Evaluation Question Two

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?

As you can see from the screen, all ancillary products link together as the title ‘The Chain’ is in red text and featured on all covers. The font is also the same which was taken from website, www.dafont.com. The font is called ‘Birth of a Hero’ and we decided to use this font as we felt that it looked very daunting and horrific. ‘The Chain’ could either mean a chain of events or link to the actual necklace in the trailer.

The font is slightly different here as the colour of ‘The Chain’ is different. This is to enhance the splash of blood from the Empire logo at the top of the magazine.

I believe that the font is very effective on all ancillary products as it makes a clear link between the three.

The three products all focus on the villain which also gives a clear link that all texts are linked to the same movie.

LINKING THE ANCILLARLY TEXTS TO THE TRAILER

REAL MEDIA TEXTSHere is an Empire magazine, which is a real media text. The magazine has used up to four colours, one being either black or white.

My group and I decided to use three colours on our horror magazine as this is a typical convention used.

HERE IS AN ELEMENT WE TOOK FROM THIS EMPIRE MAGAZINE.

THE FACT THAT IT INCLUDES THE ICONOGRAPHY OF BLOOD, WE FELT THAT IT WOULD LINK TO THE HORROR GENRE.

Here is the font we used for all ancillary products. We used a font named ‘Birth of a Hero’ from website www.dafont.com. We decided to use this font as we believed that it look extremely daunting and horrific which links to the horror genre. Also, as the words are quite disjointed, this can link to 1960 horror movie ‘Psycho’ as the logo is also disjointed and distorted. This enhances the fact that an element is missing or a character has a split personality.

FONT

Although the title ‘consumed by evil’ is different to the other ancillary texts, there is still a clear link to all three products. The noun ‘evil’ heightens the link between all three products. It suggests the events that might occur in the trailer.

This was the original title we wanted to use in our horror trailer. This would have made all of our three ancillary products link together when expressing that the movie is going to be released on Valentines Day. However, on the official trailer, the movie title ‘This Valentine’s Day’ was taken out. This was to allow audiences to find out more about our trailer without giving away too much information about our film. The movie title links to the magazine’s slogan ‘A bloody Valentine’s special, as they are both in white and capitalized. They also link as the ‘Valentines’ is quite disfigured. The word blood could also suggest horror and eeriness.

This slogan on our magazine links with the fact that our horror trailer will be released on Valentines Day. To link it to the horror genre, we enhanced the adjective ‘bloody’ as blood is iconography used in horror movies. We looked at horror films that were released on Valentines Day to gain some inspiration for our horror trailer and ancillary texts. The 2009 horror movie, ‘My Bloody Valentine’ was our main inspiration as it was released on Valentine’s Day and has the key words in the title.

The February the 14th is in red which connotes blood and gore. This is also a typical aspect of the horror genre as most movie titles are written in red to express the horrific theme.

As you can see from the horror movie poster, Insidious chapter 2,

they also use the colour red for the text to enhance the blood and gore from the horror genre.

As you can see, we used typical conventions from horror movies such as iconography. This included blood and weapons. The weapon we used was a knife as we took inspiration from 1976 horror movie, Carrie as Carrie’s mother uses a knife to stab her with. This element is sinister and portentous.

The blood on the villain’s t-shirt can symbolise death, as blood is a key element in horror. As the villain is wearing white, this is a subversion as the final girl wears black. This can heighten the fact that the villain was innocent before as white represents purity and vulnerability. The blood can signify the villain’s lost cleanliness as they have now turned evil.

As Carrie’s mother is wearing white, this is a convention we used in our horror trailer as most villain’s wear dark colours to symbolize their immorality.

COSTUME & PROPS

THE VILLAIN HOLDING THE KNIFE

CARRIE’S MUM HOLDING THE KNIFE

CHARACTERS

We decided to feature the villain on both ancillary texts as we wanted to subvert our horror trailer. As the villain in horror movie, Orphan is on the front cover of the movie poster, we decided to take this element as I felt that it would look more effective. Most horror movies use the final girl on the front cover of the movie poster, such as Sidney from 1996 horror movie Scream is featured on the front cover.

The villain from the dark knight rises is on the front cover which can link to on my ancillary text of the villain on the front cover of the magazine. Even though the Dark Knight is not a horror movie, the fact that the villain is on the front, this can both link together.

MAGAZINE MOVIE POSTER