Evaluation Question 2

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

To create a successful combination between our main product and ancillary texts we needed to ensure they all had a central theme that enabled them to link together in a way that made it clear they were promoting our film. To make this effective we used several motifs throughout our poster, website and trailer.

To start with we used the same typography on both our poster and in our trailer. The font was important to our poster as we felt, although our poster is a good representation of our film, it did not fully fit the conventions of a social realism poster and perhaps signified a drama more; However the typography we chose is faded and cracked, we thought this showed corruption and fragmentation which helped to portray social realism more as it connotes hardships. We used the same font on a shot in a film trailer, however we struggled to put the font onto our website because of technical difficulties.

This is our second to last shot in our film trailer. It is clear from the juxtaposition of our poster and this shot from our trailer that there is a strong link and the two combine well. Not only have we used the same font but also the colour scheme is very similar. The use of oranges and yellows resonates throughout our texts. We used the sunset and it is a memorable shot in our trailer as it stands out against the dull colours of the rest of the shots. We used the sunset to create the image of hope, but the action of our protagonist walking as a silhouette into the sunset and away from the camera evokes emotion and leaves mystery in the ending such as the ending in Fishtank, this connotes the social realism genre as there is not a happy ending, in fact there should be no proper conclusion as it needs to convey real life and reality as best as possible. We also used the silhouette in the poster using our protagonist however he remains unidentifiable so our film does not come across as a film about a singular boys 'sob story' but about a type of boy that many people can associate with.

On our website we used the colour orange to link it to both the poster and the trailer even though we used a blue font in the trailer the sunset creates the orange colour scheme. We also placed the Jury prize on the right hand side making the website look more professional, advertising the award even more and creating another link between the trailer and the website as we place the award in our trailer.

We placed the credits shown above on both the trailer and the teaser trailer. These credits are exactly the same on the both and include the same information successfully combining the trailer and the poster. These credits give information such as indents, certification, actors and directors etc. They also contain the website thus linking all of our texts together. This makes it all seem professional and works as a marketing device.

Our website uses the picture to left as its background. Once again we have used our protagonist as the focal point. Although he is a silhouette on our poster which hides his identity and in this picture we see him front on, the hood acts as a barrier and the idea of blurring his identity is continued. It keeps the character as an enigma.

Shows same costume to what is
being worn in website photograph.

The website probably has less correlation to the other two texts purely because the poster and trailer use almost identical images and we were able to use the font. However they still work as a combination because we have used the same costume in this photograph and in parts of the trailer and we have continued the idea of our protagonist wearing a hood which we were inspired by after watching Fishtank and deconstructing the poster.

 A tagline is important in the advertisement and marketing stages of film. A tagline is a form branding slogan in which the aim is to create a memorable phrase that will attempt to epitomise the product, in this case our film. The tagline, if successful should reinforce the audiences memory of the film and in some case a tagline can be so successful it is used as a saying in popular culture, for example 'Be afraid. Be very afraid." (The Fly) and "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." (Star Wars). Our tagline is, "It takes a lifetime to gain an old friend" referring to the unusual friendship formed between our protagonist, Jacob, and the old man character. We placed our tagline underneath the title on the poster in a slightly darker colour, we also put the tagline on our website underneath the title also. This should make the tagline more familiar and acts as a marketing device.


                  

To combine our ancillary texts and main products together not only do we create the same tone using colour, typography, actors and a tagline but we used Facebook and Twitter to act as a form of advertisement. We placed Facebook and Twitter links on the website which allows for audience feedback and participation, we also put these links on our blog. We also used YouTube to circulate our finished product and put links on the website also, this allows for feedback to so we can learn what we did wrong and what bits we did right. The blog also contains these links and the website links back to the blog also, this is important for our media project as it allows people to understand our direction and see the planning and research behind our finished product.

Conclusion:

Overall the combination of our main product and ancillary texts seems to work effectively. The poster and trailer are clearly linked as they use the same font and colour scheme, this is important as it sets the tone for our film, the poster picks out a aesthetically pleasing part of our film but it also subverts the social realism genre which why at first we debated whether to use it or not. We finally decided to chose the poster as we felt it was a good signifier of our narrative that did not give too much away but set the tone and mood, it also attracted our audience and after asking people to pick their favorite poster they were drawn to our final one. Our website does not fit in with the theme of the sunset as much however it does include a picture of our protagonist and the costume remains the same. I believe we effectively created a combination however we would have liked to have carried more elements through onto the website and the blog such as the font.