This document provides a critical evaluation of a film poster and radio trailer created for a student media studies project. The poster depicts the main character surrounded by darkness and blood splatters to imply danger without revealing major plot points. Comparisons are made to the successful film poster for "Sorority Row" which also uses dark tones and implies death or danger for the characters. Both the poster and radio trailer were designed to promote the film and spark audience interest without giving away the full storyline in order to preserve suspense and an effective ending.

1. MEDIA STUDIES A2
CRITICAL EVALUATION QUESTION 2

2. Our film relates to the idea of jealousy as that is
the reason one of our main
character, Tia, murders her best friend Katie.
Tia is not included on any of the posters as
her true self does not get revealed until the
end of the film where the audience finds out
that it is, in fact, her who after faking her own
death, eliminated Katie to take her place.
During the design process which took place
whilst making the poster we wanted to keep
in mind that we do not want to give too much
away on the poster, as giving away a lot of
the plot would make our film predictable and
the ending ineffective. We wanted the poster
to be slightly misleading to make the films
ending as effective as it can be.

3. This is the final poster design for our film : Blood splatters: add effect to the
poster setting it in its genre as well
Black background: implies the nature and genre of the film as as making a direct link to the gory
well as works well along the side of the red blood splatters to nature of the film linking the poster
make them stand out more reinforcing the idea of danger to the first kill scene. In addition
(stereotypically red=danger) they create a semantic field of
death around the main character
Image: the image Katie also suggesting that she is in
represents Katie the main danger and could be the next
protagonist in the film. She victim.
is surrounded by darkness
and blood (predicament of Title: the title is one of the direct
her death) and it also associates with our film as it uses the
looks like she is being same font as the film in the opening
watched through a keyhole titles. It is in white to stand out and be
which can be interpreted noticeable on the black background.
by the audience in two One of the main features used in the
different ways: either the title are the blood splatters which cross
fact that she is being off (‘’eliminate’’) one of the two O’s and
stalked by someone or M’s used in the word ‘Roommates’
that someone is jealous of which is an underlying message that
her. In this case it is both. there will be only one left out of the two
This is effective as it does friends. This is a link to the plot of the
not give away too much of film as Tia murders Katie and is the
the films plot only one surviving roommate however
ultimately, making the film this would not be known to the
more unpredictable which audience of the poster as they would
at the same time makes have not seen the film yet therefore, it
the unravelling events does not reveal too much of the plot.
more effective.

4. Comparison: this is a poster from the 2009 film ‘Sorority Row’
Similarly to our film ‘Sorority Row’ is a horror
film which tells a story of a few friends who Like our poster this one is set in
live and attend university together. The film dark shades with the colour black
was quite successful worldwide. dominating the poster this shows
the genre of the film and suggests
danger/fear (of the darkness).
The image on the poster
shows the main characters
and protagonists of the The font of the text on the poster
film, as does our poster, they looks slightly like the font used in
look like they have been America for the names of the
‘stacked up’ one on the top of student houses setting a location
another suggesting corpses for the film. We have used a very
linking the poster to the genre similar font however for a
of the film as well as implying different purpose; we wanted the
the fact that probably most of title to show that the characters in
them, or all of them will die. the film attend university and also
Our poster also has the reveal their potential age.
predicament of death clearly
visible on it in the form of
blood splatters surrounding
the protagonist of the film.
I think our film poster is effective as it is alike other
posters from similar films which have proven successful
in the past.

5. During the making of our radio trailer we also had to bear in mind to not give away
too much of the films storyline. In the original idea the trailer was going to say
‘a good girl gone bad’ however we realised that this would give away the
ending of the film and already give a potential suspect (Tia) to the audience
from the very first scene of the film. We changed the quote to ‘keep your
friends close and your enemies closer’ as it is more ambiguous and suggests
more than one potential outcome in the film. This made the trailer more
dramatic and would have left the audience to want to find out more about the
film as they would have gotten just enough information to spark their interest
in the film without giving away too much of the storyline at the same time. The
hardest task during the making of the trailer was researching it and finding
examples of other radio trailers. There is not a lot of radio trailers out there for
films therefore even looking on YouTube brought a very few results. We had to
make do with what we found, considering that I think the radio trailer came out
very well. I feel that it fits the setting and gives a clear indication of the film
genre. The trailer is supposed to create suspense and make the audience
want to find out more. We did not want the radio trailer to be too frightening as
it is a psychological horror and its the type of film which are usually toned
down compared to the traditional horror films.
Taking everything under consideration I think our radio trailer meets the standard
requirements for a film radio trailer. It has: non-diagetic and diagetic
background sound (parts from film and added music) as well as extracts of
speech from conversations from the film as well as a voiceover/narrator which
indicates the titles, sets the slogans and lets the listeners know when the film
will be in the cinemas which usually appears on radio trailers.