Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

1. Question 2: How
effective is the
combination of your
main product and
ancillary texts?
By Kyle Dos Santos

2. Title
The title of my film, Coulrophobia (fear of clowns)
remains consistent throughout my trailer and
ancillary tasks. My trailer ends with the title in a
supernatural blue, glowing font. This is at the end of
the trailer to imprint the movie’s name into the
minds of the audience. The same font is used for the
title on my poster which creates a house style and
bridges the two. On my cover page, however, a more
bubble-like and formal font is used. Movies do not
usually have their regular font on the cover of
‘Empire’ and the title for the movies are in ‘Empire’s’
own font.

3. Actors
For my trailer, I used my friends as my actors; Danny
Probbing and Lydia Foxley. They wore winter clothing
and brought two sets of costumes to convey that my
film took place over a whole camping trip rather than
one day. Both of these protagonists appeared on the
cover page of my magazine. They both wore
costumes from the trailer for these photographs
including Danny’s black jumper with red text and his
yellow and blue hat. Lydia also styled her hair the
same as she did for my trailer alongside wearing the
same black coat. Despite not being visible on my
poster, they were credited for being in the film at the
bottom of the poster.

4. Clown Mask
The antagonist is almost always the main aspect of a
horror film and this is true for my own. My villain
wears a clown mask and this façade is used in each of
my tasks. The appearance of my antagonist is not
revealed until the conclusion of my trailer where the
face pops up as a jump scare. This is only brief and is
quite distorted to prevent the full look being spoiled.
The mask is also held by my actor on the ‘Empire’
cover page. This is because villains are not usually on
the cover of ‘Empire’ magazines yet the clown
antagonist is still conveyed through this prop. The
mask is the main focus of my poster. The close up
shot creepily looks directly at the audience. A
shadow blocks the bottom half of the face creating a
sense of mystery and increasing the poster’s
darkness.

5. Release Date
The release date for my movie is October 29th 2017. This is
represented through my main tasks alongside my ancillary
tasks. My trailer begins with the words ‘This Halloween’. This
quote is commonly used for horror trailers as the holiday is
symbolic of scariness and audiences are more likely to watch a
horror movie at this time of the year. The trailer ends by giving
a more specific release date with the phrase ‘29th October’.
This is at the end of the trailer so that it is more likely to be
remembered by audiences. The date of my ‘Empire’ magazine
says ‘October 2017’. I reinforced this by researching what
movies are due for release in October, November and
December of 2017 to enable me to reference them. The
movies I found included; ‘Thor Ragnorok’, ‘Insidious 3’,
‘Jumanji’, ‘Star Wars VIII’ and ‘Kingsman 2’. Also, to further
highlight the Halloween issue date and to compliment the
horror genre of which my film takes, the banner makes
reference to the magazine’s inclusion of a countdown list of
‘The 50 greatest horror movie moments’. My film’s release
date can also be found at the bottom of my poster. This is in
the same bright and glowing font as my film’s title to ensure
that it catches an audience’s attention.

6. Institutions
My trailer begins with the Warner Bro’s logo
covered in dark clouds that is used by the ‘Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ trailer. This sets
the ominous and eerie tone for my horror trailer.
Warner Bros is a well known institution and, if
audiences liked their previous films, seeing their
logo at the beginning of my trailer makes an
audience member more likely to watch my film. I
also created my own fake institution logo to
represent myself. This is called ‘TigerGuard
Productions’ to and its logo is reminiscent of the
MGM logo of a lion in a circular ribbon. This logo
follows the Warner Bros logo in my trailer. Both of
these logos can be found amongst the credits of
my poster at the bottom of the page. This is for
similar marketing reasons. ‘Empire’ magazine
rarely makes reference to institutions and
therefore neither Warner Bros or TigerGuard
Productions appear on my magazine cover page.