The document discusses the effectiveness of the ancillary texts, a poster and radio trailer, created to advertise a comedy film produced by the author. According to feedback received, both the poster and radio trailer were generally effective at intriguing viewers and making them interested in seeing the full film. Specifically, the poster captured intrigue through mystery and hints of the plot, while the radio trailer included actual dialogue from the film. The author also compares the poster design to those of other comedy films like In Bruges to demonstrate design inspiration taken from successful advertising of similar genres.

1. Q2 - How effective is the
combination of your main
product and the ancillary texts?
By Alex Drury

2. What we tried to achieve in our main product?
In our film, we simply attempted to create a 5 minute film that a viewer would go away at
the very least remembering, and hopefully liking. We recognized, from our experience at
AS, the difficulty in creating a serious drama film as it relies heavily upon the ability of the
actors to express what is needed, something which becomes a problem as none of us are
professional actors. That’s why this year we attempted to make a less serious, comedy film,
something we feel we executed well, as, ultimately we wanted to make our audience
laugh, and judging from the feedback we received we did achieved.
A real selling point our film is it’s genre of ‘black comedy’. This is not a large, all
encompassing genre like drama, or horror or action. Instead, it is very particular not
something that is immediately understood. Creating a piece of work that a viewer
remembers was the primary aim we had for the film

3. Was what we wanted to achieve also reflected
in the two advertising products?
We feel the two advertising products (our poster and radio trailer) go some way into
adhering to the aim we had for the film.
Again, we presented ourselves with a problem inherently by doing a comedy film
poster, as it is genre much harder to convey through picture form when compared to
horror, for example. Despite this, we feel the poster does this well, presenting the 3
main characters in a shot together, suggesting they well all become linked. The poster
also foreshadows a plot element, as Gareth’s mug has a message saying ‘go to jail’
written on it, foreshadowing his future.
The radio trailer was also difficult to use to convey comedy, but we feel we achieved
creating a simply edited trailer that uses specific lines from the film alongside a
purposely monotone voiceover, done to reinforce this is a dark comedy rather than a
typically light hearted one
https://youtu.be/Yrj11GrJewo - Radio trailer

4. How effective do you think the two ancillary
texts are in selling your production?
Our two ancillary texts are significantly
effective in selling our product,
demonstrated by the fact we asked 20
random people to view our poster and
listen to our radio trailer, then asked if they
would be interested in seeing the film.
These were the results
https://youtu.be/Yrj11GrJewo
- Radio trailer
Would you see this film?
YES NO

5. How effective do you think the two ancillary
texts are in selling your production?
There were several differing factors into why the two ancillary
texts were effective:
• One respondent commented on the mystery surrounding the poster, stating that it made them
want to find out more
• There was also a mention of our hashtag ‘YouBetcha’, part of a potential viral marketing
campaign that would increase the notoriety of the film worldwide
• Moreover there was a suggestion that including actual lines from the film in the radio trailer was
an effective way of selling the film, as gave a listener a snippet of dialogue from the film that
would intrigue someone into it

6. Comparison with real advertising products
COMPARISON 1: In Bruges (2008)
The poster for In Bruges was particularly
useful to us as the film itself has similar
elements. For example: it is a dark comedy
like ours, and has 3 principal characters, also
like ours. This led us to taking great
inspiration from this poster, demonstrated by
the fact that, like the poster for In Bruges, we
too have the 3 main characters of our film on
the poster, suggesting they are all linked in
some way.

7. Comparison with real advertising products
COMPARISON 2: Get Him to the Greek
Whilst there were no specific design elements
taken from the Get Him to the Greek poster, we
did take inspiration from it in terms of getting
the characters on the poster to display a sense
of their personality (i.e: Ross looks stressed,
Gareth looks intimidating, Dr Parkes looks
cunning) as it provides the audience with
insight into who these characters are without
having to even watch the film.