Evaluation Question 2

1. Ollie Humphris
A2 Media
Horror Coursework
Evaluation -
Question 2

2. Introduction...
The combination of our Ancillary Tasks, consisting of the Magazine Front Cover and the Film Poster as well as the
film trailer, i feel work very well together. There are multiple reasons to why i feel our pieces of work compliment
each other well and collectively produces a very strong advert to purchase our media products and watch our
film. I will of course be coming onto the reason i feel the way i do and their justifications later on within the
Evaluation Question. However there are a few media specific techniques we took into consideration while
producing the work, that i feel were extremely beneficial and are what makes our work so strong.
Firstly, we have incorporated Cross Media Synergy within our media package. Similar colours feature on both the
Magazine front covers, the poster and the teaser posters. As well as the colouring, The Villain known as the
butcher within our film, features on most of the ancillary task dressed in the costume he is seen wearing in the
trailer, posing with the weapons (knives and a meat cleaver) he is seen to be using within our trailer. This ensures
the the audience will remember him due to his unique pig mask and he fact he more often that not has a weapon
in his hand.

3. Ancillaries...
According to blumler and katz and their uses of justification theory, every piece of media text must have a
purpose, for example, to entertain or inform. well as our piece of media text is a horror film trailer the aim of it will
be to entertain, and they way in which our text will entertain, is vi the way of scaring the audience. Horror films
are designed to scare the audience, what's why audiences watch them and that's why they enjoy them,
therefore, it is crucial that they audience must feel as though they would be scared watching our film after they
have seen any of our promotional pieces. It is easier to influence an audience to think that our horror film will
scare them with the trailer, however making someone feel they will be scared of a file after seeing an image on a
poster or a magazine front cover is alot harder. This is why i'll discuss the ancillary tasks first.
Our horror film is a slasher, and it takes no enthusiast to see that the basis for our slasher is relatively
unique/original, all slasher feature a psychotic male killer however how many of them feature a villian that uses
their skills as a professional (a butcher) to his advantage in order to claim the lives of his victims, before going on
to commit the rare crime of cannibalism while feasting on his victims flesh.
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4. Ancillaries...
Therefore we wanted the gruesomeness, the sinister severity of the story line and the abuse of his skills and a
professional to be portrayed not only within our trailer, but he posters and magazine front cover. This meant our
images must be spot on. We ensured we took many images of the butcher, in his recognisable costume visibly
holding his weapon. This is one of the reasons i feel the pieces work so well together, the use of cross media
synergy as the butchers costume and meat cleaver are featured in nearly all of the ancillary tasks, it really
enforces the identity of the villain in terms of his weapon and profession upon the audience.
I feel that we have almost established a visual brand identity within our posters and magazine front cover. The
original aesthetic (the mask) and behaviour (cannibalism) of the butcher has become the unique selling point for
our film as these features are like no others, therefore we wanted to include the villain visually on these pieces as
much as possible. On the magazine front cover, he is seen wearing his dirty blood stained butchers outfit with his
meat cleaver in his hand.
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5. Ancillaries...
The main poster shows him again, this time without the butchers costume on and the meat cleaver isn't present
as we have chosen to reinforce the idea he is a cannibal in this image, as he is sat at a dinner table for one, with a
plate of raw meat and organs in front of him. Finally, the teaser poster, featuring his blood stained hand clutching
on to his trademark meat cleaver, subtly hints at the idea of his profession as a butcher by the use of the meat
cleaver. However third our other selling point, the gore, is portrayed in this one with his blood coated hand clearly
evident.
Not all of the anciarlies feature any one of the three selling point visually, however they re all featured twice
across the three of them. This is why i feel the ancillaries work so well together, they have each been carefully
thought through in order to feature exactly what we want the audience to see. Therefore using cross media
synergy and establishing a brand identity.

6. How our Trailer and Ancillaries will Assume the
Audience that the Film will Scare them...
The original question was how will the audience feel they'll be disturbed if they watch the film. I've lightly
touched upon it already however i will discuss it fully now…
As i've said already, our selling points are the gore, the fact the villain is a butcher, meaning he's skilled in what
he is doing and using his skills for the wrong reason, and finally the fact he's a cannibal. These three points are
also what make our film so scary.
Firstly, touching upon the most important point out of the three and what i feel is the most scariest feature of our
film, the cannibalism. Cannibalism is a very rare crime to see featured in horror films, there is only one iconic
horror villain that is associated with Cannibalism and that's Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the lambs, released in
1991, 27 years ago. Cannibalism is just a rare in real life, with the last cannibalistic crime i could find recorder on
lien committed in 2014, with the on prior to that committed many years before that.
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7. How our Trailer and Ancillaries will Assume the Audience that
the Film will Scare them...
Therefore we will cannibalism isn't something audiences are used to talking about or even hearing about. Don't
get me wrong, the murder of any individual is a complete and utter tragedy, however in britain today, we are
exposed to the news of murders happening on a regular basis in fact from march 2015 to march 2016 there
were 571 murders and manslaughter incidents in the UK, alone, and that as one of the lowest yearly recordings
since the 1980s. Therefore, although awful and completely tragic, the news of murders aren’t new and as
shocking as they possibly could be to audiences today.
This is why we felt including cannibalism within our film would shock and scare audiences that further bit over
our competitor horror/slasher movies. We felt there is something more sinister and pure evil about the act of
cannibalism and we feel ensuring that audiences are aware our film features cannibalism via the images on the
posters and magazine front cover, will ensure they are aware our film will terrify them.
Moving on to our other two selling points, the gore and relatable and respected profession of being a butcher.
Firstly, the majority of horror film feature, gore, it is something some audiences love and other hate, resulting in
the ons that hate gore becoming more scared of the film, which is of course the creators aim.

8. How Will The Trailer Scare the Audience -
GoreGuts and gore is a horror convention, its features within the majority of horror films, however we wanted the
audience to be aware our film will contain more guts and more gore than the majority of other films, this is of
course evident while watching our trailer, the repeated dripping blood shots in between scene and the short clips
of internal organs and bones falling to the fall ensure this.
Guts and gore is also features within our ancillary tasks, the magazine front cover features multiple blood
stains/splatters, the butcher is also wearing a blood stained t-shirt. The tearer poster features the butcher's blood
coated hand holding a meat cleaver, ue to the lack of subjects on the teaser poster the audience are forced to
look at the meat cleaver ad the hand, noticing the chilling amount of blood on the butcher hand.
Finally the main poster doesn't feature any blood stains as such, however it is clear the butcher is ready to
indulge in a meal of human organs, muscles and bones, due the the pile of innerods on his plate and his knife and
fork in his hands. If the audience are looking carefully they will also notice the glass of blood the butcher has with
his meal, which the audience can only guess is human blood.

9. How Will The Trailer Scare the Audience -
The ButcherBeing a butcher is a skilled profession, it is a respected profession and is not associated with any crime. Therefore
the villain himself becomes relatable to the audience due to the normality of his profession (well actually ex
profession). This makes him seem as though he is a normal man, adding to the horror as this could be anyone,
any normal many you know could have a traumatic experience in their life like the butcher did, and then undergo
a total personality change and start behaving in the way the butcher in our film does.

10. What Promotes out Film the Best/ What am I
most Proud of...
Im proud of the pieces of work we have produced i feel we have put together a very effective media package for
our horror film. However there are certain pieces that i am particularly proud of. The magazine front cover for
example is one of them, we spent a while with our actor in his villain costume, posing with the meat cleaver to
ensure we got the right shot. We took the main image used in a photography studio so we could control the
lighting to exactly how we wanted it.
I feel the use of cross media synergy was particularly effective at building a brand identity in terms of the colours
used on the posters and the weapon the villain is posed with. This helps audiences to recognise our work is a
collection of connected pieces al promoting the same media content.
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11. What Promotes out Film the Best/ What am I
most Proud of - Trailer Production...
I would say i am most proud of the production of the trailer. We spent a long time filming our trailer, filming on 4
separate days, 2 of those days being full days. I was head of operating the camera, I am an A-Level photography
student and a passionate photographer, therefore i am comfortable and able when operating DSLR cameras and
camera equipment. Which is why i am most proud of the trailer protection and standard of shots as ths was
predominantly my role.
For each shot we planned out prior to doing it exactly what was going to happen and how the camera would move.
After we had arranged exactly how the shot would be taken we took each shot multiple times ensuring that we
would have a selection of the same shot to choose to use when editing. This meant that we could choose the best
shot and our shots would be to the best quality.
I feel that the thought process, time and effort put into the production of our trailer has paid of, many of the shots
look very professional i feel and are to a good standard. It was worth making our actros repeat the same scene four
or five times, to capture as much footage as possible, even though they weren't too happy to continue repeating the
same scene over and over again at the time of filming!

12. Production Limitations -
Introduction…Although as a group we are very proud of our trailer our other promotional media pieces. There are a few
things that limited us during production and post production that if we had access to would have raised
the quality of our trailer significantly. However we most remember that this is a school project with a
limited amount of time to produce and no budget other than our own pockets.

13. Production Limitations - CGI
Firstly something that would have increased the quality of our trailer dramatically would have been the use of
CGI. however due to the especse otu the software needed to create professional looking cgi, not to mention the
skill and training required to operate more complex software in order to get the best out of them, simply want
realistic for our A-Level media project.
This left us with the option of using more simplistic and affordable software to edit out trailer. As previously
mentioned, i was very particular when on shoot about getting multiple shots for each scene , this mean that we
had a huge amount of footage to filter through before selecting the finally shots to be used. This was difficult and
time consuming on the software we used, however we managed to do it and i am overall very happy with the
outcome of our trailer. The editing still looks to be to a high standard and even with the software limitations we
had.
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14. Production Limitations - Weapon Limitations when
Shooting In Public...
There are of course limitation when is comes to what props we can use, specifically referring to the villains
weapons here, when we were shooting in public. Some of our trailer was shot in a group member garage, this is
where the shots where the villain is holding a knife were taken. However some of our trailer was shot in public
fields, this meant that the butcher wasn't able to have his large kitchen knives and meat cleaver, down to the
simple reason of the law.
For obvious legal reasons we can't shoot in public with a 9 inch kitchen knife and a meat cleaver, therefor the
shots outside do not feature a weapon, which we all feel is rather inconvenient. As the trailer would have an even
more sinister feel to it if we had a shot of the butcher chasing the girls away from the area in the woods with a
kitchen knife in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other.
However the outdoor shots are still good scenes and the shits taken in the group members garage all contain the
knife or meat cleaver, meaning there are part of the trailer the knife is used more than others. This makes the
inside location where he commits a lot of his murders seem like an even scarier place to be.