The document discusses the effectiveness of a teaser trailer, film poster, and magazine front cover created to promote the film "VERSES". Feedback was gathered from the target audience of 16-25 year olds. They responded positively to being drawn in by the main characters in the teaser trailer and wanting to learn more. The poster attracted attention with the protagonist's emotion and tagline. The magazine looked professional and featured information about the film and actors that interested readers. Minor improvements were identified, but overall the marketing materials were deemed successful at engaging the target audience.
Media Question 2 - Main product and Ancillary tasks
1. How effective is the
combination of your
main product and
ancillary tasks?
2. Our product… a teaser trailer
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xne_If41fjM
• This is our finalised teaser trailer. It’s for our film, ‘verses’ which tells
the story of Declan mulligan who has to decide whether to do what
his head is telling him (do what your parents and ‘friends’ expect of
you) or follow his heart (write poetry which is his passion).
3. How will we attract an audience?
Main product:
• The point of a teaser trailer is to ‘tease’ the audience, by showing
them a sneak peek of a film that is coming out. This will not be
the full length trailer as it will be 30-90 seconds long, where a
trailer would be 2+ minutes. A trailer usually comes out quite a
long time in advance (around 6 months – a year).
• Our teaser trailer is a bit over a minute long. The scenes we used
in it will attract an audience as we have introduced them to the
protagonist (Declan Mulligan) and the supporting role (Adam
McKenzie) which draws the audience in as they want to know
more about them.
4. How will we attract an audience?
Ancillary tasks:
• Film poster our poster is, in our opinion, a professional piece of work that is a
believable film poster. The large character on the poster is our protagonist, drawing an
audience in as they can see his emotion in his face. The title is very prominent on the
poster so the audience know what the film is called. All the other information that
goes on every poster (credits and production companies) is also on ours, making it
look presentable. The tag line really attracts the audience as it is in the middle of the
poster and the message draws them in as they want to know what will happen to our
protagonist.
• Magazine front cover like our poster, we believe our magazine front cover is done
to a professional standard. We used a good photo of our actor to be on the front
cover as he plays the protagonist. The extra sentences that surround the magazine are
spread out so the magazine doesn’t look too crowded. The information on the
magazine draws the audience in as they want to know more about the film and the
stars involved. The colour scheme we used highlights that ‘verses’ is a British film. We
used the typical information that goes on a magazine (barcode and price) to maintain
the realist look of a magazine.
5. How we are attracting our audience
Main Narrative Image
• Our film, ‘VERSES’ is focused on the
protagonist Declan. He is our main
narrative image as our target audience
can relate to him in some ways.
• He’s a teenager who is having to make
multiple decisions on his future. His
friends are changing, his passion for
poetry is growing and he’s struggling
to deal with all the emotions.
• The majority of teenagers are going
through similar situations and so
recognise Declan as some one who
they can understand.
Genre
• Our film is a hybrid as it is both a
social realist film and a coming of
age one. In addition to these film
genres, the teaser trailer is a genre.
• Our target audience are both male
and females ages 16-25. we tried to
keep them interested by having
teenagers be the focus, the setting
be realistic – although social realist
films are usually about lower
working class, the majority of
people in Britain are working to
middle class, which our protagonist
is, meaning ‘VERSES’ attracts a
large audience.
Iconography
• The iconography for our film,
‘VERSES’ needs to fit into our
genres. As there are multiple
genres we have to think about, it
can be challenging because some
can clash.
• Social realism we used urban
settings and unknown actors.
• Coming of age we focused on
career issues and school setting.
• By using these iconographies, the
audience automatically make a
connection to the genre.
6. Audience feedback
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ppDVRemcic
Most important questions asked:
• What did you like about it? - the audience we showed our teaser trailer to were a varied group of male and
females aged 17-50. The reviewers said they really liked our narrative as they got to know the characters but
too much wasn’t given away so they are intrigued to find out what happens to Declan.
• What do you think can be improved? – the audience gave us good feedback as they told us that the sound
wasn’t perfect, it was clear where we edited it in. In the middle of our teaser trailer, there are words that
appear on the screen (school, home, friends, secrets) which they didn’t really like the colour and font.
• Who do you think the target audience is? – they knew straight away that teens were our main audience, but
also people in their 20s are a part of our target audience. 16-25 was the correct range.
• From their feedback, we were able to see what was good, and attracted our target audience; and what needed
improvements to appeal to a wider amount of people.
8. ‘VERSES’ film poster feedback
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XWGeNdDZk
Most important questions asked:
• What do think the target audience is? – like the teaser trailer, the reviewers believed the
target audience for our film is teenagers 16-25.
• From the poster, what would make you want to watch the film? – our reviewers said they
were attracted to the protagonist and wanted to know what will happen to him. The tag line
drew them in as well due to it giving them insight into the film but also making them want
to watch the film to find out what will happen when friends, family and future collides.
• What do you like about the poster? – we were praised highly on our poster, especially the
bottom half as our reviewers felt it is recognised as a professional film poster. Our tagline
and title is what the reviewers liked the most as they’re both prominent on the poster.
• What do you think can be improved? – the main issue that our reviewers had was the
background. They felt it was too simplistic as the colour is plain.
• From their feedback, we were able to see what was good on our poster and how it attracts
our target audience. We were able to see what we could have done to improve our poster.
We would use a more detailed background, but not distracting from the picture and title.
10. ‘VERSES’ magazine feedback
• For our magazine, we made a questionnaire for our target audience to
fill in:
Most important questions asked:
• What draws you into the magazine? – our answers came back that the
colour scheme, information circling the picture and the central image
attracted them to the magazine. This helped us realise that the
magazine looks professional and pleasing to our target audience’s eye.
• What do you like about the magazine? – the reviewers said they liked
the title of the magazine and the actor on the front as they know that
the magazine is about film and that this issue focuses on the actor and
the latest film which is in bold on the magazine.
• What do you think can be improved? – we had highly praised feedback
as there were a lack of improvement comments. Some felt the
background was a little bland compared to mainstream film magazines.
• From their feedback, we were able to see that our magazine front cover
was made to a high standard that our target audience would buy.
11. What we like about our teaser trailer
Main Product
• The opening of the two characters as they are the protagonist and
the supporting role. We like how you get to see a bit about them;
Declan is a studious person and Adam is from an urban area.
• The scenes between Declan and Adam show their relationship, that
Adam cares for Declan and tries to help him. We see their ups and
downs that they go through. Their friendship is vital to the
narrative and we like how we’ve shown that in our teaser trailer.
• We like the camera shots we used as we felt we used varied ones to
keep the audience interested.
• The song that plays in the background throughout the teaser trailer
is something that we really like. We feel the song matches the
narrative we’re trying to portray.
Ancillary Tasks
• The poster we like the bottom half especially. Everything
flows onto the next, making it look professional. The title is
at the correct size that people see that and know what the
film is called. We like our tag line as it draws people in as
they want to see what happens. The credits add to the poster
looking realistic and we feel confident that the poster would
be successful in the real media world.
• The magazine front cover we’re happy with our magazine
because it looks professional. The information around the
central image really draws in the reader. The title of our
magazine is something we like because the reader will know
that it’s a film specialist magazine. The colour scheme holds
it all together and we like that the picture is a direct image to
draw our target audience in.
We both feel that we worked really hard on our main product and ancillary tasks to make successful pieces of work.
12. What we would improve
Main Product
• We know that if we could make our teaser trailer
again, we would definitely would sort out the
sound. There are multiple times in the trailer
where sound is an issue, whether it’s the camera
making the noise due to us holding it, or with just
background noise.
• We also used multiple different fonts throughout
the trailer with varied transitions. Although we like
them, we would change some so they were more
flowing as they don’t look like they go together.
• The numerous scenes we shot of different groups
who know Declan can be a little confusing in the
teaser trailer. We would only use one group and
show them with Declan as friends, then again
criticising his passion for poetry to show
continuity.
Ancillary Tasks
• The poster the top half of the poster is where
we mainly change things. The background is
simplistic. We would add a background that
possibly had poetry on it which we would fade in
the background so it didn’t distract from the
image and the title. The 2 reviews at the top would
changed slightly. Our feedback showed that, for
some, a bit of it is hard to read as it goes into our
protagonist’s hair. We would make it clearer so the
reader can see it and that they’re positive reviews.
• The magazine front cover we majorly like our
magazine and so there is little we would improve.
The background might be changed as it’s quite
simple. The cutting around the actors body isn’t at
it’s best, which we would make sure it’s as smooth
as possible.
13. To Conclude...
Overall, our main product and ancillary tasks are effective as they are used to attract our target
audience to what our film, VERSES. The positive feedback we got from all 3 products prove
that we used the correct techniques to draw them in. Our teaser trailer attracts our target
audience as they get to see a glimpse of what’s in the full length movie, making them want to see
the full trailer and then the movie. As for the poster, they can see reviews from known
companies and the tag line adds more intrigued into what will happen. Our magazine allows the
reader to learn more about the actor, his character and the film itself. We believe all 3 products
are effective and will draw our target audience into watching the full length movie.