1. 2. How effective is the combination of
your main product and the ancillary
texts?
By Jodie-Leigh Barnham

2. Creating Ancillary Texts
Ancillary texts are extremely important in the process of creating a film. They
can act as effective means of advertisement and promotion for your media
product.
Although there are many mediums of promotion for a film, we completed a
poster and a radio trailer. This covered the promotion of both visual and
auditory elements of our film.
Creating the ancillary texts would be particularly easy. We relied on the
treatment we created, even though this did change slightly through-out
production. We were all clear about the genre, the overall tone and the
message of our film. So, creating our ancillary texts would not be difficult.
In our main production, we were trying to create a tone of suspense and
surprise to the audience. Also, we intended to even make them question
their own morals. Therefore, we had to consider this when creating our
ancillary texts.

3. Creating the Poster
I looked at posters of the same genre and decided to look at features that they commonly included. I wanted to
have a base for my initial idea so I took into account things such as the type of font, commonly used colours and
subconscious images.
If I could find basic conventions that are used I would be able to create a sufficient base for my initial poster idea.
Posters are a particularly effective form of promotion as they wide a wide form of presentation. They can be shown
in many places such as buses, town centres, cinemas, galleries, billboards, etc. The broadness of where you can
post them can conclude in enticing a larger audience. This is because posters aren’t just in places for a target
audience, such as putting them in cinemas to target common cinema attenders, they are put out in every day
places such as billboards or even bus stops.
I believe that because our film is of a psychological sub-genre, we can entice an audience with the poster as the
less that we actually show the better. It then encourages the audience to already begin to piece our plot
together, which is something that I think we should achieve.
Billboard poster for psychological
thriller, Shutter Island

4. Poster Examples
Through valid websites such as IMDb
and Empire, I looked at other
examples of posters from thriller
films, particularly psychological
thrillers.
The ones I found
particularly effective
were the psychological
thrillers, which I
evaluated.

5. Creating Our Poster
After submitting our brief sketches of the poster, we
decided on a design and took the final picture. We
decided not to take a still from the film as we felt like there
wasn’t a shot in the film that gave the right amount of
information out about the film to the audience that fit with
our overall idea for the poster.
After taking the perfect picture, after taking into
consideration all of my research on posters from our
genre, I gave my ideas for the final poster.
This is the poster we created:

6. We decided on putting this in because
when we looked at other thrillers, they
tended to mention other similar texts to
appeal to a fan-base and created more
attention to the film.
We used to star rating
scale review as this is
also a simple and
common occurrence on
most film posters.
We decided to
use a review
from a trusted
source that
focuses on film to
justify the review
to the audience.
I found common
colours used in
posters are darker
colour and then a
contrast such as red
so we included this.
We used the
antagonist from our
film in the poster. To
use a character could
grip the eye of the
audience and leave
them wondering who
that character is.
Steel tongs font was used like any conventional poster for practically
any genre of film. The font was a grey to blend to the environment as it
wasn’t the focal point of the poster.
We used a sharp
font and cold
colour to make
the title of the
film stand out
and represent
the seriousness
of the Employer
himself.
As a tagline, we used
a quote from the
radio trailer to tie the
2 ancillary texts
together. The quote is
also based on the
monologue in the
final scene in the film.
Blood to indicate and
foreshadow
danger/death to the
audience and stand
out against the
background.

7. Similarities to Other Thriller Posters
We used conventional similarities in our poster to others. Such as:
• Dark and contrasting colours to create a
mysterious and questionable tone.
• A title that stands out against the background to
show its importance to the audience.
• Steel tongs font as typically used in
most film posters.
• A tagline to indicate to the audience
the overall atmosphere of our film.

8. Overall Poster Evaluation
After considering elements of conventional psychological thriller posters, over all, I feel
that the poster that we finalised is effective for our film.
I believe that through the use of dark colours and
fonts it symbolises the genre. The subtleties in the
poster such as the blood splatter on the floor and the
gun on the table indicate the underlying dangerous
tones of our film to the audience. It also appeals to
an audience that enjoy films involving these
elements.
There are also elements of the poster that
foreshadow happenings in the film. For example, the
shadow on the wall creates the shape of someone
praying, such like Kyle panicking for his life in the
confrontation scene. It also relates to the shadow on
the wall created in the final scene just before Kyle is
killed. There are definite psychological elements in
the poster that I picked up on in other psychological
thriller posters that are left for the audience to notice
and figure out their relevance.

9. Radio Trailer
Radio is one of the oldest forms of entertainment as is still relevant
today. As of 2012, there are an estimated 700 radio stations in the
UK. A numerous amount of these are owned by the BBC who do not
advertise as they are funded mainly by what people pay for their TV
Licences.
Radio trailers are another effective way of marketing and promoting a
media product. Radio trailers only involve the auditory elements of a
film, so the idea would be to attempt to use all the sound clips and
audio that would give enough information about a film to attract an
audience, without giving too much away and enticing an audience to
want to watch that film.
Although these aren’t a commonly known medium of advertising, it is
still particularly effective as it can target different environments such
as being in a car, at home or even in an office/work environment.

10. Radio Trailer Research
I found that radio trailers are reasonably hard to find in
comparison to other forms of marketing such as trailers or
posters. This is because with trailer you can process them into a
format where you can watch and replay them through websites
such as YouTube. Posters are meant to be visually shared.
So, as well as IMDb and other official film databases, they can
be found through even a simple Google Image search.
Therefore, I feel that a radio trailer would be more difficult to
format into something you can find as there is nothing
aesthetically pleasing and would be harder to produce so they
were almost impossible to search for using the internet. Even
after being informed about searching on Vimeo, I struggled.

11. Radio Trailer Research
I decided that the best way to try and hear a radio trailer, would simply be to
listen to the radio when doing everyday things and hope to hear them. I decided
not to listen to any BBC radio stations as they don’t advertise so I wouldn’t hear
any this way.
After listening for a while I begin to hear trailers for particularly action/thriller films
and eventually started to identify to conventions of radio trailers.
I learnt that overall they tend to have quotes in from the film, sounds, sound
effects and music. They also had a voiceover that would usually say the name of
the film and then its release date and/or rating. With this I began to mind map
and plan ideas for our radio trailer.
My idea was that it would be particularly effective if we did something quite
unconventional of a typical radio trailer, instead of just having direct quotes from
the film and the voice over explain what the film was about, I thought we could
have the antagonist talk to the audience.
This would be effective as you could link and identify with a character in the film.
It also means that as an audience member you are much like Kyle for a lot of the
film who isn’t aware of the identity of the Employer and has to work it out for
himself.
The monologue said in the radio trailer would be a lot like the monologue in the
film except the audience would change from Kyle, to the audience listening.
Direct quotes, sounds and music would also be used in the film to add
thrill, intensity and insert the element of danger.
This is quite an eerie idea and I felt that it would create that intense atmosphere
and prove that the film would be this way, too.

12. Final Radio Trailer
The link to the radio trailer that we created for ‘The Employer’ can be found here.
We recorded the monologue on a Zoom Recorder.
When I wrote the monologue included direct questions and statements like:
• ‘Isn’t it funny, the decisions we make?’
• ‘…marriage, jobs, kids’
I included these because I feel that the question is direct to the audience and gets them
listening. To mention the list of three is something relatable for an audience and then gives
them something to identify with and engage to.
I chose to insert the sound of the Employer and other people shouting and gun shots to
insert the convention of thrillers and implement a dangerous element.
I also chose to use the music direct from the film as an identifier that also happens to create
efficient tension in the radio trailer.
Because the radio trailer can’t rely on visuals I included all of these elements to successfully
give out the right atmosphere and to the audience to represent our film in the right way.
I also stood to radio trailer convention and recorded a separate voice over saying the name
of the film and its release date to let the audience know details of the film and when they will
be able to see it as extra information that wasn’t made available on the poster.

13. Feedback of
Poster and Radio Trailer
We showed our ancillary texts to 5 members of our media group to
receive verbal feedback. The comments were all positive.
One respondent said the poster was ‘eerie’ and said that ‘the shadow
creates a weird praying effect’. Many comments were on the blood on
the floor, saying it ‘makes you feel as though the film will be dangerous
and adds a sense of panic to the film’. Another respondent said that ‘the
reviews make the film look promising because of the ratings’.
The same people also said that the radio trailer and the poster went
‘well together’ and ‘complimented each other’. They also said that the
radio is ‘different’ and ‘like nothing they had heard before’. The voice
over was said to be ‘creepy and omnipotent’ which is what we wanted to
achieve.
By hearing this feedback, we know that we had successfully achieved the
thrilling and eerie premise that we wanted to when creating these
ancillary texts. So they were very fitting for the film.

14. Conclusion of Ancillary Texts
I feel that overall the ancillary texts that we created were
effective in promoting our film. I feel that they represent
and compliment the ideas that we were trying to portray
and identified the atmosphere and thoughts behind the
film.
As a whole all of the products that we created present
how dedicated we were to this film and show the different
ways in which we can represent our creativity and ideas.
They give the right information out about the film to entice
an audience, but without giving too much away at the
same time.