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

TRAILER In our trailer we made it stand out by including horror conventions in a dystopia film. This is our USP and it will attract people into seeing the film as we include the conventions in the trailer. This is effective as not many dystopian films do that. The horror conventions we used in our trailer is by having possessed people, this makes our film unique from other post-modern dystopia films. Our tagline ‘who will survive?’ straight away shows the idea of the film narrative which creates tension and mystery and we also show this by the characters, struggling to stay alive. This anchors the tagline. To find the right target audience for our film we found inspiration from similar films like ‘Insidious’ and ‘28 days later’. From research we decided that our main target audience will be years old, male and female. Our target audience will mainly be middle class, however some teenagers could be working class and they enjoy action, dystopian and horror films. To find out the right certificate for our film we went online for the guidelines and we thought certificate 15 suited our film the most as it has strong language, violence and elements of horror which could disturb younger children.

We included many conventions which could appeal to our target audience. For example being a independent film which means it would be shown only in the UK due to a cheap budget. As our film would be only shown in the UK we made our characters very stereotypical British teenager, this is so the audience can relate which creates escapism for them as the viewer puts themselves in the characters position. We also dressed the characters in stereotypical brands that teenagers get will wear and relate to, we also used props like a BMX bike which teenagers get around in or if they are our older target audience used to have one and also the IPhone which either teenagers have or want one, this also promotes Apple. We also picked urban locations to shoot where the audience would have been and makes them think it can happen to anyone, this is for all our target audience ages. We shot in Autumn so we will release it in Autumn As it is appropriate to the audience at the time. Also because of our film has elements of horror realise in Autumn when Halloween is so it links to the film.

POSTER I think our film poster helps promote our film with the trailer and think It is really effective. For our image we had the female helper using the gaze which attracts the audience attention. Also using the helper for our image was to show elements of a post modern film. I think our poster looks professional as we used limited amount of fonts. We found that if we used too many fonts it would look messy and amateurish. In our draft film poster we used too many fonts and we thought it looked unprofessional. We thought we should stand out the most important aspects on the poster in bigger/bold font or a red font. For example we made the title of the film the biggest font on the poster because obviously its an important feature of the film which the audience needs to know. We also change the colour of the tagline and release date, we did this because its important for the audience for the audience to know when it comes out and the tag-line gives clues on the narrative and genre of the film. To attract both male and female audiences we used dull colours to show the genre of the film but contrasted it with a female character for our image.

Our tag-line ‘who will survive’ is a rhetorical question, we did this to make the audience question and think what could happen in the narrative and will it be a happy ending. This also gives away the genre to the audience as it connotes both dystopia and horror genre elements. For example it shows there is a struggle and fight for survival and it also shows death by using the colour red to signify death. We decided that our poster would be put up a few weeks before to film comes out but released 6 months before it is in the cinema, because our target audience is 15+ we would display our poster around popular areas that they would see it for example put them on buses where they do school/college routes so their likely to see it and around bus shelters near schools, colleges and universities so it is seen by a range of younger groups of people. Also we would place them around the town centre as hundreds of people would see it. Another way we would promote to our target audience through social media for example Facebook and Twitter.

MAGAZINE COVER The purpose of the film magazine is to promote the film through exclusive information which no-one would have and good reviews from successful film companies and magazines. We created our cover for ‘EMPIRE’ magazine as it is one of the most famous film magazines in the world. Even though they promote mainstream films we made an exclusive independent issue so it is relevant to our film. This was inspired from former college students who do media. Our cover shows major conventions of a magazine by showing other stories which are inside the magazine, one of them also linked to the independent issue (‘25 top independent films to see 2014’. We used the same image for the poster and magazine cover so the audience recognise it. Like the film poster we used this image for the magazine for the exact reasons. Empire magazine mainly have a male audience and is read by people from all ages. This is why we used the young female character as our main image to attract the young females more. Also to attract a wider audience empire has its own website of the online version of the magazine. This is perfect to promote our film.

PROMOTIONAL PACKAGE Overall our push advertising ancillary products which is our poster and magazine cover really relates to our trailer and works well together to promote the film. Examples of how they work well together are using the same characters for our image on both products. Also used the same title font and tagline for both. These both anchor each other so the audience know they are promoting the same film. We also had the memorable tagline on each product so the audience recognise it. Another thing we did is use the sae dull colour stream for both products to show the genre. We would also promote our film through pull advertising using web 2.0. for example social networking and our own website were we would have exclusive clips, images and interviews from the cast etc. This is another way to get feedback from our target audience by creating discussions and comments on what they like or not and we can reply. Another possible way we could promote is by creating an app for smartphones using viral advertising so our target audience can get exclusive information. These are good ways of promotion as most of our audience use these devices. When our film is premiering we would get actors to act possessed to get people talking and getting excited about the film and would try to advertise on cinema websites like Cineworld and Odeon with reviews from them.