How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

1. HOW EFFECTIVE IS
THE COMBINATION
OF YOUR MAIN
PRODUCT AND
ANCILLARY TEXTS?
Yasmin
Mohamed

2. T H E C OM BI N ATION OF M Y M A I N P RODUC T A N D A N C I LLA RY
T E X T S I S E F F E C TIVE A S T H E Y WORK W E LL A S A PAC KAG E .
This shor t film shows the journey of an unpopular boy who likes a popular girl.
One day she drops a comic book (which he is majorly into), he picks it up and
gives it to her and this is when their love stor y begins. He of fer s to take her to
get a new comic coming out. They meet up and the montage star ts, showing
them getting along and slowly star ting to fall for each other. The genre of film is
Romantic Comedy; we wanted the genre of the film to be made clear in all
products. The film poster consists of love hear ts and the two main character s
positioned close to each other suggesting romance and love. The expressi on on
Dominic’s face connotes humour as he looks rather creepy. The image on the
film review was captured from the action in the film. It is from the bus stop
scene, where Dominic sees Amy from across the road. A gain they are both in the
frame together, showing their close contact and the shocked expressi on on
Dominic’s face again adds an element of comedy. And finally, the shor t film
clearly shows aspects of both romance and humour as shown in the love
montage when Dominic falls down and when he gives Amy a rose.

3. CONSISTENT HOUSE ST YLE
AND COLOUR CONNOTATIONS?
As I said in question one, my products have a house style which is consi stent
throughout. The colour scheme used is the same for each product. The film
poster and film review have a clear 3 way colour scheme of red, black and white.
The colour red connotes love and passion which are positive connotati ons. In
terms of mise en scene, Dominic’s costume was ver y dull consi sting of mainly
the colour black , again foreshadowi ng his creepy character, as he constantly
watches her leave the train station ever y morning. Never theless, Dominic does
wear a cap in most clips throughout the film, the cap is red, again implying he is
a hopeless romantic and just wants to find love. The colour white used mainly in
the film poster and film review suggests Dominic’s love for Amy is pure and
innocent. This links to the age group we are aiming the film to as they are mostly
young students who have or will experience young love.

4. STEREOT YPICAL FILM IDEA?
Our film idea is dif ferent as it is ver y unlikely that you see an unpopular boy with a popular girl so to
s h o w t h e m g e t t i n g a l o n g i s u n u s u a l . S e c o n d l y, t h i s g i v e s h o p e t o o t h e r g e e k y b o y s o u t t h e r e w h o l i k e
a girl who is out of their league, this may give them the confidence to talk to someone they wouldn’t
normally speak to. Another thing that makes our idea dif ferent is that we normally see a happy
ending and af ter the montage of them getting along, the audience star t to believe that the unpopular
boy will get with the popular girl. The audience get emotionally involved and just want him to be
h a p p y, s o a l m o s t u r g e h i m o n . H o w e v e r, t h i s d o e s n o t h a p p e n . U n f o r t u n a t e l y t h e u n p o p u l a r b o y d o e s
not get with the popular girl, which is what will probably happen in real life, so our stor y line is both
realistic and believable. Both the film poster and film review includes an image of the two main
character s together (bus stop scene and photo shoot) implying that they may be together in the film.
The bus stop scene was practically chosen because of audience feedback as it was one of the more
memorable elements of the film Thus it should work as a selling point, marketing our film
r e a l i s t i c a l l y. W e d i d n ’ t w a n t t o u s e a n i m a g e o f D o m i n i c b y h i m s e l f a s i t m a y g i v e a w a y t h e e n d i n g
a n d r e a l i t y t h a t h e w i l l n e v e r b e w i t h A m y. A l s o , D o m i n i c i s s e e n a s t h e m a i n c h a r a c t e r t h r o u g h o u t
the film, however in both images on the film poster and film review, we choose for Amy to take up
m o s t o f t h e f r a m e t o e m p h a s i z e h o w m u c h D o m i n i c t h i n k s o f A m y, s h e i s t h e c e n t r e o f h i s a t t e n t i o n
and we showed this by making her the centre of our images.

5. CELEBRIT Y COMPARISONS
In the real world, Amy may be seen as the typical / iconic female
lead, like Mila Kunis or Megan Fox, and Dominic is the unfor tunate
nerd, like Seth Rogen or Paul Rust. The repeated use of their image
in marketing materials reinforces their iconic status.
Our shor t film is primarily targeted at individuals who enjoy rom
coms, but also at young individuals at college/school who have
teenage crushes. Each product is age appropriate. The film poster has
a PG Classification suggesting it is suitable for the younger
generation. Our film poster, review and video do not include any taboo
lexis or connotations that may be of fensive to some viewers. We tried
to keep it as clean as possible to suit our target audience. The film
review/ poster do not consist of too many dif ficult words as we want
our target audience to be able to read and relate to our products.

6. SUBVERT OR FOLLOW CODES AND
CONVENTIONS?
The film poster and film review promote the video product ef fectively as the
poster and review keep the audience guessing. We make it clear that the
theme is love however we tr y not to give too much away. The ending remains
a secret, again showing we followed enigma codes as in the skyline of the
film poster it states, “roses are red, violets are blue…” the … suggests
myster y and suspense as we don’t know what he is going to say next or what
will happen in the film. Products promote the video ef fectively as they follow
the codes and conventi ons of real media products, however cer tain aspects
we subver ted to be original and give the audience a dif ferent outlook on love
and representati ons of individuals.

7. EXPAND PRODUCTS INTO THE REAL WORLD
My media texts operate well as adver tising and promoti onal ar tifacts. If I was
to expand these products into the real world, I would create other poster s
using a variety of images to best represent Dominic and Amy’s relationship. I
would also make Facebook and Twitter pages for the actor s, as this is the
most ef fective way to reach out to fans, its quick , easy and in expensive. I
would perhaps make a YouTube channel, where the actor s could post behind
the scenes footage and vlogs on filming days; this would make it more
per sonalized for fans. I would also set up one to one inter views and
competitions where fans can win signed merchandise from the star s, such as:
poster s, sof t toys, t shir ts, bags. etc.