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

To aid the marketing of my film I created both a movie poster and a magazine front cover. My poster would be placed in areas where my target demographic would most likely spend time. Such as the cinema, bus stands and town centres. The aim of my poster is to capture the genre and narrative of my film and briefly exhibit it to the audience to encourage them to watch the film. It is important that the brand identity in all three texts are consistent in order to make the association between the texts easily recognisable.

One way in which I have done this is by using the same main image for both the poster and the magazine front cover. The image is of the monster 'Eve' looking towards the camera in a sinister way wearing a bright red coat. The fact she is addressing the camera directly gives the impression she is 'watching' and 'waiting' as the trailer states. It could be argued that her posture has elements of the male gaze within it as her head is canted which arguably makes her appear more submissive. However the way her head is canted is as if to challenge the viewer to watch this film. Also The position of her head is unnatural and gives the viewer a sense of discomfort and unease.
The red coat which acts as an inter textual reference is visible in both the main text and the ancillary texts. It's somewhat the signature of our monster and is used to note her presence the same way the Michael Myers mask is used in Halloween.

For my magazine front cover I decided to create my own magazine for a number of reasons. One being that horror magazines that were already available seemed to cost around £5 per edition. Due to research I knew that the magazine market was rapidly declining against the rate of inflation and I decided by creating my own magazine I could make it sell better by pricing It at around £2  thus gaining a wider audience. Another reason I decided to create my own magazine is that existing magazines such as Fangoria tend to have a very narrow demographic. Although the use of an existing demographic normally aids low budget productions as the audience already exists. I decided to create a magazine that may appeal to a wider range of people. I quickly realised that magazines such as Fangoria and Scars have many graphically disturbing pictures as there main image. Although this would be suitable for their target demographic it could be argued that they are 'scaring away' other horror fans who may not enjoy the disturbing images on the front. My image doesn't incorporate blood however the direct address eve gives the camera is discomforting enough to allow the audience to  understand  that it is a horror film being advertised.

The main image incorporates Eve wearing the red coat which is iconic throughout the film as a symbol of danger. The forest is shown behind her to incorporate the German expressionism aspect and exhibit her psychological landscape. I used green for my main typography for the 'Eve' story as green has connotations of nature as well as envy. It could be argued that this particular shade of green is reminiscent of the supernatural or aliens. This is symbolic of Eve being supernatural. most of my other typography was either white or black as these stand out best against the other colours. Red was used for obvious reasons it has connotations of blood and danger and also it gives a sense of the genre as red is used often in slasher films. The masthead of my film 'slasher' is written in red and white against a black background. The red characters are capitalised to give a sense of masculinity as slasher is a predominantly male aimed genre. The white 'A' is symbolic of a white chalk outline at a murder scene. This gives the audience a sense of the narrative. The red borders are reminiscent of the 'letterbox' effect used in our trailer. The large left margin in which i have placed my inside stories is similar to the effect used in Hitchcock's psycho poster.This intertextual reference may give the older audience a sense of nostalgia. As an additional incentive I have placed an advertisement for 'Childsplay' posters within the magazine. This may help to bring in customers as they may primarily want the free posters inside.


For my poster i used the same image. This is because i wanted the image to be familiar so that when people see it they know straight away it is for the movie 'Eve'. However the overall tone of my poster is much darker. Using photo manipulation i made the image darker this is important as we do not have a masked assassin like in other popular slasher films such as 'Halloween' and 'The Texas chainsaw massacre' however the picture here shows Eves face hidden almost by shadow which gives a sense of mystery like the 'Enigma code' that Roland Barthes proposed all films have. I then used a black border or 'frame' as it is similar to the letterbox effect i used in my trailer and therefore there is a sense of consistency. I then added the symbols for Warner bros, Film 4, and Dankershein. Warner bros and Film 4 are fairly well known companies and could help to bring in an audience for my film however Dankershein is a company we made up as an independent body which could become better known after the release of my trailer.
The trees behind this image create twisted and abstract shapes which can relate to German expressionism as this is a psychological landscape and is reflective of the little girls crooked mind. the tagline 'revenge is sweet' gives the audience a sense of the narrative and the genre. The audience can now assume that the revenge is being taken out by the little girl as little girls are usually seen as 'sweet'. This gives them a hint as to what the narrative is. Also the word revenge builds association with 'revenge films' which is an element of my slasher film. I chose to do the main writing in white as it stands out well against the darkened background. Also 'Eve' is written in a chalkboard effect which is reminiscent of two things, the first being childhood in classrooms and the second being chalk outlines of murdered people. These two themes of innocence and evil are binary opposites throughout my film. I chose to make this film a 15 because although it is a horror it does not have any gory parts to it which may cause discomfort to the viewer. however if i were to release my film i would have to send it to the BBFC for them to make a judgement as to what certificate my film should be. If it was to be released in the cinema the local councils would have the overruling say on what the age certificate should be. If the film was to be released onto DVD the BBFC's certificate would be legally binding due to the video recordings act 1984.

The companies that will distribute my film are Dankershein and Film4 productions. Both of these are British film companies that will be able to promote and distribute my film. My film is targeted at a niche British audience this is because Slasher films are often targeted at a niche audience anyways and due to my film having a degree of British social realism within it it could be seen that it will be more popular among British people. Dankershein is a small company which will need funding from other companies such as Film 4 and Warner Bros in both production and distribution.