Evaluation Question 2

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

Every trailer is important to the promotion of a movie however this is not the most important factor of promoting a movie. The recognition of any movie trailer comes from three main products, which are:

Trailer – This is the first ad released when a movie has been made. There are many ways in which these trailers can be seen by the viewers. Depending on what the promoters would like to do they could show these trailers in between programmes which are the best way of bringing in the public to watch a movie. Other then this company places the trailer onto YouTube which is one of the biggest used online services. If the ad is good and attracts viewers they will possibly share the video around to other friends on social network sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Poster – the film poster is another important factor which needs to coincide with the trailer, for e.g. you cannot have a comedy trailer if the poster is a horror. This is misleading and the producers will most likely loose viewers. Posters are used all around different cities being part of billboards, bus stops, and on walls. This is also a great way to bring in the viewers and for that reason the poster will need to be of high quality.

Magazine – Many people read magazines, in these magazines there are many different advertisements which are about different purposes. To have a magazine front cover for a movie it will need to be the same quality as the poster is as it plays the same importance. This also attracts people to watch the movie.

All three products are required to be of the same quality and used for the same purpose in this case to advertise the release of a movie.

As we have decided to create a horror movie trailer we are also required to create a magazine front cover and also a poster. We have received feedback on our main product which is the trailer and the reactions we have got back is perfect as we did receive a few negative points however the trailer applies to the genre perfectly according to the audience the feedback also gave us an idea of the effectiveness of the trailer.

With the combination of the main product, poster and magazine it has made the chosen genre more applicable and effective. We were using Photoshop to create our final poster and magazine. The design of both products was due to the amount of research we had carried out, researching many horror posters and magazines. It is very important for any movie which contains all three products to keep the consistency of the colours used and the house style. We decided to use an image of the character for each of our products to keep consistent, linking to the actual trailer. On the poster we used a typical layout which every other professional poster has to keep ours professional. The layout contains the characters names at the top with the cast and crew at the bottom. When carrying out research we had found out the many people look towards the middle or slightly above which we experimented and worked. Due to the experiment we contained the item we wanted to be the most attracting in the middle and slightly above is an eye which contains a little message in it. When looking properly into the eye you will be able to see the little text saying no escape “NO ESCAPE” this text is very effective as it is placed in the eye. Looking into the eyes of people you can see what they are thinking or the mood that they could be in. In a horror movie when the eyes are looked into there is a clear sign of fear which is why we decided to have that message. Also being consistent we have not used many colours on the poster as the actual trailer is shown in black and white which creates a special kind of atmosphere. Also the text is in your face and slightly blended in to the background. The text is also right in your face as it creates it also places a big part in creating an effect. The most valuable text on the page is the quotations from magazines which create credibility; this also has a good effect on the viewer as the reviews for the movie has come back positive.

In my opinion I think there is a great combination between the main product, and the ancillary text (magazine cover, poster). We as a group have taken a key element from the trailer which we applied to the ancillary text so all products are consistent.

One of the main aspects of our film is the colour of the font matched with the colour of the trailer. The font is written in a black and white on the poster however the whole trailer is shown in black and white, whereas the magazine is mainly black with white lines.

As you can see on the magazine there are the white swirly lines over the black background. Our decision to use these lines was due to research taken out, keeping the magazine simple yet effective. Many other Empire horror magazines don’t really have anything behind the main character as there is no room but with ours we have also created a mysterious effect on our final poster the colour scheme is once again carried on and it is easy to see the contrast of the black and white areas. The eye is one of the characters from our trailer you see it nice a clearly as it is shown around a light backgrounds however at the bottom the is this mysterious figure hidden with a black background.

Another key element is the use of images on each ancillary product. We have once again kept consistence with the 3 products as from the trailer we have obtained images which are now used on both the poster and the magazine cover. In the trailer we do not get much close ups of the characters however now we get slightly more off the characters. I think this is a quite effective combination between the main product and the text. As in the trailer we get a slight turn in mood with one of the characters, which we can also tell by looking to the bottom of the poster.

The colour of all three products are dark and mysterious but all in different way. The poster is the most effective when it comes to the use of the darkened colours as the images help out. Out of all three products the magazine has is the one which lightens the mood as it is colourful compared to the poster and trailer.

The main thing that will get the movie a big reputation is the consistency we have used throughout each product. In my opinion all three products are as important as each other however the poster will be the main hit for our movie as it creates the most impact as a horror product.