The document assesses the effectiveness of a horror film's poster, trailer, and magazine cover, highlighting their synergy through the use of color and imagery that aligns with the horror genre. It emphasizes the contrasting visuals and themes, such as innocence versus danger, while noting the challenges faced in production, including lighting and photography skills. Overall, the creator believes the promotional materials successfully capture attention and convey the intended horror message, although improvements could be made in visual consistency.

1. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

2. Comparing the Poster to the Trailer At first glimpse of my poster it doesn’t follow suit of the trailer, the trailer is very dark and mysterious, where as the poster is very much bold and to the point. This is because my poster is used to stand out from the others with its white background but in fact because its bright, I feel the effects of the picture and text are much more sinister, linking back in with the trailer. It also offers a contrast on the fact that white I meant to represent innocence and purity but its like the blood is tainting the purity of the poster. Similar to that of the villain taking away the innocence of Alex our main star. The text links in with the trailer in the fact that it is not a creepy looking custom font, it is something that looks like its just been typed. This synergises with the trailer because the narrative of the film is all the bad things that happen to a couple, after the initial threats over the internet via email.

3. Continued There is further synergy with the release date of the film on the poster and the date used in the actual trailer, we chose this because we wanted it to all link together and the fact that the 13 th may 2011 is actually a Friday which conforms to the horror genre. With the harmonised release date it can be used as a strong marketing campaign if the film was due for actual release. Another piece of synergy is the use of a bloody knife for my poster, this is because the weapon of choice for the villain is a knife. It really wouldn’t have worked if I had used some other kind of weapon as the advert, if it was not featured within the film

4. Comparing the Magazine cover to the Trailer The synergy in this magazine cover and my trailer is the fact that the image used mimics that the flash of Ben in the trailer although this is a close up version. The hooded figure with the cold stare is something that conforms to the horror genre as hoodies are seen as a symbol of evil.

5. Continued I've used red and black to emphasis the horror theme of the magazine. This is because red and black are power colours and both have tendencies of evil, pain, conflict and more. This helps bring in the trailer which is mentioned on the main cover line on Bens chin.

6. Effective combination? The ancillary texts work well with the trailer I feel as they do what they are intended to do. The poster is very attention grabbing which is present in a lot of horror posters, as it wants to stand out from the crowd in order to get the attention of potential viewers. Also due to its simplicity you understand straight away that it’s a horror and it excites people with the thought of viewing it. The magazine is also a very effective combination for the trailer in the fact that it follows all the conventions of a modern, successful and professional film magazine. This on its own allows it to be slightly less scary looking with its initial photo, but it helps you get across the horror message once you’ve picked it up and had a look at the coverlines.

7. How do the 3 texts link together? They are conjoined on the fact that they are all about “Deadline” but also share the same tendencies the use of black, red and white are all dominant in trailer, poster and magazine although it is more obvious with the poster. This is because of the symbolism behind the colours and the links they have to the horror genre.

8. How I could have improved? I’m really pleased with the way my magazine cover looks and from the comments that have been said so are others. However I should have considered a darker image to link in with my trailer theme. This could have been rectified if I experimented a bit more with my photography, which is not my strong point. Something that I will need to work on for future projects. I also believe that the project was hindered slightly by the groups lack of knowledge with a camcorder. Although I am very happy with what we have achieved, due to all of our lack of experience with this hardware some of the shots look slightly amateurish. This is purely because we didn’t know how to control the right light compositions, so some of the shots were abit grainy. I have no problems with the shots we took but how they came out because of lighting control.