Evaluation

Part 2

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

Section A: what key aspects did you include in your poster?I have tried to incorporate the use of our body horror into my poster but also trying to link into the trailer without giving too much away. I used this slash and cut text

because it links in with the story line the thought of the killer having this phallic symbol which is the knife it foreshadows events in the trailer.

But also this thought of innocence the expressionist angle of this image is as if we are looking up at this man not only does this show that he is a killer but also could connote that he is a good man. The use of the bright light also on the main character could show innocence which could show that he may not be this bad character. This adds to our plot twist because it isn’t really what people expect to see. Finally, the use of the low key lighting around the character could connote the thought of there being a bad ending.

Side by side poster comparison

I found that the Shrooms (2008) film poster was very similar to mine in the way that the posters contain dark edges and then the light to show the bad character from the films. In the case of my film it would be the killer but for the Shrooms film poster it would be the mushrooms. Although on the Shrooms poster the light is natural from the moon, mine is more of a fish eye lens to zoom in and emphasise the killer and elevate him to an iconic killer. For instance Norman Bates who is the iconic killer is psycho. The light could be used to connote goodness and innocence but throughout the films you become to realise that that is not the case.

Section B: what key aspects did you include in your magazine cover?

In my magazine cover I have used the main image of the female victim from our film ‘CUT’ I think this works well because the image comes across very sinister and without watching the film it look almost as if she is the killer. The close up also works very well because you feel sorry for her because she actually looks rather scary and sceptical. I used the red writing because this connotes blood and is very stereotypical for a horror film as you expect gore and violence in a horror film. The use of the low key lighting also works really well because it shows the dark side of the character and this works well with this image because little do the audience know that she is actually innocent.

Side by side magazine comparisonI liked the look of this total film poster, I like the way the way the word ‘total’ is cut out so you can still see the image behind it. I think this works well with the close up image of one of the main characters. I liked the layout of the magazine as well. The grey tone of the photo with the red writing and the white I think this stands out well, Although as my magazine was going to be a horror film I decided to use darker colours in order to connote horror and gore. I used a bright image of the victim of our film as this shows innocence and makes you think of her being innocent. Whereas in the total film poster you can see he is going to be the hero.

Section C:

How does your magazine cover and poster lead into your trailer?

My poster and magazine lead into our trailer because they both represent two of the main characters. I think they work well because they both show this uncertainty although within my horror poster it is obvious in that he is the killer. The magazine style I was going for is something in the likes of empire and total film go for. These are both mainstream magazine types. Our target audience are teens and early 20’s so we have a very mainstream audience although we found that we wanted to take this further and actually open it out with having a larger target audience. I wanted my poster and magazine to allow the audience to want to find out more. I didn’t want my horror poster to give too much away I wanted to keep it going in order to allow people to find out the story of the film.

What audience were you aiming for?

When filming shots and planning the audience of the trailer we wanted to make a film that was more open to anyone. We wanted to predominantly make it into an action horror I really enjoyed The Purge as there was so much action and tension throughout the action of the film and the horror of it works well and really keeps you connected and wanting to carry on watching, but when planning the story we found more of a drift into a psychological horror. A film like saw is a film that is psychological it is one of those films that when you watch you feel the characters pain so it really gets into your head. We managed to blend the two together.

When planning we all found that we wanted something that was open to a larger group of people that wasn’t too scary and gory because from class surveys we found that actually people would prefer a mixture of genre.

The audience we aimed for were between the 15-25 years of age and this is from mixed gender this group of people with a social class of D. This group of people would look at films such as Scream 4. This film has made $63,300, 95 since being released.