Tim McMorrow created a film trailer and ancillary texts to link together and establish a horror film franchise. He used consistent elements like lighting, font, costumes, and colors across the three projects. A red, black, and white color scheme was used to reference the horror genre. A retro-inspired font called "True Lies" was also used in the magazine cover and poster to connect them. Low-key lighting in the dark images and clips helped set a scary tone. The main characters were identifiable in each product to provide consistency. Overall, the combination of trailer and ancillary texts was effective in capturing the horror genre through genre conventions while also making the projects distinctive.

1. Tim McMorrow
Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
During the creation of my film trailer as well as the creation of my ancillary
products, I tried to make it so the three would link together as much as
possible, so I used a variety of different elements to make the three link such
as lighting, font, costume and the colours. Furthermore, I wanted to show a
strong relationship between the three projects and by doing this, would
solidify my film in the brand franchise thus making the three seem more
professional. The first element that I have used is the colour. I wanted to use a
colour scheme that both relates back to my genre (horror) as well as stand out
from the other ancillary text and film trailers within the horror genre. The
colours which I used were red, black and white as these are the main colours
used in the horror genre. Red was my most prevalent colour throughout all the
media products and decided to make sure I used it effectively as it connotes
blood and violence thus suits the genre really well and makes it more obvious
to the target audience that it is in fact part of the horror
genre. I find that all three of my main colours complimented
each other and are easy to read. My main inspiration for this
colour scheme came from my research into real media
products and how well the colours worked well together for
example, looking at other professional media ancillary texts
such as ‘HELLBOY 2’, I saw how the red white and black
colour scheme looked good as well as how it related back to
the main image and plot.
The next element I incorporated into my combination of
products to make them more effective and relate back to the horror genre is
the font used in my products. I decided to make my poster font into my
magazine cover, the same font is only used for a small section of my magazine
cover (the title of the film). I purposely decided to do this to show that they are
linked though it is only a small addition it helps create a link. The font used in
my magazine and poster is called ‘True Lies’ and I believe that it suits the
horror genre really well through its design alone and relates
to the horror genre effectively. The audience will see the font
and immediately assume that the film is part of the horror
genre due to its look and design.

2. Tim McMorrow
Lighting is another element I used to combine my products together. The main
image on both my poster and magazine cover page are both very dark images,
as are some of the clips in the trailer. The use of low-key lighting is used as it is
appropriate and suits the horror genre perfectly. Not many horror films have a
story take place throughout the day as in horror films the day-light is seen and
mostly always considered the safe-time where little horror actually occurs and
nothing goes wrong. Furthermore, it also wouldn’t make a good main image
and horror poster/ magazine cover if the main image was bright and colourful
as it goes against the conventions of the genre too much, so having it so the
main images are in darkness (or are taken with low-key lighting), it gives off a
sense of mystery and tension as it creates and eerie feeling allowing for me to
solidify the fact that it is in fact a horror film.
Imageis another features which I took into consideration and needed the main
image to depict the trailer well and give the audience an idea of what they will
expect without revealing too much of the story. The main images shown in my
ancillary tasks show my main characters (the children and the antagonist), this
gives the audience an idea of the cast and also, I positioned my actors so that it
is obvious as to who the antagonist and protagonists are, facial expression also
helped in that area as well as the protagonists looked scared while the
antagonist had his face covered so we couldn’t see his emotions
purposely. I believe that there is a level of consistency throughout
my print tasks and our trailer, in all of them we can identify the
main characters, props as well as the title of the film. When they
are combined together, I believe that they work well as they if not
all together, but seeing one out of this combination could give the
audience an interest in the trailer. Overall, I think that the
combination of the trailer with the ancillary texts work well
together and provides the audience with the excitement they are
looking for to get them to go and watch the film.
During the creation of the three products, I made sure that the costumes
remained constant throughout the entirety of the whole course e.g. having my
main antagonist have the same jacket and props (mask) throughout the trailer
and for my main images, this was all done in order to keep my products all
linked and also so that it helps in showing to the audience that they are all
linked. Making sure that the costumes were consistent was also because we
wanted to make the products seem more realistic. My group and I had no

3. Tim McMorrow
preference for the type of hair styles as much as costumes and props were the
more of our focus.
Overall, I believe that the combination of my magazine cover, poster and
trailer is effective in captivating the horror genre as it uses the codes and
conventions of the genre to a great extent. I got ideas for my trailer and
magazine cover from a wide range of real media text from a range of genres,
not justhorror, to help my ancillary text stand out more from others while also
keeping to some codes and conventions. For my poster, I looked more into the
horror genre however, I realised that I looked at too many posters that are
current (released within the last 10 years) and so I decided to make my poster
stand out by making my poster look more retro and ‘old-school’ by using
features from the old posters, I took ideas from other genre posters to make
my poster stand out a little more. For example I used a outline on my main
image to make it stand out more, a feature which isn’t used a lot in recent
times.