Question 2:

How Effective is the Combination of your Main Product and Ancillary

Texts?

By Harry Donnelly

The Film poster

After we had created our short film, we were given a task to create a film poster for our short films. We had to conduct our own research into typical film posters and posters in the same genre of our

film.After researching ‘Skateistan’ and ‘Street Dreams’ (see next slides) I had a better understanding and

idea of how important every aspect of the film poster is, from the colours and fonts to the overall

layout and design.

The font used for the title has an urban feel to it which links

in with the teenagers skateboarding. However, the mountains in the background very much contrast ths urban feel as the film looks to be set far from any city. In fact, you

can see a cityscape which doesn't very close. They also seem to be heading in that direction. Are they heading towards the city? What are

they looking for? These are all questions this poster may

pose for an audience.

This poster uses the rule of thirds layout meaning the

page is split into thirds either horizontally or

vertically. In this case the thirds are vertically. This rule of thirds technique

helps the audience easily read the information given

on the poster

The cast, reviews and companies involved are

situated in the bottom third of the page. This follows typical conventions for a

film poster as the cast and film companies involved are usually at the bottom of the poster in small, condensed

font.

The centre of the poster contains an image of three

children, probably teenagers, skateboarding.

The title, tagline, production company and awards are all situated at

the top of the poster

The size and colour the title are used to stand out and

attract the audiences attention. It’s pretty difficult

to miss a huge red title.

The most obvious prop in this film poster is a

skateboard. This instantly lets the audience know what the film is about. The use of

handcuffs also suggests trouble which skateboarding

is heavily related with making this image very

typical.

The colours used in the centre of the film poster are quite cold and dull suggesting

unhappiness, another typical convention of the social

realism genre.

The use of a police officer insinuates danger which could

intrigue and excite certain audiences. Police and crime are also typical conventions of the social realism genre.

my PosterI feel that the film poster I created links to the short film extremely well due to the simplicity of the design. The poster is very clear as to what the film is about but does not give too much away that the audience are no longer intrigued. My film poster focuses on the skateboarding side of the film due to the silhouette of a skateboarder and a ramp.Creating a poster which displays a skateboarder in front of a cityscape means that it would fit our genre of Social Realism/Coming of Age. The content and colours used could effect the audience targeted as teenagers at school, specifically people who skate could relate to this and the bright bold colours would attract a younger audience as well. I believe it is fairly obvious that this poster is for our film de to the fact that it includes all of the main stars and features key aspects of the film such as a skateboarder.

The film review

The following task we were given was to create a film review that would emulate the style of a specific

magazine. The magazine we used was Little White Lies. I conducted my own research into the work of Little

White Lies and analysed two film reviews. I looked at the reviews of both ‘Populaire’ and ‘The Company You Keep’. This research can be seen on the next slide. I took a variety of different aspects of the review into

account. The actual typed content, images used, layout and colours etc.

The ReviewWe were given a task to create a film review for our specific short film we had made and emulate the style of a certain magazine. The magazine whose style we had to follow was a company called ‘Little White Lies’. The first thing I was worried about was whether or not our film would fit appropriately into this specific magazine. By conducting some research and reading over previous editions I was happy to find out that they reviewed all genres of film. Even though I wrote the review myself, it covers both the negative and positive aspects of the film so that it wasn’t seen as being bias. This helps promote the film because the audience may read it and want to watch it, to judge the film themselves. I feel that the review focuses on all areas of the film but looks into the realism aspect in a lot more detail due to the fact it’s a social realism.

CONCLUSION

I have concluded that although these are all a variation of different media texts, they all link in as they are all completed in the same style. I believe they all share the same concept and support each

other hand in hand.