1) The document discusses the effectiveness of combining a main horror film project with ancillary promotional tasks like posters, a magazine cover, and trailer. 2) Each piece was designed to follow horror film conventions to appeal to the target genre audience. Unifying elements like the antagonist, his weapon, color scheme, and close-up shots create "symbiotic links" between the pieces. 3) By maintaining consistency in these linking elements, the package effectively promotes the fictional film and ensures the audience recognizes all the pieces are related.

1. How effective is the
combination of the main
product and the ancillary
tasks?

2. I feel that my four pieces make an effective promotional package and this is mainly due to fluent use of symbiotic links and
professionalism that comes with it. One of our main aims with this project was to make it as professional looking as possible
as we felt that if our package couldn’t promote a real film then we would have felt as if we failed. From the outset of the
project we quickly learnt what made a the ancillary tasks professional by researching other slasher films such as; Friday the
13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nightmare on Elm Street. From learning and researching previous works within the
film industry, we quickly decided on what sub-genre of horror we wanted to do and also what the narrative would be about.
Each of the four pieces (Teaser Poster, Main Poster, Magazine Front Cover, Trailer) follows the conventions of existing
pieces throughout media, for example the poster follows a conventional layout with aspects such as; eye-catching image,
title of the film being the largest text on the page, the date of release, tagline and institutional information and mise-en-
scene. By conforming to this conventions it allows the audience to be drawn into looking at our poster and also allows the
right audience to be enticed, what I am saying is that our poster can appeal to the right audience, the audience that most
prefers that specific genre/sub-genre.
My trailer also follows a similar structure to other Slasher trailers. The audience is introduced to the typical teenagers who
are shown to be reckless and rebellious towards any authority meaning they break the rules. We also see them drinking and
smoking in public areas which allows the audience to understand why they are being punished by the antagonist. The
audience also get an insight to the characters by seeing the different traits that each character has. For example the final
girl, protagonist, is seen to be warning the others about their bad-doing and that she is smart to know that something bad is
going to happen. Once the rest of the group come to realise that the protagonist is right about the situation, it becomes too
late to do anything, in which they all get lost in Deadwood Grove and seem to get killed off one by one with a montage to
show their scenes leading up to their possible deaths without ruining it for the audience. This will ensure that my trailer is
going to be an effective part to my promotional package.

3. Meanwhile, my magazine front cover challenges some of the conventions we see in typical horror magazines. This is
because we wanted to go for a more professional look to our magazine and so we decided to go with a general movie
magazine such as Total Film or Empire. Our magazine followed the general structure of these types of magazines, by
having one main image of our antagonist with sell lines to the right of the page and the masthead with the skyline being
centered and at the top of the page.
- Main image dominates frame
- Title centered and bottom of the page.
- Title of film largest text
- Dark and gloomy atmosphere
- Low angled shot of antagonist
- Shown masked killer
- Red, black and white theme
- Creepy and conventional moonlight
- Weapon of choice on show

4. Symbiotic Links
We wanted to ensure that my audience would understand and recognise that all of our pieces of work were linked and
were promoting the same film. In order for us to do this is we had to create and make sure there were some obvious
symbiotic links throughout the promotional package and therefore my pieces had to compliment each other. There were a
number of ways that we was able to do this, for example, the most evident symbiotic link was the antagonist. He featured
in both the ancillary tasks and the main task which helped us a lot when creating the symbiotic links because we knew if
we keep him in the same costume then the target audience would know straight away that the pieces are relatable. This
purely down to the fact that he is wearing the same costume, black hoodie, black cargo trousers and a black skull mask
throughout the tasks and also the weapon he was using was an axe which is shown in the poster and in the trailer and
therefore connecting those two pieces together. Furthermore we used the same colour theme throughout which was red,
black and white which allowed the audience to understand that this is part of the slasher genre and also once again to
understand that the pieces are all connected to the same film.
In both the magazine front cover and the teaser poster, our antagonist features in an up close shot which allows the
audience to see him clearly and with the terrifying mask on full show, it can become easily recognisable for the audience
to remember and therefore they will be able to know that it's the same killer throughout. We used this as a smart way of
promoting our movie as the antagonist is the most valuable component to a Slasher film and by having him featured in all
areas of the promotional package gets that across to the audience and completes the symbiotic links.
Overall I believe that our promotional package is successful in combining each of the pieces within due to them featuring
the same feel and characters throughout.