Evaluation question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

For our ancillary tasks we were asked to create a corresponding movie poster and website for a film trailer that we produced for our coursework. We started this by gathering ideas during our post production as in the editing period we would be using text including a title and credits, and to achieve the most professional outcome we decided these should all follow the same ‘theme’ and have a similar look and feel. We first researched current, fairly new and previous released films’ websites and posters to understand the codes and conventions and take inspiration for our own. At the time of research ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Life of Pi’ were the top new releases in cinemas so we looked at their websites, posters and social media pages. As we first discussed, the design such as the colours, logos, pictures and layout were kept the same or similar throughout; we thought this was an extremely important aspect for our media products to achieve professionalism and high quality. 

The conventions of the websites for both films we researched were similar; they are kept simple and eye catching. The background is a large image from the film that is memorable and could involve main characters or a main setting; something that is very relevant to the film and will encourage the audience to see the film.  The film’s logo is something we spent a long time on and decided this was another important aspect as to achieve professionalism; a high quality logo that is memorable adds to a professional look for a film. The websites of films we looked had their logos large and in the centre of the homepage. Other aspects of the design of websites included additional text placed around the logo such as a tagline, release date and actors, and some included reviews from well-respected companies or people. All the text used is simple and links with the logo, it matches so again looks professional and clean. It is pleasant to look at and makes the viewer want to stay on the website and watch the film. The actual interactive features of the websites included pages which again are kept simple, such as ‘Home’ and ‘Photos’, so the website is easy to use and navigate around and the main point of the website is to advertise the film, so the images and logo are the most important part.

We then researched movie posters to gather knowledge on the codes and conventions. As an example we analysed a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ poster, and found that posters and websites share similarities. Their main features are large images from the movie, or sometimes the characters posed and a new image is taken for the poster as the background, and then the film’s logo is large and eye catching placed at the top or in the centre. Other text on the poster includes the actors names, which are at the top and usually highlight the surname of the person, and the credits (less important information) is always in the same style and composition at the bottom of the page. In the credits, the date is often used but this is usually highlighted to draw attention to it. The poster is rather like a website homepage; we kept this in mind when creating our own. The credits supply information such as the cast, crew and production companies that were involved in the making of the film. We created our own credits text on Photoshop, using the credits from ‘The Dark Knight’ as a base, and used this for the poster and a cut in the trailer. We invented ‘Wok Productions’, ‘Schoolhouse Pictures’ and ‘Glassbeach Productions’, and used the Weald, Canon and iMovie logos in the correct places. We also added ‘Coming Soon’ and made this bigger and bolder than the other text as to make it stand out.

Our own trailer is a psychological horror film based on a group of teenagers, who consequently end up trapped in a haunted motel after their car breaks down, so for our film’s image we needed to first start creating a logo and decide on a colour scheme that would be used for the trailer, website and poster. We brainstormed and decided that red, black and browns would be a suitable colour scheme, as red is typically associated with horror films, because of blood (which is a feature of our film) so we decided that ‘The Writing on the Wall’ should look like blood writing on a wall as to link with the storyline of our film. We experimented with a number of fonts that mimicked blood writing and settled on one that appeared readable but also like someone had written the words with their finger; we then placed this on a wall texture that we found online and used faded blood splatters to add effect and again link with the idea the title had been written in blood. This logo and background would be the base used for the poster, website and trailer shots. Firstly, we added this to our trailer; from our planning and research we decided to add the title at the end of the trailer, and then have a final shot of a ‘Coming soon’ image. Again to make this look professional the title shot and the ‘coming soon’ shot would need to correspond and follow the same theme, so we used a blood splattered wall, a simple font for ‘Coming Soon’ and the credits we had created on Photoshop that would also be used for the poster.

We then used the logo base to begin our poster using Photoshop. Using our research that we recorded on our blog, we placed the actors names at the top using a simple font, highlighting their surnames, and invented a tagline to go below this, which we faded as to not draw attention from the title. Because we were using the wall background we decided to not use an image from our footage, but instead used a cartoon silhouette of a house that we edited and placed on the right of the poster as to mimic the house we used in our trailer. Here we went against the conventions of the posters we had looked at but felt this was the most effective way to create our poster. We then added our credits that were used for the trailer, and placed these at the bottom as we felt it is the least important information, and this follows the other posters that we researched.

When the poster was finalised and we were happy that it advertised our film well, we started our website. As said before when researching the conventions of a movie website, the homepage is much like a poster, so we simply used our logo and background base that we had used for the trailer and poster, and placed this on the homepage of our website. We then thought an important aspect of a website was links to our social networking pages, and Wix.com allowed us to have a ‘Social Bar’ showing the logos of our Twitter, Facebook and blog. As social networking is very popular within our target audience, females and males aged 16-24, this would be a main feature of the website. Our pages were simple; ‘Home’, ‘About’, ‘Photos’ and ‘Watch Trailer’. Our main focus was to make the website simple, advertise our film and correspond with the poster and trailer, which we believe we have done effectively.

To successfully combine our main product and ancillary tasks, we had to construct a professional and effective image that advertised and suited our horror genre and would be popular with our target audience to produce an overall positive appearance for our film. We carefully researched as to select the appropriate aspects for our poster and website, using a suitable logo and images to publicise our film.