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

Getting people into the cinema and purchasing tickets for your product is clearly a very important area. Agreement is signed by the distributor, producer and studio that decide important things such as release date and a promotional package. Similar to that of my project these organisations must compile not only the trailer but additional texts such as posters in order to spread the popularity of the release. A market plan is devised for this with the goals of increasing visibility and awareness of the product. This is very difficult as it needs to stand out in not only its own field (film) but also in all leisure activities. In order to achieve this they must market frequently so that interest does not die down, however this raises the issue of cost as the more they repeat and expand the campaign the more they will spend. This is generally why budgets are created at the start of the plan. It is of paramount importance to find a balance between a lot of interest and cost efficiency.

Focusing on the additional media used to advertise the main feature film trailers are the most effective at spreading popularity in products. Teaser trailers are conventionally 30-90 seconds long and show elements of the narrative without revealing too much. Trailers are displayed in a variety of places, most commonly in cinemas (where distributors send out around 3000 copies to the UK), but also on TV, DVD’s and the internet. Considering the internet is such a growing phenomenon marketing has utilised this and used websites such as YouTube in order to post them. A recent example of this would be ‘Paranormal Activity’ which started gained most of its interest via the internet as the marketing campaign targeted users of modern media. This was important to keep in mind as we knew from research that our target audience were avid internet and web 2.0 users so therefore it was important to maximise the viral capacity of our trailer. My group’s trailer its self is 1:42 seconds long. This is around the optimum length for a trailer of this type and fulfils most of the conventional criteria you would expect from horror. We thought it wasn’t too long nor to short so would be ideal for our audience to prevent boredom or confusion of the trailer. We were inspired as a group from the ‘Blair Witch Project’ film and based a lot of our shots off of it. We used POV shooting to create a sense of reality and identification between characters. The complimentary soundtrack with the quick editing of the trailer added to the tension teasing the audience into watching the full feature. In order to reflect our target audience we decided on a certificate of 15 and for the trailer to be shown in cinemas equally as we discovered that our target audience go to the cinema around once a month watching films around this certificate.

My poster, like all posters in real productions, plays a key role in drawing in interest and expanding viewer base. They are displayed months in advance of the film and even the trailers meaning they must be well devised with clear links and references to the genre and narrative of the film. I decided on using David as the main image on mine. I wanted to keep it simplistic so that it provided a mystery as to what the film could offer as well as a reduction in confusion. I used blacks with some degree of red to highlight the horror nature of the film while still displaying production values. However, although I did present these production values I did keep them out of the way to the bottom as I felt they would be to distracting from the image its self. The dark photo not only implies the genre but suggests David as the antagonist of the film, giving admittedly some narrative away, but still withdrawing the reasons behind his evil tendencies. In connection with the internet, I added an official website address at the bottom so that modern audiences would hopefully look into this and try and re-blog or send it to other friends, hopefully leading to the campaign carrying its self.

As well as a market campaign there would also be cover from film magazines that would be sent film packages with posters etc in order to spread interest yet again. I wanted to keep to my idea of a simple design so tried to use limited soft colours that would entice readers but not put them off with rashness. Instead of using a screen shot from our final trailer I decided on using a photo of Theo and take the approach of a young director. This would hopefully lead my target audience to relate and buy the magazine, once again raising interest. The look of the magazine was meant to come across as modern and fresh with non serif font and cooling colours etc. The magazine also provided a website, just like the poster, to emphasise the use of the internet and the want to expand the campaign virally.

In conclusion, I suggest that my two ancillary texts compliment my main trailer well all focusing on my main target audience well, while still upholding a profession finish to them. They all share similar content and style which will make them appear as a unit and not confuse any potential customers as they will see they different products are working together. In saying this however, my magazine cover is somewhat different to the other two products but this is as a result of them being made by different companies. The poster created by a distribution company and the magazine by an editorial team for a magazine company.

Below is a link to the pdf version of a handout on film distribution:
http://www.launchingfilms.tv/pdf/fda_guide_2009.pdf