Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As you can see below these are the two ancillary tasks that I had to complete, a movie poster and magazine front cover to promote my trailer 'House of Sins'. 

To promote my film successfully I would advertise my film on billboards, social networking sites, apple trailers and a website dedicated to the film. All these methods would be effective as it would promote my film to my target audience which will create recognition or 'hype' around the film, and therefore the target audience will go to watch or buy the film.

As our film does not have a budget we had to work with the little resources and equipment we had. However, if we had a budget for the promotion of our film, these are the four stages of campaign I would use from help of Foursquare to promote the theatrical release of my film.

Digital innovation in distribution (UK FILM COUNCIL)

As our film does not have a budget we had to work with the little resources and equipment we had. However, if we had a budget for the promotion of our film, these are the four stages of campaign I would use from help of Foursquare to promote the theatrical release of my film.

Campaign Stage 1:

The teaser press release was sent out to online publications such as social networking sites of the Foursquare initiative. Information around the film remained vague at this stage with fans only being able to access the film website. The website had little information on the film and gave them a date of when the trailer would air on the website. (They audiences were allowed to set a reminder on that day of when the trailer would be released)

Campaign Stage 2:

Once the audience were able to watch the trailer, they were then able to enter their email address and claim for free tickets to watch the film at cinema’s venues like Vue and Cineworld. To reward early entries an exclusive clip was made available through Foursquare in where they could watch a ‘sneak peak’ of the film

Campaign Stage 3:

The press release of the film was forward as audiences were then able to follow a twitter page dedicated to the film. Here they were able to leave their views on the film and have a collective experience with other members. Competitions were also aired on twitter to promote the film and create’hype’ around the film.

Campaign Stage 4:

For the week of release, the campaign released a mobile app that was downloadable on smart phones. Here they were able to use an application that exclusively gave them times and dates of the film shown at Vue and Cineworld. The mobile application had profiles on the actors within the film and allowed audiences to sign up and leave comments on the film.
Below is a picture of the popular smart phone with the 'House of Sins' app downloaded: 

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A2 COURSEWORK: What did we have to do this year?


We had to create a promotional package for an upcoming horror film this consisted of 3 compulsory tasks, magazine cover,  horror movie poster and a  horror movie trailer which was broadcasted on YouTube.

But before we started making the promotional package we had to research into real media products and how they advertised their products to it's audiences.   

How are audiences informed about a new film?
Billboards:









Social Sites:

Youtube:

Website:

Apple Trailers: 

Interviews:

Film institutions advertise their films in many ways from billboards to interviews. Their main aim is to get consumers and audiences to buy or watch their products. One way of doing this is allowing audiences to access film trailers easily for example, watching film trailers on Youtube.  Advertising is crucial for film institutions as they want audiences to go watch their films.  Promotions are also carried out through TV slots, billboards, social networking sites, websites and interviews.   So for our work to be similar to theirs we had to as a group think of creative ways to catch our target audiences attention. 

HORROR GENRE:Research
When creating my promotional package, I had to research into other professional products such as, magazine front covers, film posters and horror trailers.

HORROR MAGAZINE:

When researching horror magazines we began to look closely into other professional magazines so we could stick to the main conventions such as, a clear masthead, taglines, article features, barcodes and the main image. The magazines below show the typical conventions of a horror magazine which I followed clearly in creating my own magazine. 

PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINES

MY OWN MAGAZINE

ANALYZING MY MAGAZINE: 

MASTHEAD:

 

When picking my mast head I picked out several styles but thought that this was the most suitable font for my magazine as it fitted to the horror genre. I wanted my mast head to stand out and catch the audience's eye which is why I stuck to the use of red, which suggests blood and death. This again fits with the conventions of a horror magazine as all of the above magazines have used that color. Additionally, this will attract my target audience as they will know straight away from the font of the title that the genre is horror.  

MAIN IMAGE:

As you can see I have followed the conventions of having the killer in the middle of the magazine. As my magazine is targeted to a horror audience I made sure that the weapon (spade) was visible to be seen by the audience, like the scream magazine. I edited the picture into black and white and changed the lighting so that the audiences attention would be mainly on the blood, which is centered on the spade. When editing the photo in photoshop I focused on the blood as other horror magazine focus on themes of death and danger. Many magazines have the main character, killer, victim or actor in the middle of the magazine. This is to help promote the film so audiences read the magazine and also go to watch the film(s).  

Here are examples of magazines that have the main character/actor on their front cover:

ARTICLE FEATURES:

After looking at different magazine to pick out a style layout. I was influenced by this horror magazine as it was clear and would be effective for my audience. I had looked at other styles of layouts but didn't think it would compliment my horror film. Here are examples of other horror magazines that I thought were over-the-top and did not fit the appropriate conventions for my horror film.

Overall, I felt that I had followed the correct conventions in making a professional looking front cover magazine.


HORROR TRAILER: 
When researching on horror trailers, YouTube was a great resource for watching and analyzing horror film trailers. I became familiar with horror conventions in trailers and started adapted these conventions into my trailer so that I was clearly following the typical conventions and targeting the existing target audience. I began to watch popular horror trailers such as, Paranormal Activity, The Exorcist, Wrong Turn and SAW. While watching these horror trailer, we started to think of the story line and if we wanted our film to have elements of  slasher, serial killers or zombie film .
Below were the trailers that we began looking at: 

After looking at these trailers we decided to start looking at horror trailers that had young children/teenagers playing the killer. We thought the idea of having a teenage killer would be interesting and would be easier for us to create. We were highly influenced by these horror trailers, The Omen, The Final and The Orphan.
Below are the trailers we were inspired by: 

COMPARING OUR TRAILER WITH 'THE FINAL':

 As you can see we thought about the shot and mise-en-scene well as it fits with the convention of a horror setting. The stairs indicate to the audience that something terrible will happen or is about to happen. The close-up of his legs and the weapon clearly highlights to the audience what character this person is and what he represents within the trailer. The use of his costume also shows that he is the 'killer' as its dark which is stereo-typically known to connote evil.

 The close up shot shows the victim being dragged away which is similar to 'The Final' trailer. Even thought they have used a bird eye views shot, we felt that the close up shot would cause more tension for the audience as it flashes from different images and would create a more 'horror' experience for my target audience.

This long-shot shows that we have again thought about the shot type used as it shows the audience that they are running away from danger or into danger. The audience can see this as the characters are running away from the light and into the dark, this shows that we have thought about the composition of the shot and the idea/contrast of 'light and dark'.






























The above pictures are comparisons of the movie that we were influenced by 'The Final' which follows a similar story line. As you can see we have kept to the conventions of a horror trailer by using dark lighting, the killer's weapon shown clearly and the struggle of the victims.


Conventions of a trailer: David Coultas on making movie trailers.

• Cinema trailers are almost around two minutes long (so you can never tell the whole story)
• Classic formula for a trailer is in 3 parts. The first 25 secs or so set up the characters and the world they live in. The second shows where they are going and in the third you are given a glimpse of how things continue. 
• Right at the start, the trailer needs a line, hook or a sound that will grab the audiences interest so that they watching the rest of the trailer. 
• The use of music in a horror trailer is incredibly important and effective especially if  you have a big budget. 
• The use of narration is important in telling part of the story to the audience. David Coultas explains that an American accent voice-over is effective in trailers to distant the audience instead of having a English accent voice-over. 

I felt that we had followed the correct conventions in making our trailer as professional as possible with help from David Coultas': The rules on making movie trailers. We tried to add all the typical conventions needed to make it a successful trailer however, as we didn't have a budget we had to work with the limited resources that was available to us.

MOVIE POSTER: 
When researching Horror movie posters, I was again looking out for the stereotypical conventions that are found in most movie posters. Here are some examples of horror movie magazines that I took inspiration from:

 I could see from these horror posters that they were quite minimalistic and thought that this would be the best way to attract my target audience.


Here is the list of conventions that I had analysed:

• There is usually a close up of the main character and a location. The mise-en-scene needs to represent the genre, in his case horror. Therefore the stereotypical locations would be a graveyard, basement, church etc. The characters on the poster would either be the killer or the vulnerable victim. The protagonist would be shown as vulnerable and a sense of fear would be shown through their facial expression. The antagonist will create suspense and cause fear for the audience. 
• Narrative –Some of the narrative may be shown in the movie poster, this could be visually with an image or with text. 
• Colours –The colours on a movie posters often represent the genre. Therefore, for a horror movie the colour would consist of black, red and white.
• Layout –The conventional layout for all movie posters is that there is a straplineat the top, a main image, the title of the film, a tagline, and a release date.

HOUSE OF SINS MOVIE POSTER:

As you can see my film poster has all the typical conventions to make it look like a professional movie poster.

Overall, throughout the process of making my promotion package I felt that I have kept to the correct conventions in making my poster, trailer and magazine front cover so that it attracts my target audience effectively. I have consitently analysed proferssional products to make sure that my promotion package is kept to a high standard.

FINAL HORROR TRAILER