How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts? By David McGlaughlan

Introduction The A2 Media coursework required Amelia and I to make a film trailer combine with the ancillary tasks of making a film poster and a magazine front cover. Heist is the sub-genre of the film, so I gathered all of the codes and conventions of the sub-genre and the selling point of my film into three products to try and keep the audience attracted and interested in the film.

Film Poster After I researched four posters (The Italian Job, Ocean Eleven, Reservoir Dogs and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), the purpose of film poster is to advertise the film through the image, the actor’s names and most importantly the title. Amelia and I created our own film poster.

My Film Poster The names of the main actors are at the top of the page so the audience looking at the poster will know who is in the film straight away. The background of the poster you have the two main actors in the film, which is quite common to have on a poster because that is how it gets the audience. Just under the title you have all the information about who produced, directed and starred. As you can see it has the same as some other film posters that have been made. The tile is at the bottom of the poster. The font is the same as the one in the trailer, which shows that I have linked the products together.

Film Poster Analysis Personally, I think that my film poster is quite effective because it attracts the audience that like this sub-genre. This is done by the image that is the poster of the two actors, who are looking down, it stands because it is the central image and it will be the first thing you will see, when you look at the poster. They might recognise the whiteboard behind the two actors that has planning bits, which is shown in the trailer.

Magazine Cover I decided to analyse Total Film Magazines because I wanted to try and base my magazine front cover like their design. When it came to actually making the magazine front cover I tried to find the font for the total film, because my magazine is called ‘Reel Film’. So, I decided to go for a different, so I used a font called ‘Myriad Pro’. I choose the design of Total Film because it is one of the best film magazines in the UK, and is quite good at attracting audiences.

My Magazine Cover The magazine logo going across the top of the front cover. As you can see it is white and it is quite big, this is so the audience can see who the magazine is from. You can see that I have put two films at the top of the magazine. The reason why I have done that is that they are upcoming films as well, and they could attract the reader. The title is set in the middle of the magazine, you can see that the font of the title is the same as the trailer and film poster, which is combining all three of them. Other content that is in the magazine goes either on the side or at the bottom of it. They’re all white so that it stands out. The background of the magazine cover is black, because it is to put more focus on the actor. Personally, I think the main focus of this poster is one of the main actors of the film. You can see that she is holding a gun, which tells the audience, what type of genre it is going to be.

Magazine Analysis I think that the magazine is quite effective because it has the title of the film on the front and it is in the same font as all the others, so the audience will recognise it. Also, they will recognise the one of the main characters of the film because she was in the poster and the trailer. I would have change the layout of it because I think that there is too much writing on there. I could have put made a little reel of screenshots of the film, so it would grab the reader’s attention more.