1. How effective is the combination
between you main product and
ancillary texts?
The three parts of my project are the trailer,
the magazine cover, and a poster. This was to
create a promotional package for the film.
2. Audience
I used a house style within my texts so the
audience would recognise it and associate it
with the film. I used the same background of
grey skies and leafless trees, this suggests
darkness and isolation which is typical of horror.
I have edited the images of the villain so they
are unrecognisable and give the sense of a
‘masked villain’.
3. Poster
● For my poster I used a dark colour palette as this is typical for
horror films and I want to make it clear what genre of film it
is by the poster. I used colours such as grey and black for the
images and background and red for the title which
connotates blood and danger. The font of the title also
suggests it is a horror film as it is sharp. I also used a tag line
which is placed at the top of the poster in white text. The title
is positioned at the bottom of the poster.
4. Magazine Cover
● For my magazine cover I used a close up of the villain. I edited the shot so it is
hard to recognise the villain, this is a theme I have used throughout as I want to
give a sense of the unknown and a masked villain as I think this is a main feature
in horror; look and Scream and Friday the 13th for example. The background of my
magazine cover is a grey sky and leafless trees to suggest isolation. The writing is
red and white, this is to give my texts a house style so audiences can recognise it
more easily. I decided to use Empire magazine as I think it is one of the most well-
known film magazines. I used the typical font for “Empire”, however, the rest of
the text on the magazine isn’t as bold and is quite plain as I found by doing
research that the majority of the text on Empire magazine covers is quite plain. I
originally used a different image of the villain for my magazine cover, it was
another close up, however, it was edited in a way that the villain was completely
unrecognisable as I made his face different tones or red, I also used edits on the
title of my text, however, this looked too busy. I then changed it to a cropped
version of the image I used for my poster, I thought this worked as I wanted to
give the audience an image to relate to the film, however, I wanted to use a range
of photos, that is when I decided to use this image.
5. How my ancillary tasks worked
well.
My ancillary tasks worked well together as I used the same
colour schemes and title fonts within both of them. This was to
create a house style and make it easy to remember by
audiences. I used the dark colour palette as it instantly suggests
it is a horror film.
6. Editing
When editing my trailer I used a faint heart beat at the
beginning alongside some quiet, slow music, this
suggests that things are at an equilibrium as the shots
are also quite long. I then start to build up the music
and layer it with other tracks as the shots speed up.
The heartbeat begins to continuously get faster and
louder and the shots become more intense. I also
edited the shots to make them darker so it is harder for
the audience to get a clear view of the villain. I end my
trailer with the villain slowly walking into a house and
then I quickly cut to a close up of him with the sound
effect of the Wilhelm scream.
7. Overall
I think my main task and ancillary texts have
worked well together and are effective as they
all show that the film is in the genre of horror as
they all follow the typical conventions of it. They
also all use a house style so it can be recognised
easily.
