Question 2- Written answer (Text from PowerPoint to accompany the above video)

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Before I created my main product and ancillary texts, I did lots of research into existing
horror films and their promotional campaigns and materials to see what conventions they
include across all three promotional products to reach their target audience and give the film
a sense of identity. For my main product, I created a psychological horror film trailer.
Furthermore, as part of the promotional product, I created two ancillary texts, which
consisted of a magazine cover and a film poster. The magazine cover, film trailer and film
poster all portray the fact that Melinda is the antagonist within the film. As you can see, the
text 'Beelzebub' on the ident used at the beginning of the film trailer is in red writing. I have
kept this the same across all three products, as you can see that the word 'Melinda' is in red
on both my film poster and magazine cover. Propps theory of binary oppositions can be
applied to my promotional products. Lucy is good whereas; Melinda is evil therefore, making
them binary opposites. The tag line on my film poster once you see her, theres no going
back is also used as an intertitle within my trailer, which gives the audience a clear
understanding that these products are from the same promotional campaign.
Barthes described 5 codes which are woven into any narrative. These codes are different
ways of looking at the narrative. The hermeneutic code is the code of enigmas and refers to
any element of the narrative that is not fully explained and becomes a mystery to the reader.
Enigmas are questions which are later answered within the film. For example, who is
Melinda? Why did she go missing? Why is she haunting people? These questions allow the
audience to become more interested in the film as they want to find out the answers to
these questions. Enigma codes tempt people to watch the rest of the film as they are
intrigued to see what will happen next. Once you see her, theres no going back is a tagline
and alludes to an enigma which is present across all three of my promotional products.
The enigma is presented in my trailer in many different ways. Firstly, when a long shot is
shown of Lucy walking at school and supposedly talking to her mum and says theres
something going on here, its really weird The audience may wonder whats really weird?
Whats going on? However, you are then presented with shots of Lucy looking at a missing
poster and some of these questions are then answered. The following shots of Lucy walking
in school are accompanied with a voice-over telling Lucy not to go into the woods, why
should she not go into the woods? Is there something in the woods? At 1:33, a mid shot is
shown of Melinda standing behind Lucy in the woods, which answers more of the questions
previously presented by the audience as to why Lucy should not go into the woods. This is
few of the many examples of how the enigma is presented within the trailer.
In addition to this, the enigma is presented on my film poster and magazine cover as the
woods appears behind the main image, why is there a woods in the background? Is this one
of the settings within the film? Furthermore, Melinda appears in the main image on both
ancillary texts, which allows the audience to question who Melinda is? What role does she
play within the film? In addition to this, the tagline on the poster is once you see her, theres
no going back Once you see who? Why cant you go back? Finally, the main cover line on

the magazine says they told her not to go into the woods Who said this? Who shouldnt be
going into the woods? Why? Is there something hiding in the woods? All of these enigmas
that are presented to the audience make the audience want to see the film to find out
answers to their questions.
I believe that my film trailer, magazine cover and film poster work very effectively alongside
each other for many different reasons. Using these methods of advertising in a variety of
media formats means that the audience are more likely to be aware of the film prior to its
release. It is conventional for these different formats to be released at different times. The
film poster and trailer released first and the magazine cover would be released closer to the
films release date. Each different promotional product gives the audience different
information about the film.
The film trailer gives the audience the most information about the film as it allows them to
see the main character of the film and gives them a clear understanding of the narrative
within the film. The film poster gives more of an understanding of the main character and
the production team, as a billing block is situated at the bottom of the film poster. The
magazine cover gives the audience information about the film from the actors or actresses.
Furthermore, the film poster also allows the audience to see the release date of the film; I
have tried to keep many aspects of each product the same to give the film a sense of identity
and to allow the film to be successfully promoted to the correct target audience. This
included; the use of colours, costume, props, hair and make-up, images, settings and fonts.
All of these elements were implemented into my film trailer, magazine cover and film poster
to ensure that all three elements looked consistent and professional.
When researching, l looked at the promotion of Orphan (2009) to see what techniques they
used to successfully promote the film. The main thing that I noticed when researching into
Orphan was that they constantly consider the target audience of the film. For example, as
the film is aimed at a teenage audience, they advertise on social networking sites such as
Twitter and Facebook as the target audience are more likely to see it. The promotion of a
film is one of the most important aspects that take place before the film is released and
distributed into cinemas and onto DVD's. When a movie is made, the film crew start
promoting it through various means such as advertisements, websites, TV etc, which
includes spending lot of money. Since past decade with the advance of digital technology, a
lot of money is being spent on a movie before it hits the cinema. A movie attracts people is
solely on its content. When the movie is quite good to watch, it reaches other people
through word of mouth. I considered my target audience and what they would want to see
when designing all of my promotional products.
As the target audience for my promotional products are London based, 16-24 year olds and
predominantly female, it was important that I considered the different audiences that will
consume the products and how they might have different responses to each product. Based
on the fact that the target audience is aimed at people who live in London and are more
likely to travel using public transport, posters might be seen by more people, whether that is
on a train or walking down the street. However, if they are just walking past the poster in
the street and have actively chosen to consumer it, they might be more passive and

therefore, the poster might be less effective. Furthermore, the 4 film magazine might bring
in a more active niche audience who are particularly interested in film production, behind
the scenes and interviews with actors and actresses. For example, one of the cover lines on
my magazine is interview with Melindas main actress Beth Hayes this allows the audience
to find out a little bit more about the actress after seeing her in the main image on the cover,
again making them want to see the film. Once the target audience see this magazine or
poster, they can tell their friends about it again targeting the audience using below the line
promotion, with no cost to the distribution company at all, but again generates mutual
interest. For example word of mouth.
As technology continues to develop, distribution companies are always finding more ways to
distribute a film so that they can persuade the audience to go and see films. It is important
that the media product is distributed on a number of different platforms to ensure that it
reaches a range of audiences. As the film is targeted at a younger audience, they are more
likely to recognise the film if it is promoted online. A twitter page could be set up for
actresses, which is also a technique that the distributors of Orphan (2009) also used to
promote the film. Furthermore, the trailer could be shown as an un-skippable advert before
a YouTube video. It would be more effective if the trailer was shown as an advert before
another film trailer of this genre.
The main aspect of the film that features both on my film poster and magazine cover is the
location of the woods and the main character Melinda. It wouldnt make sense to have
different people on each of them as this wouldn't be an effective way of targeting the correct
target audience. From my research, I found that a convention of horror films is an isolated
location cut off from society as this allows the narrative to ensure a feeling of the unknown.
Both the main image on the film poster and magazine feature the main image of Beth Hayes
standing in the woods, who plays Melinda. I wanted to incorporate the setting of the woods
into my film poster and magazine cover as this links back to the main promotional product,
which is the film trailer as this is the main location within the trailer.
I decided on this image as the key selling point as it gave more of the narrative away. This is
because the antagonist is used as the main image on the front of the poster, magazine cover
and is one of the main characters within the trailer. It is clear that she is the antagonist as
she has blood on her face, which is the same across all three promotional products. The
antagonist that features on the front of the magazine is conventional because she is the
main character within the film and this is conventional of any film magazine. If we used a
different image of Lucy in her uniform, it wouldnt give the audience a clear idea of the
narrative within the film or even the genre of the film as it is just a girl in her school uniform.
In addition to this, I have kept a consistent colour scheme throughout the main product and
ancillary texts. The main colours used throughout my 3 promotional products are red, black
and white. After doing this research, I realised that these are the main colours associated
with horror. The black used throughout the products is juxtaposed with the white that is also
used and red has connotations of blood and evil. Colour was a big part of the development
of our three products. I decided that I was going to have 3 dominant colours that run
throughout all three products. The background of my film poster and magazine cover is

black, which ensures that everything else that is put on top of this dark background is clear
for the audience. The White was used for Melinda's dress, the tag line on my film poster and
the banner at the top of my magazine cover. This would mean that whenever people see the
colours red, white and black, they associate them with the film 'Melinda'. The writing used
on each of the products is not the same because each different product had different
conventions that needed to be followed. I used different fonts to ensure that I conformed
conventions of a magazine, which has many different font styles on it. This differs from the
film poster which has the title of the film Melinda in a handwriting style font, again
highlighting the idea of youth and school throughout the trailer.
The main prop used in our film trailer, and across all three products, is the 'Melinda' missing
poster. This is because it was the main prop that gave most of the narrative across to the
audience, which can be seen in the trailer. In addition to this, many psychological horror
films don't use props to get their narrative across as most of the story is given through the
narrative and location. Melinda is wearing the same costume throughout every promotional
piece, which is vital as it is important not to cause confusion with the genre of the film and
who is the antagonist within the film. Doing this, allowed all three media products to link
together again, and giving the film a sense of identity. It is really important to promote parts
of our trailer in other media formats, using our poster and magazine to effectively promote
our product. It allows all the media's to tie in together, preventing confusion from potential
audiences. It is obvious from looking at the costume of Melinda on the magazine cover and
the film poster, that see is the antagonist within the film as she is wearing a white dress with
blood all over her. It was also important that we clearly identified Lucy as the 'new girl'
within out trailer. We decided that the most obvious way to do this was for Lucy to wear her
school uniform. We thought that it was important to show that Melinda was an outcast by
having the rest of the characters look neat compared to her and this idea is portrayed across
all three products.
If the hair and make-up was to drastically change across all three products then the
audience wouldnt be able to immediately link all three together. It was important to keep
the hair and make-up the same to allow the audience to recognise the products as soon as
they see them. For example, seeing Melinda within the trailer and seeing her again wearing
the exact same costume and having the same hair and make-up would allow the audience to
recognise that they are from the same film. We used prosthetics for the make-up on Melinda
and put fake blood on her face and dress to make her look untidy and evil in contrast to Lucy
whose hair looks neat. All hair, make-up and costume is kept the same across all three
products.
Melindas facial expression is also similar throughout each product. Direct address is used
within the film trailer, film poster and magazine cover. The main image in the two print
products show Melinda looking straight out at the reader and at the end of the trailer, she
directly approaches the camera again as she is saying the nursery rhyme a teddy bears
picnic. The use of direct address was important within all three products as it acknowledges
the presence of the audience and draws their attention into the products, giving the products
a sense of realism.

Overall, the combination of my main products and ancillary texts were very effective and
worked well together. Elements from the main product, our film trailer is repeated across the
film poster and magazine cover. It was important to do this so that I didn't confuse the
audience by using different characters and colours across all three products, as this wouldn't
be very effective. I also understood that this was important from researching other
promotional campaigns. For example, from looking at 'Orphan' (2009), I could see that the
main character Esther featured across the promotional campaign and I therefore tried to
incorporate these ideas within my promotional products. One obvious link within all three
products is that they all convey the psychological horror genre, this allows the audience to
have a better understanding of the content within the film, allowing the audience to act in
the same way when they see each aspect of the promotional campaign. I feel that I kept all
three products looking consistent, whilst sticking to the codes and conventions of other
psychological horror films.