unknown from the film, which is what the theme is in this film. also the colours also represent the little girl in the corner as she could be the main character in the movie as she is only one in high key lighting in the poster. This shows the audience that the little girl is one of the main people from the movie as everything will be centred on her. The colour white in the title could represent the ghost type theme in the movie, linking to paranormal disturbance and again, the fear of the unknown.

Typography – the use of this font allows the writing to be more attractive to the audience and make an impact on them. The font may be more conventional within the horror genre as this genre aims to make an impact on the audience by triggering their emotion, so this font would link to that genre and make an impact. The title has been placed in front of the main image, as the main image is very dull and dark keeping the title brighter the colour of the main image, making the title stands out more to the consumer so making it eye-catching to the consumer. Also allows the audience to see what the movie is called, so they are intrigued as to what the movie will be about.

Main Image –As the costume worn by the character in the centre looks old and worn, which tells the audience something has happened to them and telling the audience that this is a horror genre of movie. The child on the right in the main image shows the audience the costume worn by the child show their age, and indicates them to be vulnerable and isolated. The camera shot type is a mid-shot, and it is easy to see the child’s facial expressions being used in the poster and this showing the consumer her vulnerability and fear. At the same time the image also allows you to see that she is holding on to the arm of the other character, indicating what the storyline of the movie would be, and the relationship between the two characters.This shot allows you see the costume of the character and how this is linked with horror genre. As this shot type does not show the face of the character but linking with the theme of mystery within the horror genre, as the audience are not aware of whom the character in the movie is.

Layout – having the main image in the middle of the poster indicates the importance within the movie, and the child on the side indicates her vulnerability, so linking to the horror genre as she uses the rule of thirds and appearing to be afraid. The title is in an conventional place as it is in the centre of the page, and little bit towards bottom so making the audience look around the poster before looking at the title. As this is conventional as within the horror genre because most things happen around the character, so intending the audience to be fearful of it. Language – The use language on the

poster is very formal, as this will be attracting any class to watch the film. “A Mothers Love Is Forever” indicating the love is their even after the mother has past, bringing the horror genre into the language being used in the poster. Making the language very easy to read and catchy to the audience as this means they will remember it and makes the audience want to watch the movie.

Inspired Film Poster

My Film PosterBy using the codes and conventions when creating my Film Poster for my Main Product, I believe that the layout of the poster is very effective because it attracts the audience and is associated with the film trailer and magazine. I have shown this to the audience through the image presented in my poster, possessed girl in the middle of the poster, as it stands out in the poster as it is the central image and she is the first character or the first thing that the audience see in my trailer for The House Guest. I believe that the combination of my main product and my ancillary texts being my film poster and magazine combined are quite effective due to the fact that they create a brand identity to the overall media product that I have created and the audience will automatically know that they are all part of one. As you can see that the title for the film is placed next to the face of the image in the poster, this due to taking pieces from other poster such as the Grudge, creating this poster in my own image. I believe that the audience will be looking all over the poster before finding the name as this will give the film a chance of being seen by more audience and watched as the audience are interacting with the poster for many minutes.

My Film Poster & Magazine Cover

Magazine CoverWhen researching into many different horror magazine covers, I had discovered that the cover of the magazine cover should always have a USP of a film featuring in the magazine that certain month. Having the main characters of the featured film in the main image as the audience can make links between the cover, trailer and poster. When researching into magazine covers I came across many different magazine cover which feature new horror films, I found in the research that they all have the same type of codes and conventions, the way they attract the audience to the product and engaging the product with the audience when making the main image of the front cover having direct mode of address with the audience while they are looking at the magazine. Magazine covers have many other things such as tagline, main image, sub-heading, masthead and sub-images on the page. Having quite few stories on the page the main image will always relate to the main story in the magazine.

The magazine’s tagline “The Mind Blowing Issue” this is placed just above the masthead to give the audience a small piece of information while enticing them to read on. This is very conventional in magazine covers as it is important to entice the reader and making them read through the magazine. The tagline is also called an Anchorage text. This can be created by placing images next to the tagline. This is used in magazine conventional a lot has it gives the audience different ways of getting information about the films. The masthead of this magazine cover is very comic style with horror genre. As this uses animation in the text to show the readers what films they cover in this magazine cover. Also the masthead will be the first thing that the audience will see on the cover as it is the biggest text on the page. As empire takes advantage of this to make sure that the first thing the reader will see is the masthead. And this is done to let the audience know exactly what magazine they are looking at. Another conventional used in this magazine is that the masthead is behind the model. This done when a particularly big feature is part of magazine, and this case it is the Inception film main character placed in front of the masthead. This is always at the top of the page fitting the width. There is slightly difference in this as they did not use bold whit font, however they have incorporated part of the film into the masthead. Luring the audience in to see what it is about.

Cover line – the main point of this cover line in the film magazine is that they put the name of the film that cover line concerns. The cover line topics change as they go from telling about Inception to 20 mid blowing film out this week and etc. and this is how the magazine company get the audience to come to the magazine and be entertain as they put what the readers want to read in a film magazine. Pug – A pug in a magazine cover is the

main convention that grabs readers attention when looking at the cover. As the pug is very bright colours in magazine covers but this magazine is breaking the conventions as it doesn’t use bright colours for the pug and the audience are still attracted to the pug, grabbing the readers. The colours used in the pug are grey, black and red – this follows the main colour scheme of the magazine cover. Date – the date and the price of the magazine are presented faintly next to the masthead and only displayed the month of the issue and simple price tag. As this tells the readers that this magazine cover is monthly issue and it is less busy. Colour Scheme – the colour scheme is following the film colour scheme as the film the is presented on the magazine. As Inception has dark and dull colours, the magazine cover presented the film is following the style of the film to attract the readers to the magazine and the film at the same time. The main colours used are blue, red, grey, black and white.

We can see that the main feature of this film and specifically to this issue is the film Inception and actor Leonardo Dicaprio. We know because he is the centre and largest image on the magazine. He also covers the masthead slightly creating a layered depth and showing his importance on this cover.

Inspired Magazine Cover

My Magazine CoverIn my magazine cover I have used all the codes and convention needed in an magazine cover, it doesn’t matter what genre the magazine cover is, I had to use the right codes and conventions from the media industry to get my magazine cover to meet the conventions and be attractive to the audience when published. In my magazine you can see the effectiveness in combining with the other products, as the magazine cover continues with the main image of the possessed woman in the middle of the page, linking all three of my products together to show the audience that they are all featuring one film. It also adds emphasis to the horror genre of the film and it gives the reader reasons to buy the magazine. Onwards I have followed the layout of horror film magazine, making the magazine front page not too busy so the audience will not get lost when reading it. As the reader will be able to tell which is the main sell line in the magazine as it has been placed in the middle/bottom of the page, it being the largest font on the page so the audience will be attracted to the sell line first.

Horror GenreIn both of my trailer and my ancillary texts I have made it clear what genre I have chosen for my film. In my research I learnt that the trailer is the basis for which the characters, themes, colours, images and symbols of the film. To keep all the conventions needed in my work, I have used the characters, colours and themes in the magazine cover and film poster. To keep the house style of the magazine cover and the poster the same, I decided to use the same character for the main image to keep the link between the trailer, film poster and the magazine cover. I used many different fonts for my poster and magazine cover as I believe this would attract the audience by having new and different things to show to the chosen audience. As this creates the link for the audience across the media texts.