Evaluation Question 2

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

Jade Holt

Our USP is our female protagonist as this is uncommon in many films and is one of our factors into postmodernism. Our tagline “The infection is coming” that is placed on our film poster, is intriguing to the audience and therefore means that they will research into our film using our trailer and will read our magazine article in Empire magazine. Our trailer tells the audience that our film is a dystopian film, set after a gender war that wiped out all of the females- or so the men think. We leave an enigma in our trailer as this will entice people to come and see our film. We used a mixture of shots for our trailer including fast-paced jump cuts as well as extreme close ups and establishing shots as this means that we show the audience pieces of our film without ruining the narrative.

Film and Trailer

Target AudienceThrough researching other dystopian films such as Warm Bodies, In Time and The Purge, we found that these films appeal to both genders with a range of ages. We wanted to target our film to both males and females who enjoy post-apocalyptic films with plot twists. We marketed our film at an Indie target audience, however from our audience feedback we have seen that they believe our film trailer is for both Mainstream and Indie audiences. We gave our film an age rating of 15 as some scenes that will be in the film may contain mild violence and mild sexual references. We will attract a wide audience through publications on Facebook which have been placed on the end of our trailer, alongside a hash tag for Twitter. We will also place our film poster in cinemas to attract audience members. We will release our film in July as this means that blockbusters that will be released for the summer will not have come out yet. This would ensure that people would watch our film as not many huge mainstream films would be out yet. We used Studio Canal as our production and distribution company as it is a recognised company that will entice audience members who are familiar with this company.

Film PosterOur film poster helps promote our film as it shows a key image from the film, allowing the audience to see who our main character is. By placing our tagline in a prominent place by our main character, Abi’s head, it draws attention to it without shoving the tagline into the audiences face which may be off putting to the audience. Our tagline is mysterious and enticing as we do not specify what the infection is that is coming. This will make people want to see our film. We used dark fonts and a dark background on our poster to show the audience that our film is dystopian and it also symbolises a damaged, post war world. We will present our poster at different cinemas, on bus stops and we will also present flyers at film festivals.

Magazine CoverThe purpose of our film magazine is to showcase our film in a magazine that is popular. This will mean that lots of people including film fanatics will see our magazine cover and be interest in the film, possibly persuading them to go and see our film. Our cover image promotes our film as it is an action shot that is exciting and makes the audience want to know what she is running away from. By using a derelict background, it is intriguing to the audience to know the reasoning behind her location. It establishes our genre by showing a gloomy place to be as this sets the tone of our film. Our front cover is designed to grab the readers attention by using big and bold font to attract the audience to it. Also Empire is being covered by our main character and this shows that she is the main focus on this cover page. Another reason behind the name of the magazine being covered is that it is so recognisable that even with parts covered, people still know what magazine it is. The magazine fits with our target audience as it is mainly read by film fanatics and has a young adult readership. Our magazine will reach a wide audience as we will have an online version that will be accessible on all mobile devices.

Our promotional products will work well together as they use similar themes that relate to our film without being identical. We may promote our film at film festivals but we could also use unusual methods such as using a flash mob to create excitement and intrigue around our film. This would mean that people would film the dance and put it on different social media sites creating a possible world wide buzz for our film. This is free marketing for our film that is easy to do. We could also use the idea of placing our poster in a public place and if people take a picture with their smart phones and upload it to social media using our hash tag, they could have the chance to win discounted tickets. As is suggested on our magazine cover, we will have interviews with the cast, as well as with the producers and director.