The document summarizes the effectiveness of a student's short film and two ancillary texts - a film poster and film review. The student believes the ancillary texts relate well to the film and help market it. The poster focuses on the main character, location and implies a stalker through a shadowy figure. Taking inspiration from horror film posters, it uses dark lighting and imagery to convey the horror genre. The review focuses on characters, directors and relates the film to Little Red Riding Hood without revealing spoilers. Overall, the student concludes the ancillary texts capture key aspects of the film and work well together to promote it.

1. Evaluation 2 – How Effective is
the Combination of your Media
Product and Ancillary Texts?
By Molly Smith

2. Here Is The Link To My
Short Film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xjw23y-sic

3. Here is my
film
poster

4. Introduction
In this evaluation I will be comparing the effectiveness of my short
film and the two ancillary texts I completed (the film poster and the
film review). I believe that my ancillary texts relate well to my short
film and that they go well together in terms of the marketing of my
short film.
For my film poster, my group and I had to choose a genre each that
relates most to our short film in order to create a poster based on
that genre. The genre I chose to base my poster on was horror as
there are horrible, scary elements to the film.

5. How Does The Poster Relate To
The Film?
There are many ways in which my short film and poster are alike
and work well together to promote the film. One way is the poster
relates is that I used a picture of the main character (Emily) on the
poster so that the poster doesn’t just promote any film. Another
way is that one of the main genres of my short film is horror and
the fact that the setting of the poster and the fact that there is a
dark figure/shadow in the background implies the horror side to
the poster.

6. What My Film Poster
Focuses OnMy short film poster mainly focuses on
the girl at the front of the poster, the
location and the dark shadow half-hiding
behind a tree. This relates well to my
film because the girl on the poster is
Emily (one of the main characters), the
main location in the film is the forest and
the half-hiding shadow relates to the
other main character of the film, Rak,
who is seen as the antagonist. The half-
shadow adds a horror side to the poster
because you cannot verify their identity
just by looking at the poster and it seems
really creepy as the girl is being watched.

7. Codes And Conventions
There are many codes and conventions of film
posters, especially with the genre the poster is
trying to portray. The genre I was trying to
portray was horror so the following posters are
posters that either gave me inspiration for my
own poster or represent horror film poster
conventions well.

8. Locations And Lighting
Many horror film posters tend to use low key lighting
which makes the poster look darker and scarier and also
many people are afraid of the dark so it creates a more
horrifying effect.
One convention of horror
film posters is that they
mostly have a background
image of a location, which
is usually the place where
a lot of the action takes
place/ scary parts of the
film.
For my film poster, I tried to refer to horror film posters
to help me create mine by using a picture of a forest as
the background and by making the location seem really
dark to add a creepier effect which would help promote
my short film and the genre.

9. Text
The titles on horror film posters tend to be quite formal
and the text is usually clear, simple and easy to read.
However, on occasions you can find the odd poster
breaking that convention by making the titles look quite
child-like, which is said to have a chilling effect. Also, with
most horror film posters, the writing is either white or
red. The white text is usually used to help the title stand
out from the low key lighting and the red text is usually
used because the connotation of red can mean love or
romance, but it can also mean blood, death or danger.
For my film poster, I tried to relate the text to a mixture of
horror effects and a mixture of fantasy effects as well
because even though I was supposed to do promote my
film as a horror film poster, the fantasy side plays such a
large part in the film, so I decided to use a font that was
simple yet still looked slightly fantasy-styled. However, I
did keep to the convention of the horror film poster text
colour by making the making the main part of the title
white, but the first part of the title (Redemption) red so it
stood out and looked more creepy, thus fitting in with the
horror film poster conventions.

10. Style Of
Poster
Many horror film posters use something to entice
the audience and to make the poster more
horrifying to look at. For example, in the ‘Carrie’
film poster the girl is covered in blood and for the
‘Drag Me to Hell’ poster the woman has fire
around her and hands that look like they are
dragging her down. For the ‘Mirrors’ poster, the
girl has a really scared facial expression which can
scare some of the audience, but her face also
looks like she possessed or something as her eyes
are really big and she is within the darkness.
In terms of my film poster, I tried to make it relate
more to horror film posters by having a shadow of
someone hiding behind a tree. This promotes the
genre of horror because it can make us think more
about when you are alone and that someone could be
watching you and you wouldn’t know it, which then .

11. Posters I Took Inspiration
FromI took inspiration from ‘The
Tall Man’ film poster
because I liked the idea of
the dark figure behind her
and that she is being
watched. I also think this
poster helped me create
suspense and fright when
viewing my poster, which
relates well to the genre I
was trying to portray and
the scary parts of my short
film.
I took inspiration from
the ‘Red Riding Hood’
teaser poster because I
liked the style and colour
of the title and I liked
that the background was
in the forest, just like one
of the main locations of
my short film.
The ‘Wolf Man’ poster was
the main poster I took
inspiration from because
the main attraction of the
poster is the girl at the
front and then the next
attraction straight away is
the shadow in the
background. I think the
layout of this poster is very
enticing but also scary at
the same time because
someone is looking for her.
I took inspiration from the
‘Eden Lake’ poster because I
liked the idea of the woman
being at the front of the
poster again with someone
standing in the background
and I also liked the idea of
not being able to see the
character’s (in the
background) identity, as I
think this add extra dread
and terror to the poster.

12. Target Audience
I think my film poster relates well to my short film in terms of target audience
because my poster looks quite scary as there is a shadow in the background
watching the girl, which would appeal more to an older audience and not
young children. This also relates to the film because ‘Rak’ stalks ‘Emily’
throughout the film. Furthermore, the 15 certificate on my film poster
definitely relates to the target audience as our film is targeting teenagers over
the age of 15. The colour red is used a lot on the film poster and the
connotation of the colour red is either love and romance or death, blood and
danger, and with this poster, I would say that most people would understand
that the colour red doesn't mean romance and love in this film.

13. Here Is A Copy Of The Text Of My Review
(On the next slide is a copy of what my
review looks like)
What’s that? You want to hear me jabber on about Little Red Riding Hood again? After Catherine Hardwicke’s
success with ‘Red Riding Hood’ (2011), I bet you thought we couldn’t expect another bloodcurdling red-hot
fairy tale for a long time. Yet this chilling fairy tale, ‘Redemption’, makes its entrance at the London Short Film
Festival.
This time, directors Molly Smith, Nabeela Hamid and Rakulan Sivalingam are back with a change of genre
after their magnificent action-packed film franchise ‘Avoidance’ in this deep, dark, daunting fantasy turning
Emily Redif (known for her award-winning drama ‘The Diary of Molly Ann’), into a kind, defenceless teenager
with a spine-chilling shadow lurking behind her.
A reworking of the classic fairy-tale would make you think there would surely be a wolf? Well this film proves
you don’t have to have razor sharp claws and a huge mouth filled with cut-throat penetrating teeth to be one;
in this modern version you just need to be a cold-hearted, manipulative, delusional maniac, in the form of Rak
(played by Rakulan Sivalingam), a disjointed, hungry teenager.
This gnashing fairy-tale has a few conventions of Little Red Riding Hood, but it seems to manipulate the
pleasantness of the tale that still allows us to peek through our fingers when watching.
Young, vulnerable teenager Emily is in modern-day society and is distressed that her Grandma is dying in
hospital. Her journey to see her Grandma is interrupted and causes her to take a dark, twisted turn into the
forest with the involvement of a so-called ‘friend’, and the likes of ‘fairy dust’.
The cinematography in this film makes the viewing extremely intense and the use of non-diegetic sounds
makes you legitimately believe you are in the enchanted forest. The powerful thing about this film is that there
are many twists that make you want to watch it again. This film will definitely entice you to watch more and
maybe even make you think twice about a walk in the forest. And most of all this film will make you feel the
need to look behind you when walking down the streets at night…
- Anticipation; Smith, Hamid and Sivalingam deliver an unexpected turn in this fairy-tale. (4)
- Enjoyment: Rak’s creepy, dead-eyed coldness will surely make you re-think your friends. (3)
- In retrospect: Who let the dogs out? (3)

14. Here is a
copy of what
my final
review looks
like

15. Was The Magazine Appropriate For
The Film?
The film magazine I tried to interpret was Little White Lies magazine
and I found it to be an ideal magazine to base my review upon because
it mainly focuses on independent films. Also I really like the layout of
the magazine along with the detailed, artistic pictures on the front
cover as well as in the magazine. I also like the magazine because there
is always a bold front cover so that it stands out and I like the way they
talk about films as they sometimes make funny remarks, jokes or puns
which makes the reviews very interesting to read.

16. How Does The
Review Promote
The Film?
My review includes the
people associated with the
film, i.e. the directors
(Rakulan Sivalingam,
Nabeela Hamid and Me) and
the main characters (Emily
Redif and Rakulan
Sivalingam).
The film review references other
directors and films such as the film ‘Red
Riding Hood’ and the director of the
film Catherine Hardwicke. This
promotes the film because people who
have seen the movie ‘Red Riding Hood’
can relate back to the film and if they
enjoyed ‘Red Riding Hood’ then they
may want to see Redemption.
My film review
includes funny
phrases relating to
fairy-tales, Little Red
Riding Hood and the
film, such as ‘Who let
the dogs out?’
relating to the wolf in
the film and in the
fairy-tale and ‘you
think there would
surely be a wolf…you
don’t have to have
razor sharp claws and
a huge mouth filled
with cut-throat
penetrating teeth to
be one’ relating to
the character of Rak.

17. What Aspects Of The Film
Does The Review Focus On?
My review mainly focuses on the characters of the film and how
it relates to the fairy-tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. The review
also focuses on the people involved in the film. The one area I
tried not to focus on is the storyline because I didn’t want to give
too much away in terms of details about the film and I didn’t
want to give out any spoilers as this would make the reader feel
that they don’t need to watch the film as they have just read it in
the review.

18. Conclusion
In conclusion, I think that my review and poster
portray the film well as I have captured some of the
main aspects of the film such as the characters and
the setting of the film. My poster represented parts
of the film such as the Emily (one of the main
characters), the setting of the film (the forest) and
the idea showing that Emily is being stalked. For my
film review, I mainly related it to the characters and
directors of the film, so in conclusion I find that my
short film and ancillary texts work effectively
together and promote the film well.