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

By Dylan Lad

Movie Magazine Movie Poster Movie Trailer

My A2 coursework, consisted of me creating my own movie trailer as my main piece and creating a movie poster and movie magazine as my ancillary pieces. When looking at both pieces as a whole, I think they work very effectively together. One reason for this is the use of the same mood and feeling across all three products. I tried to create a scary atmosphere in all of my products to ad to the horror movie style and create an suspense mood. I use a head/doll face in both my magazine and poster which resembles the doll in the trailer. This would help give the effect of scary and confused moments

which links in with the horror movie genre, as well as my trailer in which I have show clips of the doll in the main trailer.

The use of having the two images linking in with each other, helps show continuity throughout my pieces of work. This helps with the audience linking the pieces together so when they look at them, they can be matched easily and show that they are from the same film. For example in the horror film

saw, the use the face of jigsaw, in the movie poster as it is very memorable by the audience. And even when they franchise it with different theme park rides they use him as well. This helps the audience link the character with the movie and this is what I wanted to do with my piece.

The movie magazine helps show this as the main image is very bold and is easily matched to the movie poster. Again this is continuity throughout my pieces of work.

Another reason why I feel the three of the products work effectively together is I use the same actor in them. My main character, Kira, is shown in all three of my products. In my trailer I used a lot of close ups and blurred images to hide her as a attempt of building up suspense, so that the audience wont be able to identify her as the main protagonist. The reason why I have chosen to do this is to go along with one of the codes and conventions of

the genre which is to help build suspense throughout the movie. At the end the face is revealed and is recognisable by the audience and again links in with the other two pieces I have created.

As you can see from both images. I have used the same actors in both. This will help with the audience in relating to the movie and also making it recognisable. This is also an important factor when trying to sell and market the movie, as if people will remember it, it will help in them wanting to go and watch it. From the professional marketing side, it looks more professional to have this done.

Again here, in my example I gave, in movies they do the exact same thing by having the same person, main object in both the poster and the movie. The example there is Saw.

I feel that the movie poster works better with the trailer than the magazine cover does. This is because of a few different things:

1. The main title on the poster is bold and striking and is similar to the text which is used in the trailer, which is bold and the same colour as the text on the poster. The similarity helps to show continuity between the two products, and I think that the fact that the

magazine cover is a little less specific to the trailer and poster, its hard to show this.

2. Another reason why I feel the poster and trailer are effective together, is the use of the same taglines on both. In the trailer , the titles show the words ‘it’s play time’ throughout the sequence before the main title is shown, which is also the same on the poster. This again repeats and shows continuity between the two pieces and why I feel they go well together. I tried to repeat this through

the magazine , however it had to be more generic because the movie magazine is based around different films.

 To watch the trailer, click on this link below:

https://youtu.be/0SEEII_unKk