Elizabeth Addis created a poster and radio trailer to promote her group's psychological thriller film. She conducted research on conventions from existing posters and trailers in the genre. This informed the design of the poster, which features the protagonist walking toward a door without revealing too much of the plot. The radio trailer uses audio clips and music from the film along with a voiceover of the title and release date. Common elements like the protagonist and music were used to link the ancillary materials and film cohesively.

1. Elizabeth Addis

2.  In our main production we were aiming to both intrigue our audience with plot
twists and mystery, whilst also scaring them and creating fear and anxiousness
for the characters they were watching.
 We managed to achieve this through
the use of post-production editing
with a mixture of fast and slow scenes
to add suspense, as well as the use of
music and sound effects to create an
eerie mood.
 It was important for our group’s film
to be represented well in our publicity
material (the radio trailer and poster),
as the genre of the film meant they
had to make the film seem appealing
and interesting to attract an audience
whilst not giving too much of the
storyline away to spoil the plot twist
we included.
 When designing and making our poster and radio trailer, we had in mind the
results of a lot of research into existing posters and trailers as well as a plan of
what key things to include across the main product and ancillary texts in order
to link them together.

3.  In order to create a poster that fit with our chosen film
genre and ‘promote’ it well to an audience, I first did
some research into existing posters. This meant I would
have a better understanding of what conventions
appeared throughout all the posters, and what rules to
stick to in order to accurately portray our genre.
 I looked at the posters for Thirteen Ghosts and
American Psycho, both psychological thriller/horrors.
 I noticed that most posters I looked at contained black,
as black connotes darkness and evil; as well as most
posters main focus being the main character or the
antagonist, as this draws an audience in to wondering
who they are and why they are important. Many used
distorted images to scare the audience.
 From doing this basic research among a few posters I
then decided to do one highly detailed research on a
single poster.

4.  I chose to do in-depth analysis of the poster for the
2012 remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street before I
started to design my own poster. This helped me to
make lots of notes about what to include as well as
how to make up a poster, as I learnt about ‘pulling
the eye’ and visual composition to focus an
audience on what you want them to.
 This poster was similar to the
design we wanted, including
conventions of psychological
thrillers with silhouettes, and
similar colour schemes.
 During this research I also compared how the poster linked
with the website, trailer and film itself and saw how small
parts of the film were apparent across all publicity material,
and we decided this was something we should replicate in our
ancillary texts.

5.  During this, I made notes on what conventions and basic things to include in
our poster that were included in every poster I (and the rest of the group) had
researched.
 These were: title, tagline, information, company logos, release date,
photo/picture of a main part of the film, reviews, links to websites.
 To do this, I created a logo for our ‘company’ Se7en Productions Ltd. which
would appear on the poster. This would make it appear official and make an
audience have more faith in its production.

6.  Firstly, all of our group made a poster
idea focusing on the mask used by the
antagonist. I created this one and
wanted to add an extra part by using a
stock photo of an eye and adding it in,
to make an audience feel like the mask
is looking at them.
 It also included all key parts of a
poster we had previously noted down.
 However, although we liked the idea of
the mask we had decided to create an
alternate poster based on a new found
inspiration by film noir, which we had
just discovered.

7.  Film noir had inspired us to create this
new, and final, poster. We believed this
accurately showed our movie off and
linked well with it, by showing a still from
the film of the protagonist, Deb, walking
towards an as-yet-unidentified door.
 We also changed the main text to red, as
red is a colour that connotes danger and a
warning, as well as blood, for an audience.
 I believe this poster shows an audience a
glimpse of the film, enough to intrigue
them to want to watch more, without
giving away too much. By not showing the
mask, it leaves the shock of it’s first
appearance as a surprise to the audience.

8.  In order to make a radio trailer, we first had to do
research on existing radio trailers. This was hard to
do due to the lack of radio trailers for films available
on the internet, but I eventually found some and
managed to gather notes on how to create a good
radio trailer.
 I used the radio trailer for the 50 Shades Of Grey
movie as it was widely available on the internet.
 I discovered that in radio trailers there are:
voiceovers, audio clips taken from the film itself,
and music. The voiceovers announce the title, a
tagline, the release date, and possibly internet sites;
much like information on a poster. Audio clips from
the movie tend not to give anything away about the
plot. Click the poster to hear
the 50sog radio trailer.

9.  To make our radio trailer we used two
programs; iMovie and GarageBand.
 We used Garageband to create the music
for the background, and iMovie to edit the
whole radio trailer together.
 In order to make our radio trailer sound
professional we had to learn new skills on
this program as we all had little experience
with it. We used audio sections from our
film as well as the music we created, and
then recorded a voiceover to add over the
top which announced the film title and
release date, as with a conventional radio
trailer like the ones we had researched.

10.  From my research I knew it was important to link the publicity material
together, and that there should be common themes across the poster, film and
radio trailer.
 This is because it drives home an important point, or the main theme of a film,
to an audience due to repeated exposure to it. For example, including the title
and release date in both the poster and radio trailer means the audience would
be more likely to remember it.
 In our ancillary texts we made sure to follow this rule. We linked the poster and
radio trailer by including:
 The title of the film
 The release date of the film
 Common characters: the radio trailer uses film quotes from the protagonist, Deb,
and the poster features a screenshot of Deb from the film.
 Music that is similar to the music in the film.

11.  I believe that the combination of our film and ancillary texts was very effective.
 It is the job of the ancillary texts to compliment the film, and to promote it
without giving too much away. As posters and trailers are often the first
impression an audience has of a film, due to them being circulated months
before the release of the film, it is important that they follow the codes and
conventions of the film’s genre to accurately promote it and attract a possible
audience.
 We knew from early on what message we wanted to convey in our poster and
radio trailer, and by doing this well we knew that they promoted the film
accurately and linked well with what our audience had said they liked about
the film in the questionnaires: by transferring these things to the poster and
trailer it meant the target audience would be interested in them.
 In conclusion, I believe that the combination of all three is very effective due to
how well they all link together, and by linking them it helps to promote the
film by all putting across a common theme/genre and sense of storyline.