Evaluation Task 3: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

We intended to create a promotional package for a new film called North Chamber, to achieve this we created a website, designed a poster and most importantly we filmed a trailer. Through this we aimed to entertain and entice young audience of 16-21 with the hope that they would want to watch our full film in the cinemas. 

We had decided on the horror genre and and therefore conducted lots of primary research such as questionnaires and secondary research for example looking up IMDb statistics or BFI case studies. We had enough evidence to follow up common conventions of a horror genre film directed towards young adults (16-21). 

Further research involved looking up the conventions used within similar media texts. For example, I analysed the film trailer for ‘Carrie’ and I researched the conventions of a poster specifically horrors such as Insidious and Final destination. Finishing up with research about website convention using ‘Annabelle’ as an example. 

A lot of work went into the design of the ancillary tasks and the titles within the trailer this included genres, target audiences, storyline and also post-production issues such as fonts, titles and colours. 

A main theme throughout the trailer is the red ribbon in which the antagonist wears. We even emphasised this by only using 80% of the monochrome filter in the scenes set in the past and therefore the colour of the ribbon was visible. We decided to use a monochrome filter to make it clear to the audience that those scenes were set in the past and the coloured scenes were set in the future.We continued this red ribbon theme across all our platforms, in the poster for example we decreased the saturation to -100 which made the image black and white and we then painted back the ribbon in red. 

This picture resembles what is seen in the trailer and therefore whenever the audience sees the poster they will think back to the trailer and connect the two together. 

Following the theme of red we decided to use the colour red for the titles within the trailer on a black background, the black not only connotes death but also provides an ominous background and we continued the theme of red writing on black backgrounds across all the promotional items so that they are all in sync and look professional and sophisticated. For example, the website, poster and trailer all have the same title for, ‘North Chamber’ using the same font and colours.

The website further enhances  this theme by having a plain black background and all the sub-headings are written in red whilst the content is written in white to connote the binary opposition theme of good vs evil. Especially because within our film’s storyline the conventions of good vs evil are challenged when the protagonist becomes the antagonist. 

Costume was an extremely important aspect of the film in order for the audience to establish the difference between the modern day and the past. A lot of research and effort went in to getting a war-time look, not only within what the actors were wearing but also through mise-en-scene where no modern day objects could be seen within the shot and therefore we had to pick out specific rooms where the furniture was wooden for example. Props also required a lot of detail, for instance the diary that Cassandra writes in must be old-fashioned and written in using ink. 

Within the two ancillary tasks we wished to further promote our film on platforms in which moving images cannot be displayed. 

Overall I feel that the combination of the ancillary tasks and our main product work very effectively to promote the film North chamber. Similar themes follow throughout each product to ensure that the audience are aware of the genre and features of the film. I believe that if our film was real then we would have been able successfully sell the film through what we have created due to each section following common conventions closely which have proven to work. I do also believe however that simply through lack of experience our products to come off as quite amateur however this is due to us not being able to use professional equipment or graphic design softwares.