How effective is the combination of your

main task and ancillary tasks?

How I tried to link the tasks? Naturally, I was thinking of my work as a cohesive combination throughout the construction of my all my work so that my end products would have a more professional look: reflecting real life media in which there is a clear link between a films various forms of advertising. However, as a group, we focused on making sure that the main trailer was successful and relevant to the audience and genre first of all. From there, I could take aspects of the trailer and incorporate the ideas into my ancillary tasks, using the main trailer’s style and theme as a platform to begin.

Main Task & Movie Poster Personally, I believe there are a lot of links between my movie poster and the promotional

trailer that our group produced not least in the obvious simplistic style linking the two together. For instance, the trailer, because of its independent production, is clearly low in production values and this is apparent in the simple fonts used, lack of exciting effects and even the mise-en-scene used throughout. Similarly, I made the poster have the same feel through the distorted image used and simplistic nature (only featuring the one main picture for example) thus using the rough and raw nature of the genre throughout both.

Furthermore, because the poster’s image is actually directly from the trailer, it is easy to make links in terms of the locations used, costumes used and narrative clues. I believe this is an important connection as it helps the audience to link the two together. For example, when they see the poster, they will hopefully be reminded of this situation in the trailer and their interest and interaction with the film will be continued: keeping them involved in the film and hopefully furthering their desire to see the film. This is similar in the use of taglines as well as I have purposely featured the main tagline used in the trailer on my poster in order to further this idea of re-igniting the audience’s interest but also strengthening the overall brand.

As well as this, I also made sure to include awards, like those used in the trailer, on my movie poster. This is something I done because, due to the two-step theory, it will help to attract audience members, especially those within my target audience. For instance, people in the C1 and higher demographics are more likely to be attracted by small, independent movie awards than other people as are people over the age of 25: which is something I wanted to address as I felt that, on its own, maybe the image on its own would attract more of a younger audience due to the links in age, although together and as a whole I believe it does appeal both our primary and secondary audiences.

Also, I tried to make sure that I strengthened my brand across the two products by making sure that I included the website used at the bottom of my poster so the audience are consistently reminded of where they can find more information about the film, hopefully keeping their interest alive. However, one area where I would improve on my work is to change the date used on my poster. For instance, the trailer just says “Coming Soon” where as the poster says “Coming April 20th” which, whilst it may not be a problem as the poster could be released after the teaser trailer, as a package being released at the same time, they should all be consistent which was an error on my part.

Main Task & Magazine Cover

Furthermore, I feel that there are significant links between my magazine cover and main trailer even though I do believe there are less: although this is to be expected as, in terms of real life media productions, those in charge of creating the film’s promotional content would not be the designer for the magazine. However, despite this, once again I feel that there is the simplistic style linking my work together as is seen in the magazine cover’s use of one image and ordered layout of cover lines. Once again this helps to clearly show the type of film present but also show the British Independent side of the film. For instance, furthermore, on the Magazine Cover I used a tagline saying “British Independent Film in One Place” which clearly also helps to show the independent nature of the film which, as a group, we helped to display in the trailer through its low production values. This is why I had chosen to create an independent film magazine - they won’t have the funds or reputation to have a recognizable celebrity on the front cover to boost sales, as is explained in the “Star Theory,” so will therefore look at films such as ‘Ferry Port’ instead.

Furthermore, one link that I made between my magazine cover and main teaser trailer is in the image used and the way in which I made sure the main protagonist featured was wearing the same clothes as he was in the trailer. By doing this, it helps to link the two together whilst helping to clearly define that characters own personal identify. For instance, if someone saw this magazine cover, they would be reminded of the trailer in question and, firstly, be more likely to purchase the magazine, but secondly, help to keep the film at the forefront of their mind.

Despite this though, I do feel that one area in which I could improve is the general look of the magazine cover in terms of colour and brightness. For instance, I wanted to keep all of my tasks quite dim and subtle to reflect the dark nature of the social realism genre in terms of narrative. However, I believe that using the white background of my image on the poster makes it too bright and doesn’t reflect the tone of the trailer or overall genre. Therefore, If I were to create this magazine cover again, I would look to darken the background used for the image to fit in with my other work.

Movie Poster & Magazine Cover As well as making sure that my Main Task and ancillary tasks linked together, I also

wanted to try and ensure that my two ancillary tasks had aspects that could be compared together so that my work overall had links with each other in all areas, thus strengthening the overall combination of my work. Therefore, firstly, as I have stated that both link to the main task through there simplistic nature, it is clear that both of these must therefore link together through their simple, raw look. Once again, this only helps to strengthen the overall brand as well as clearly defining the genre of the film which is important in attracting my target audience as, If I were to make the film look like a comedy, they would be far less likely to watch it.

Furthermore, I also made the conscious decision to use the same font on both my magazine cover as my movie poster. Whilst this is unusual as the magazine cover wouldn’t actually be promotional content created by those advertising the film, I personally felt that the font worked well on both the ancillary tasks. Furthermore, because the film is only a small, British, independent film, it does not harm to have even more advertising. For instance, people may make the links between the poster and magazine through this font which can only be a positive in terms of advertising the film; no harm can come from it.

Overall When looking at all of the work that I have produced, I

believe that I have done an strong job of linking my main task with the ancillary tasks to the point in which they all work well as a combination and overall brand. I personally feel as though there are links throughout my work, such as the simplistic, rough approached used on all of my work, that gives it a unique look and makes it recognizable: something that I personally feel is extremely important, especially in today’s world where there is a lot of competition in terms of films with new movies coming out even faster thanks to digital distribution. Therefore, whilst there are areas I would like to change which have been outlined during this presentation, I feel that, on the whole, I have made sure my work is strong as a combination and recognizable no matter the form of advertising it is being promoted on.