2. Original Links
The group's main product, the teaser trailer, has many inextricable links to the ancillary texts
which have been utilized to improve the quality and coherency of the 'I Shot Biggie Smalls'
campaign. The main element that links the main and ancillary texts is the typography. My
group's original use of the red and white intertitles was a key feature throughout our
texts, which was used to connote themes of innocence, humour and comedy juxtaposed with
elements of drama, danger and murder - a style that emanates from the title (which itself
stems from the infamous murder of pop culture icon Biggie Smalls). After audience feedback
informed us that the main intertitle had an amateur, cartoonish look and didn’t suit the
professional documentary feel of our trailer, we decided to create a different intertitle for all
three of our texts.
3. After much experimentation with the
Livetype programme, we subsequently
changed the cartoonish style of the
intertitles to a more refined font
(Rockwell) which significantly
improved the quality of our film
campaign.
The Photoshop application gave my group the opportunity to easily test out new techniques in
a way that helped to establish a variety of different meanings. Ultimately, my group used the
‘caracole’ effect on Photoshop for both ancillary products which enabled my group to apply a
brick wall appearance to the background of our film poster and magazine cover. The
utilisation of the contrast and darkening tools on Photoshop generated a
nostalgic, blaxploitation look to both the film poster and magazine, emphasising light
contrasted with darkness and more importantly themes of humour and comedy contrasted
elements of drama and murder. This was an important stylistic and thematic element that we
wanted to be prevalent throughout our main and ancillary texts. After completing the
intertitles on livetype, the group thought it would be appropriate to transfer it to the magazine
and film poster to encompass our stylistic and thematic concerns through not only the main
product but the ancillary texts as well. This sense of cohesion and correlation between the
three products have helped the group in creating a good film campaign that the audience will
be able to recognise and easily identify with.
6. As the group wanted to implement the codes and conventions of a teaser trailer in our main
product, we included a intertitle advertising our production studio, KNIGHTSTUDIOS and its
accompanying website, which we used to promote the film and where the audience could visit
to get more information about the film. We included this 7 seconds into our trailer and placed
it within our film posters. Including a website advertisement correlating throughout our texts
is another important part of the film campaign which helps to establish a sense of cohesion
and product branding.