HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE

COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND

THE ANCILLARY TEXTS?

By Ellisha Summer Clapham

MAIN PRODUCTION: FILM Due to the fact that the genre of our film was a ‘horror’ and the sub-genre was a ‘thriller’, the audience pleasure that we were attempting to achieve was exhilaration, anticipation and fear through our climactic narrative. This adheres to Richard Dier’s theories of entertainment: intensity as our characters experience intense lows, energy as a result of our array of fast-paced shots, and transparency through our use of flashbacks to show our protagonists true thoughts and feelings. The point of our story line was to hopefully challenge the audiences perception of their individual superstitious beliefs as we explore the concept of the supernatural, and keep them on the edge of their seat with our non-linear, complex storyline which contains psychological elements. In addition to this, we wanted to scare the audience with our impact cuts and gruesome scenes (like Agnes’ hanging scene, for example). This supports the ‘Uses and Gratifications’ theory, considering the purpose of our film was to entertain. We did include some serious topics in our film, such as drug abuse and violence, therefore the BBFC age rating of a 15 certificate will hopefully project a positive, moral message to our mature audience.

POSTER The purpose of our poster was to advertise our film in a

positive way; attracting an audience to want to watch our film. We wanted to include the name of our film (‘The Intruders’), the release date, the BBFC age rating (a 15), and the production credits written in fine print at the bottom of the poster (Ellisha Summer Clapham: Director etc). These factors are evident in all film posters, therefore, in order to make our poster realistic we had to abide to these rules. We feel that we reflected the same purpose in our poster as we did in our film: to entertain, thus reflecting the obvious horror genre with our choice of a black and red colour scheme to reflect this. Before designing the poster for our film, I conducted detailed research into the purpose of film posters and presented this in another Powerpoint presentation, then I used slideshare to embed it into a blog post. Please click on the link to view: http://bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/research-into-film-posters.html

THIS WAS OUR FINISHED FILM POSTER:

POSTER ANALYSIS Firstly the overall red and black colour scheme enforces our horror genre as

these are stereotypical colours associated with ‘horror’. The forest photo used as a background was actually taken when filming our

infamous ‘hanging scene’; an iconic scene in our film as this is what the plot centres around.

“Coming to a cinema near you” informs the audience that our film is a new film.

The fact that we featured a five star rating from a well known newspaper means it gives our film a positive appearance- making any fans/ readers of the ‘Daily Mail’ want to watch our film.

The capitalisation of the font of the name of our film attracts the eye of the audience- ensuring they remember the name for if they want to conduct any research into reviews or the film itself on the internet, or plainly for if they want to watch it in the cinema.

We made the age rating of a 15 clearly stand out amongst a black background to inform the audience whether the film is suitable enough for them or not.

Including images of the cast gives the audience a taste of what may be in our film- as well as reflecting the ‘horror’ genre considering they are scary images.

The production credits at the bottom of the poster include our chosen distributor; the renowned ‘Momentum Pictures’. This already creates a potential audience of people who may want to watch our film based on this companies previous success in horror films before it, like ‘The Woman in Black’.

INSPIRATION We were particularly inspired by this particular poster from the horror film 'Sinister' when

designing our own as it shares the same genre as our film, as well as a similar storyline; they are both horrors containing supernatural elements.

The text at the top of the image reading "from the producers of paranormal activity and insidious" entice the audience who have watched and enjoyed these previous films into watching 'Sinister' due to the fact that it suggests that they will equally enjoy watching this film also. We used this same technique in our own poster as we featured a ‘five star’ review from the popular company ‘The Daily Mail’ which projects a positive view for our film.

The fact that the font and sizing of the title of the film "Sinister" stands out from the rest of the text on the page and the fact that is placed directly in the centre means that the audience's eyes will immediately be drawn to the title before anything else that they see on the page. This makes the title of the film memorable. We reinforced this in our poster by using a large, capitalised font for our title ‘The Intruders’.

 Due to the overall colour scheme being made up of grey and black colours, (which mirror the overall 'horror' theme of the film) the main focus is the redness of the blood on the wall which is particularly striking. As well as the  colour red signifying danger which mirrors the storyline of the film itself, the evil face intertwined in the blood connotes death and haunting which is also a theme running throughout the film- as is in ours which is why we have also incorporated the red theme, featuring images of the main characters covered in blood around the poster.

Furthermore, the mise-en-scene of the young girl dressed in the white pyjamas presents her as a vulnerable character as white is a colour which suggests innocence and purity: however, juxtaposing from this, the white could also be used to represent death as it is also a colour associated with angels and heaven, possibly foreshadowing a murder that could happen to her character. In our poster, we presented our protagonist, Agnes, as almost fading away into the background by using an effect on Photoshop. This enforces the running question of the film: is Agnes a ghost or not? However the confirmation of her being a ghost is confirmed at the end of the film, therefore the poster foreshadows this.

Please click on the link to view the ‘Sinister’ poster which I am referring to: http://bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/research-into-horror-film-posters.html

COMPARISON

Here we can see how the theme of the colour red is demonstrated in each. This enforces the horror genre in both posters as this is a colour which connotes death; a theme in each.

A feminine impression is projected in both; the ‘Sinister’ poster features a female protagonist, which is followed through in ours considering the majority of the characters featured are female.

They both insinuate the fact their films are modern, exciting products considering that ‘Sinister’ states it is “coming soon” and ours states “coming to a cinema”; this shows the film is brand new, creating a social ‘buzz’ about it before it is even released, always an advantage for producers when attempting to achieve a high number in the box office.

However, there are some contrasts. The producers of ‘Sinister’ decided to take a minimalistic approach to their poster- possibly in order to make a statement and draw attention to the intertextuality of the demon face drawn in the blood on the wall. On the other hand, we decided to make our poster a statement in itself; by making it so dramatic and filled with images that it makes it difficult for the audience to take their eyes off of it.

We also included a 5 star rating from a popular newspaper, ‘The Daily Mail’, in order to potentially spark interest for our upcoming film and create popularity- however the ‘Sinister’ poster does not exorcise this, instead it promotes their producer to spark interest instead.

Furthermore, the ‘Sinister’ poster appears to take place indoors- in assumption from the plastered wall and the floorboards which are both painted white. This creates a feeling of confinement within this poster, acting on the fear of any claustrophobic audience members and presenting feelings of being trapped. However, our poster clearly features a background image of a forest which, alternatively, presents feelings of being lost or abandoned in the wilderness.

RADIO TRAILER The purpose of our radio trailer was similar to that

of our poster: to advertise our film in a positive way. However, considering the radio trailer is a different platform to our poster it will be approaching a different niche of audience as it will only be played on certain radio stations at certain times of the day, (after watershed due to the fact our film and products related are of the horror genre). Also, considering there is no visual elements to our radio trailer- like there is in our poster and film- it evokes new senses in the audience and creates the same climax as experienced in the narrative of our film. Overall, we wanted to give our audience a taste of what may be expected in our storyline, without giving too much away.

THIS WAS OUR FINISHED RADIO TRAILER: http://

bca2media2015group9.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-intruders-radio-trailer.html

We wanted to tease the audience by leaking dialogue from our actual film into the radio trailer, as well as a recorded voiceover spoken by our protagonist, Agnes, which gives away some of the storyline a bit more than our poster does and the rhetorical questions used in the voiceover intrigue the audience.

The sinister background music creates an eerie tone, which reflects the horror genre of our film.

The large gasp taken from the dialogue of our film creates a cliff hanger given it’s placement at the end of the radio trailer; it leaves the audience thirsty for more, enticing them to want to watch our film.

Various sound effects used such as the loud noise of people stomping over some gravel create tension and keep the audience on the edge of their seat.

INSPIRATION We were inspired by the audio of the 2014

horror film ‘Oculus’ to make our radio trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlZh2aywuMk

We feel the radio trailer provides elements and stimulates senses (like the tension building brought on by the sinister music) that our poster can’t.

Therefore we are appealing to a wide audience considering we are using different platforms of media to advertise our film.

The generic ‘horror’ style music used in both our radio trailer and the one from ‘Oculus’ both create tension for the sinister storylines which they are advertising, stimulating fear in the audience alongside the fearful dialogue.

Both leak the possible plot of the films, without giving too much away- just enough to keep the audience on their toes for the films release.

CONCLUSION The main goal we wanted to reach was to make our film as thrilling,

climactic and frightening as we could in the five minute time limit we were given. As well as this, we wanted to challenge peoples superstitious beliefs with all of our products- considering our storyline revolves around the supernatural. We referred to this topic in both our radio trailer and poster design. In our radio trailer, the voiceover asks the rhetorical question, “have you ever thought someone was watching you?”. This instantly evokes fear and anticipation into the audience, especially teamed with our frightening music. Also, on our poster we utilized supernatural elements by using Photoshop to edit a ‘slit throat’ onto one of the characters featured. This instantly creates the perception that this character is the ‘walking dead’, if you will, projecting a ghostly atmosphere with this product. These two elements, along with our film, project an overall sinister, ghostly atmosphere which is perfect considering our ‘horror’ genre and the topics of drug abuse and murder which we explore.

We feel very successful in the fact that both our radio trailer and poster reflect our horror genre. We know this because the audience questionnaire on what genre of film our poster and radio trailer were advertising- and better yet any possible topics they thought might be featured in it- resulted in 18 out of 20 people guessing it was a horror and that it featured supernatural elements, based on the fact some members of the audience responded with the fact it looked like it may contain “ghosts”, “murder” and “poltergeists”- which of course, the film itself does.