The student created a horror film trailer, poster, and magazine cover as part of a class project. Research was conducted into horror film marketing conventions. The poster featured the main character and title in a dark red font, drawing from common horror poster elements. Likewise, the magazine cover imitated popular paranormal magazines with layered images and enticing text. The trailer was inspired by found footage films like Blair Witch Project to seem realistic and leave viewers unsettled. Through understanding genre conventions and effective use of marketing, the combination of these ancillary texts helped attract a wide audience for the student's main horror film product.

1. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary
texts?
Question 2
Abbie Green

2. INTRO
• My A2 media studies coursework required each group
in the class to create a teaser trailer and a poster and
magazine cover to accompany it. Our group decided to
create a horror as through research we found that
horrors were the most popular in our age group. We
felt that a horror would attract the largest audience.
Through the use of marketing we were also able to
attract and expand our audience, we used social
networking sites to market our film as this was one of
the easiest and cheapest methods to use. I am going to
show how effective the combination of our
poster, magazine and main product.

3. POSTER
• To create our poster we used both illustrator and photo shop, we
completed a lot of research and found out what the conventions of a
horror poster was. We found that most posters featured a large bold
font which was either red or black. The poster also featured the main
character, sometimes films wouldn’t give away the main character but
they would either place a symbol to represent the film or part of a
face. A lot of films did not want to give too much away but they
wanted to create enigma. I analysed a lot of posters commenting on
the typical conventions which helped me to come up with ideas for the
poster. When creating our poster we focused on the conventions, we
placed the main character central of the poster but used layers of our
setting to add a hidden like effect. We didn’t want the character to be
to bold, we wanted the same amount of attention on both the tile and
the picture. The title is a dark red colour which connotes death and
danger, the colour is also to attract the audience. I believe that these
conventions to create the poster have been effective, our poster has
had positive reviews, I believe that our poster has attracted a wide
audience.

4. MAGAZINE
• To create our magazine we again used illustrator and photo
shop, I completed a lot of research into magazines as I had
never read a horror magazine before. I found that
‘Paranormal’ magazine was one of the most famous
magazines that advertised horrors. To add effect we also
created layers a lot like the poster, we had the setting faded
in the background and the main character central. We used
the name ‘paranormal’ it is typically white as it stands out
on a dark background. We found that the cover should
include a price and barcode, text that explains what is inside
and obviously a larger picture of the main character. I
believe that our magazine shows effectiveness as we have
created a magazine which attracts a wide audience. The
magazine entices the audience and ensures the audience of
the genre. The poster gives the audience many reasons to
buy the magazine as well as going to watch the film.

5. TRAILER
• After completing a lot of research on horror movies we decided that
we would create a teaser trailer inspired by the Blair witch project and
Paranormal activity. We found that a lot of people believed these two
films were true for a short amount of time, the reasons for this are
that they are both filmed with handheld cameras, the characters are
average people in average clothes. Both the films mention that they
are based on true stories but this is obviously only said to entice the
audience. In order to attract a wide audience we found that we
shouldn’t give too much away in our teaser trailer and we also needed
to make the audience jump so they remember the teaser trailer.
When filming we used a variety of camera shots to show the setting
and also to show the audience the characters facial expressions. The
use of the music added a lot of effect to the trailer as it creates
enigma and builds up a lot of tension. The combination of the music
and the trailer has created a teaser trailer that attracts a wide
audience. The combination of our main product and ancillary texts has
attracted a wide audience the help from marketing has also helped us
to attract a wide audience. We have learnt a lot through creating each
product; we have learnt what conventions are important to create a
successful film trailer.