Evaluation 2

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


We wanted the promotional package to appeal to a mainstream audience. This is because its a horror film and many existing horror films have become successful and have a mainstream audience. A niche audience wouldn't really work for our film as horrors are quite popular and films such as 'The Hitcher' have become quite popular and successful with their audiences and that's the type of film we have based our trailer on.
I think the film trailer, magazine and poster all link/work together because they all contain similar elements, for example we have used the same font for the title of the film throughout, on the magazine cover, the poster and in the trailer. This links together because they all share the same font and colours and haven't changed at all. We also used pictures of the main character from the trailer on both the magazine and poster cover which links them together as you could tell straight away that they create a promotional package. We also thought that if people who don't have the technology to watch the actual trailer then the poster and magazine would have the same effect as they all share the same/similar elements throughout which would still attract them to go watch the film even if they don't get to watch the actual trailer.


I think there were a few elements that were successful in each product. For example the trailer, I think that showing each setting in the trailer worked well because from researching many horror trailers we saw that this is a convention many of them do. I also think the title on the trailer worked well as it was similar to other real trailers we had seen when doing our research. The other successful thing about the trailer itself was that we added in lots of different camera angles to show the strengths of the characters, for example we used a worms eye few of one of the characters to show the audience how powerful she was. I think this was successful because it tells the audience a little bit more about the character before the watch the whole film. There were also successful elements on the magazine front cover, one of these was using the main character as the big main image. This is because it stands out to the audience and shows the main character straight away so they can see who's going to be starring in the film. Also the photo was edited on Photoshop to make it look more professional and stand out more to the audience. The next successful element on the magazine was the cover lines, this is because this is a convention on film magazine front covers and we added them in to make it look more professional and make it stand out to the audience more if they can read briefly what's going to be inside the magazine before they buy it. There were also successful elements on the film poster that we created for the promotional package, for example the slogan at the top of the poster. I think this was successful because it stands out to the audience and tells them a bit more about the film before they watch the trailer or the actual film. Also this is a convention of film posters which is why we added it and why it works well. Another successful thing about the film poster was the big main image of the main character, this is because most posters have a big picture as the whole background, also it shows the audience who the main character is straight away, and because she has blood on her and its a dark background they can tell straight away its a horror before seeing the magazine or watching the trailer. Over all I think each product was successful in some ways as they all link together and work well together to make the promotional package.


Throughout making the promotional package there have been a number of difficulties that we have had to overcome. One difficulty that we had to overcome was the filming. This is because we didn't film everything in one session we had a number of different filming sessions but on certain days when we wanted to film we couldn't make it or the lighting was different so some days it would be darker which affected the trailer when we put it together. To overcome this we had to arrange more filming sessions to be able to film enough and have the right weather and daylight etc. This was quite important because else the trailer wouldn't make sense if it was night at one point and day time at other points. Another difficulty we had to overcome was the editing of the trailer. This is because we needed to add in different effects and transitions at certain points in the trailer but we didn't know exactly how to do this. To overcome this we managed to figure out by doing it after searching on the internet. We found out how to speed up and slow down clips, add in transitions, mute out the sound on a clip, insert sound effects etc. This was useful because without searching and figuring it out we wouldn't of been able to add in these things and the trailer wouldn't of been as good. This was a pretty easy difficulty to overcome as it didn't take long to find out how to do things on final cut after searching on the internet.
A difficulty we had to overcome with the film magazine was adding the title 'Total Film' this was because we needed to get the exact same font as the real magazine which meant we had to Google what the font name was and download it. However the computer for some reason wouldn't let the file download which became a problem. To overcome this I figured out a way of cropping the title from a real magazine and adding it onto ours. To do this I had to use a programme called Photoshop to edit the magazine, this was quite easy but I had to zoom in really close because at first the magazine title had white bits around the outside which I then had to edit out to make it look professional. Overall this difficulty was overcome and I managed to fix the magazine to make it look better and realistic. Another problem was thinking where to put the title of the film and what colour to have it. This was because we didn't want to make the title too bold as we wanted the audience to catch the attention from the main image and then see the title of the film, also we didn't know what colour to have it as we wanted it to stand out but be different from the other titles on the front cover. In the end we asked a few people what they thought to get audience feedback. From doing this we was able to find out what they preferred and then change it to appeal to them. If we couldn't overcome these difficulties then the magazine wouldn't of turned out how it did and it wouldn't fit what the audience wanted to see.
There were also difficulties with the film poster that we had to overcome. One of the main difficulties we had to overcome with the film poster was adding the title. This was a problem because the picture we used as the poster background had a dark side to it and the side that the dark bit was, was where we wanted to place the title. To overcome this we had to change the colour of the title. This meant that we had to have the title in a white colour so that it would stand out from the black dark background. However the title was a little too big to fit in this place because there wasn't enough dark background for it to fit on which meant it overlapped onto the picture of the main character which was light. However we overcame this problem because we edited the photo on Photoshop to add blood on to the main characters arm which was red so that the main title would still fit in the place we wanted and still stand out as it would be on a black and red background. If we hadn't of thought of this then we would of have to of positioned the title in a different place which isn't what we wanted. We were lucky we thought of this idea because the title worked well where we put it and still stood out to catch the audiences attention. Another problem we had to face was where to put the slogan of the film. This was because we wanted it to attract the audience so that they would read it and it would draw them in but we didn't want it to over power the main title. To overcome this problem we put it at the top in the same colour writing and font but made it smaller so it would fit on one line so that it didn't over power the main title. This worked well in the end because we managed to find a place where it would stand out to the audience but not too much to over power the main title. Over all I think the poster worked well in the end as we put everything where we wanted even though we had to over come a few difficulties.


Even though we have finished our promotional package there are still a few weaknesses with each product. One weakness with the trailer is that I think we should of added a few more settings as from researching different horror film trailers I counted that each one normally show at least 10 different settings where as in our trailer we don't have that many. This is a weakness as it doesn't have one of the conventions of a horror film trailer. However we didn't do this because we didn't want to give away too much about the film in the trailer as we wanted the trailer to draw the audience in and want to watch it to find out what actually happens. Another weakness with the film trailer is that it doesn't have any music where as all the other existing horror film trailers that we researched contain some sort of music. Our trailer has a sound effect at the beginning and a voice over at the end and a bit of dialogue. This is a weakness because we should of added in some quite music in the background that could be played throughout to build up the tension when the audience watch it. However this wasn't really important because the trailer still works well how it is and not having music doesn't effect it really bad. Even with the weaknesses I am still happy with how the trailer has turned out because it works well and from receiving audience feedback we have changed it to what the audience want which means it should appeal to them more.
A weakness that the film magazine has is that we didn't add many cover lines on the front. This is because from researching total film magazines I saw that many of them have lots of cover lines and we only added two onto ours. I think it would of been better if we added just 1 or 2 more smaller ones, this is because they explain more about the magazine which means it might draw the audience in more and make them want to buy it if it tells more about the film. However this isn't a big issue because you could argue that it doesn't need lots of cover lines because it might make the audience buy it more if they don't know what's going to be in it as they might want to find out for themselves. I think another weakness with the product is the 'welcome to the movies' this is because I think it should of been smaller and more in the centre because it doesn't need to stand out and its not a main heading. However this doesn't effect the overall product but I think if I was to redo this I would definitely make it smaller or take it off the magazine. Overall with these weaknesses I still think the magazine works well as it stands out to the audience and contains many of the typical conventions of a film magazine.
The film poster that we created also has some weaknesses. The first weakness is that it doesn't have much writing, for example some horror posters have more writing on or characters names at the top of the poster where as we didn't do this on ours. This doesn't effect the over all product too much though as not every poster cover contains this which means it would still appeal to the target audience. Another weakness about the film poster is that we didn't add a billing block which is a main convention of horror film posters. Without this the poster looks really plain and not as realistic as it would with a billing block. However we still have the other conventions such as big main image, slogan and release date/coming soon. This should of been improved however it didn't get added.