Media Coursework

1. By Emma Nugent
Final Evaluation
Question 2
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

3. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?
✤ My main product is the product I am really trying to sell; the documentary – the way that I am promoting my main product is through my ancillary
tasks; The ancillary tasks that I have created include a poster: My poster includes the question we are attempting to ask the audience whilst also
giving a ‘teaser’ into the final main product to make the audience interested in what it is we are trying to sell. My other ancillary task is a newspaper
double page spread - I have used this to entice an audience by using a 5 star review of how good the product is, I have used this because I know
that an audience would pay attention to this and find that if the documentary has 5 stars that it must be worth watching.
This poster is effective on it’s own to sell and promote the product because it gives the audience a teaser whilst still hiding the
majority of what is going to be happening in the documentary. Also by using the 5* rating this could make an audience more
interested. This ancillary text is part of an effective combination with the documentary because the image uses a similar shot to
the one that is repetitively used throughout the documentary to symbolise the kind of older people that are being abused and
attacked.
My second ancillary text; the double page spread is effective on it’s own because it promotes the documentary
in a very biased way; it is a very positive review of the documentary - this is effective because a review like this
can convince someone that they are missing out unless they actually see the documentary. Also this DPS uses
a similar shot to the documentary - similarly to the poster. The double page spread and the poster work as an
effective combination because they both use the same colour scheme and cover person; this makes an
audience create a link between the two because they have common themes throughout.
✤ Both texts are very persuasive for an audience because they are clear in their message and with what they want the audience to think and feel by
merely looking at them; they use the same colours and similar images so that anyone who saw either product could make the link that the two are
part of the same franchise. Also the shots used for both texts are shots that are very similar to each other. These shots could cause an audience to
think that they are trying to hint at a story line because they look like the cover person is on a journey and so is trekking a story through this. These
two products create an effective combination along with my documentary as they use the same codes and conventions throughout - for example; the
text font is the same and the colour scheme is followed throughout each product.

4. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?
✤ The use of a house colour throughout my products shows how consistent I am throughout my
combination of main product and ancillary texts. Another thing that I did repetitively throughout my work
is using the same shots; I used similar shots from behind the actress (Bridget Dowling) for both the
poster and the newspaper double page spread. In addition to the ancillary texts I included the hand-
held camera shot from behind in the documentary twice; I used this shot at the beginning of the
documentary and the end of the documentary with a voice over over each of them.
✤ One convention that I challenged was the use of the tagline; I only used this on the poster to draw the
attention of the consumer. I decided not to use this again because I felt that using this tagline would
take up too much room the newspaper DPS; using the tagline in the newspaper would take attention
away from the main images and the 2 additional images on the left hand side, and the main text.
✤ One convention that I used throughout each of my products was the font, I used the same font for the
title sequence of the documentary and the text of the double page spread. I also kept the font the same
for the title and the tagline on the poster and I also kept it the same for the text that tells the consumer
when the documentary is premiering.