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

1. Question two: How effective is the
combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
Rebecca Davies

2. What are my ancillary and main tasks?
My A2 media studies coursework is based around a main product
and two ancillary texts. The main product is to produce a trailer
for a horror film which I have created. The two ancillary texts are
different forms of advertisement for this trailer, one being a
poster and the other the front cover of a magazine. Knowing
what tasks I’d be faced with a did several hours of research and
planning to help further my products the best I could.

3. Magazine front
cover.
My magazine front cover sticks to forms
and conventions of existing magazines. It
sticks to the colours red, yellow and
black. ‘I See You’ is in the text ‘The
Gonjuring’.

4. Poster.
My magazine also sticks to common
conventions and forms. The poster
focuses on the colour red and black. ‘I
See You’ text is in ‘The Gonjuring’.

5. Trailer
The photo to the right is a screen shot of
one of the many text sequences
throughout my horror magazine. It
focuses on the colour red and white. ‘I
See You’ is in the text ‘The Gonjuring’.

6. How do they link?
I knew when creating all three of my products that they would
have to link with branding. Therefore choosing the colours that
would appear on them was important. All three products also
include the same font, characters, costume and lighting. It was
significant to have all three similar in some way, this was so the
audience could recognise the brand/movie no matter which one
they were viewing.

7. Colour
All three focus on the colour red. The colour red also symbolises
blood which was important as my horror film was a slasher.
Although all three also contained different colours also I feel as if
the audience would still be able to recognise my branding.

8. Font.
I have used the same font on each of my products. ‘The
Gonjuring’ is the text that I decided to use. I chose this font as it
was bold and clear to read. It also portrayed a horror effect. It
was also significant to use a font similar to ones on existing
products.

9. Characters and costumes.
It was important to have the same character and costume on
each of my products. This is because the audience might not
know the name of the film but they will be able to recognise the
character. Having the same character on both the poster and the
magazine would help make the ancillary texts link. The character
also features multiple times throughout my main video
production.

10. Lighting.
Lighting is very important throughout the horror genre, especially
three point lighting. It is clear throughout all my productions that
the lighting is not natural. All have a bright key light.

11. Conclusion.
To conclude I believe that the combination of my ancillary texts
and main video production are very effective. They link in several
different ways. The audience is able to recognise the movie and
the branding on each one. My research, planning and
construction shows that I thought about how to make all three
link whilst in the progress of creating them. If I could change one
thing it would be the text sequences on my main product,
instead of having a white background I would make it black.