The document discusses the production of a trailer for a film. It analyzes how the trailer applies various film theories to engage the audience, such as creating equilibrium and disruption without resolution per Todorov, including standard character archetypes like the hero, princess and villain according to Propp. Ancillary materials like a poster and website were produced with a dark theme to match the mysterious, thriller tone of the trailer and promote the film. Shots were chosen and lighting, camera angles and page layouts were designed to further convey this unsettling atmosphere.

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

2. Intended outcome of production
• The intention of our production was to
entertain the audience using our trailer to
gain the audiences interest. By interesting
the audience they will be more likely to go
and see it.

3. Todorov
• Tzvetan Todorov’s theory states that in
every media story text there is first an
equilibrium, then a disruption to this
equilibrium and finally a resolution. In our
production we applied the first two parts of
this theory creating a storyline with the
absence of a resolution creating suspense
for the viewers so they will be more likely
to watch the film at the cinema.

4. Vladimir Propp
• Vladimir Propp’s theory that there are many different
character types which appear in media texts is adhered
to in our trailer as it contains a hero, a princess and a
villain which all plots in trailers generally contain. The
hero is identified through him being in danger when he
throws himself out of the car so we empathize with him
as our main protagonist. The villain is identified through
the dark colours when he is on screen and when he ties
up the princess’s hands. The princess is identified
through her being shown as being helpless when she is
being tied up by the villain.

5. Ancillary tasks
• Our ancillary tasks included making a
poster and a website to accompany our
trailer. They had to be made in a similar
way in order to portray that this is all part
of the same production.

6. Storyboard
• We wrote out our storyboard attempting to
incorporate a wide range of shots. Our
storyboard was planned out before the
shoot and therefore we were forced to
make alterations to it as we didn’t have
time to complete all the shots we wanted
due to the restricted time we had because
the group was rarely free to film at the
same time.

7. Website and poster
• We attempted to give our website and
poster a similar theme with it being dark
connoting mystery and action. The theme
was generally of dark colours in the
background with a serious, white, san-serif
font on top to connote the seriousness that
the film is intended to give off.

8. Mise-en-scene
• We achieved our outcome by using
chiaroscuro lighting in our mise-en-scene
to connote the dark, mysterious feeling we
wanted to give to our film.

9. Page layout
• The page layout of our website is dark to
emphasize this mysterious/thriller feeling
that we wanted our film to have

10. Camera-shot choices
• The choice of shot when we walked
behind Adam filming him was chosen to
demonstrate mysteriousness as we were
unable to see his face which would lead
the audience to question why we couldn’t
see his face. Other shots were fast-paced
close-ups to show the thriller elements of
our film.