How Effective is the combination of you're main product and ancillary texts?

The teaser trailer is an integral part in the marketing of a film. It is shown well before the films release and works to not uncover much of the story but still maximise interest. The trailers short enough to hint at the narrative but to leave more questions than it answers. With this in mind I made my teaser trailer 1.26 long, this keeps in line with teaser conventions. If we had had more time and resources I would have included more establishing shots and with a more fitting location.Word of mouth is probably the most important aspect of film marketing to try to control, as good or bad word of mouth can make or break a film. Good word of mouth increases interest and awareness whereas bad word of mouth can cause the audience to avoid viewing the film. In light of this, I’ve intentionally made the trailer, through use of suspense and the killer character, a film that people will talk about, giving a lot of free publicity.

I am targeting the horror audience of predominantly 16-25 aged men. To do this I am including a lot of genre indicators in the marketing material, this makes sure the target audience has an interest in it.

When a film is finished it is usually contested over between the distributors in each market such as the UK, the US etc. When looking at a film the distribution company will usually look for something new or original, something that will draw the audiences in, something like a hook. The production company usually gives all the rights of distributing the film over all markets to the distributors at this point. The distribution company will then work to find its core audience, and design the marketing campaign around them. The first thing release to the public will be the teaser trailer, long before the film’s release. Leading up to the release there will be posters, full trailers, magazine features etc. This maximises interest and awareness for the release, trailers may also be used as an extension strategy once the film is out and sales are starting to fall. Trailers and posters are usually then used again for the DVD release.
The trailer works quite well with the look of the poster and magazine cover as the characters seen in the trailer are featured on the poster and front cover. I decided to use the same setting as the teaser for my magazine to make them more cohesive. The tagline on the poster is ‘your in his house’ this relates to the teaser and the setting for that and the magazine. In retrospect it would have been more effective if I had used the poster tagline in the teaser to increase cohesiveness. We used a close up of the final girl in the poster to help display her emotion to the audience and changed the contrast to darken the mood to that of the other products. Using the final girl once again help the poster work well with the teaser and we maintained the use of darkness and setting throughout all 3 products.

For my film poster I used images I had taken of one of the characters tied up that I then edited in Photoshop. I first tried just placing the image unedited on the poster however this did not fit in with the mood of the film.I showed the main actors in the posters and magazine in photographs to make them easily recognizable and give the marketing campaign some ‘star power’. In the trailer I showed the actors again, but didn’t show their names as I thought it would detract from the atmosphere. I did however start the trailer by revealing the companies involved with it, this is done to tell the viewers that this is from a well known company that already has a reputation for horror films, this draws the audience in. I think the trailers soundtrack and jumpy atmosphere work well to raise interest in the film, and by getting it out there this increases awareness. The magazine is great for raising awareness as people will read the cover story and find out about it, and for those that already know this will increase their interest. The poster is quite eye catching and the title clear and easy to read, this instantly raises awareness in the film and the use of the star power can defiantly engage interest. The poster is can be placed anywhere so the potential for increasing the awareness of the film is virtually limitless. I think the three elements work every well together as the poster increases visibility, the cover raises awareness and the trailer increases interest. Showing the lead actors on all the mediums creates a useful hook for the audience.
I was influenced a lot but the new Friday the 13^th film poster when making mine. I admired the use of darkness and location of tag lines, credits and title. I didn’t analyse the magazine as much in terms of cohesiveness because at the end of the day its not controlled by the film company so will often bear little resemblance. I have used similar colours for the picture though.