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

Kimberley Carroll

Our three media products work well as a media package, as all three share similar components. The most obvious being (particularly in the short film and film poster) is the dark tone, that is present through the use of dark colour on the film poster and dark themes used within the short film both of which allows the audience to identify its genre. It could also be said that the film review also shares the dark tone as the still used from the film implies to the audience something bad is going to happen. This is done by the facial expressions the characters have, particularly through the fear of the jogger character and the determination in the eyes of the vigilante killers. The audiences existing knowledge of archetypes within films also contributes to this as they can associate that the hooded figure, who is also dressed in black is the ‘bad’ character as costumes throughout our short film are consistent, again linking to binary oppositions (Levi Strauss).

Another component shared by all 3 media products in terms of layout, is the colour scheme. Particularly both the film poster and film review shares the use of the 3 colours, colour scheme, and the colours being red, white and black. Both the film poster and review use these 3 colours in terms of text, titles and background to create a more realistic media product as existing products also share the 3 colour, colour scheme. However again It could be said that our short film shares this colour scheme as the 3 colours can be identified within out film, with the exception of green however it is more of a background colour than is not focused on like the blood (representative of red) as it is a main part of the storyline and easily identifiable genre characteristics.

Shared colours between the 3 products.

Short Film

Film Poster Film Review

If we were to begin to extend our media package even more we could follow more contemporary examples particularly in the advertisement/ marketing for the film. Examples such as the amazing Spider-man film campaign in 2012. This campaign utilised cross media in the promotion for the film, by taking to social networks such as Facebook and twitter, while also using an interactive website that allowed audience to be up-to-date with news regarding the film, new clips and competitions to screenings as a result the brand became more acknowledged in time for the release and contributed in the overall gross the film received at the box office. Therefore if we were to follow this route, the idea of a viral campaign is something we could definitely consider in an attempt to increase the popularly of our short film. The Amazing Spider-man film poster - 2012

The Amazing Spider-Man viral campaign (pictured to the right) could be used as an example of a path we could take as a way of expanding our brand. The way in which this took place included interactive competitions in which fans could sign up with the films provided web address to be in with a chance of winning tickets to a screening of the film. To the far left is an example of another way in which the campaign interacted with fans by updating the site daily with clues for fans to enter into the site to unlock clips from the upcoming film.