Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Website:

Poster:

Teaser Trailer:

The ancillary tasks include a website and poster alongside the main teaser trailer - all having the aim of conveying a professional-looking supernatural horror film to appeal to a certain audience. To keep the package cohesive, we used the same colour scheme (red, white, black) and featured the main character, the Demon Priest, This was used so the audience could identify the SOS 'brand', thus making the package memorable and, therefore, effective.

Character Mise en Scene

To keep the package focused on the Demon Priest character, his face was featured in all three pieces. In the opening sequence of the trailer, the audience see his eyes turn black and these black eyes are also shown on both the poster and website background. It was imperative to show the Demon Priest in all the texts so the audience could establish him as the focal character. Also, this subverts conventions of most film's centring on the protagonists as SOS focuses on the antagonist, making SOS distinguishable and memorable.

In the poster, we used special effects make-up to make him appear to be crying black blood and in the trailer, his face gradually became more disfigured and his voice gets lower and more demonic-like. We got the inspiration for the black blood tears in the poster from an American Horror Story poster and the close up angle of the shot from the film poster Starry Eyes. By conforming to these conventions of abnormal surrealism (i.e. blood tears, disfigured face, demonic voice), it helped make the poster more effective as the audience were able to identify the supernatural genre, and have a faint idea of the plot - that this man is nothuman and appears demonic, consequently making the audience question what he will do.



The Demon's eyes also turn black to represent his possession, which we got as inspiration from Supernatural where different eye colours are used to represent the different demons that can possess humans. We used Photoshop to change the Demon's eyes by making an animation where his eyes gradually grow blacker, showing the audience that there is something supernatural about this character.

Lighting

Lighting also helped make all the products effective because the horror and supernatural genres both use low key lighting to add mystery and suspense, and to make victims appear helpless and villains ominous. Many films, for example Deliver Us From Evil and Se7en, use this feature because of its representations as well as conforming to conventions as this helps the audience to identify and understand the genre. I also deconstructed a still from the film Halloween because the use of back lighting illuminating the villain and masking the victim was very clever. This helped in our trailer when one victim is taken by the Demon Priest, however we switched it so the victim is visible and the Demon Priest is not - making the kidnapping more sudden and scary.

Typography

In order to make our media package effective and cohesive, we used the same font for the typography in order to make the whole package appear consistent, however we changed the colours and effects on the letters for certain titles to make it look appropriate - such as the main title and slogan on the poster, the list of sins in the trailer, and the quotes on the website. Also, we featured the list of sins on both the trailer and website to add consistency and to reiterate the film's plot - therefore, making the package more effective as it will be memorable. This repetition helped create a 'house style' for the audience to recognise and remember, so if they were to see the poster (in a magazine, on a billboard, online etc) and the website address on it, then visit the website and watch the trailer, they would find it cohesive and professional - thus persuading them to watch the film.

Colour Scheme

The main three colours of the SOS package are red, white and black because this is because of each of their representations. Red connotes blood which is ideal for us to have in our colour scheme because SOS is of the horror genre. Red also has connotations of lust - which is one of the sins, and anger - which is what the Demon Priest is constantly feeling as he avenges sinners for going against God and 'cleanses' the Earth of them. Black is used to symbolise the darkness of the Demon and the consequences of sinning. White is used as a juxtaposition to both red and black because white connotes purity and Heaven - the Priest is symbolically white, however when he becomes possessed the colour black steps in to play. We decided these three colours after looking at Se7en's poster which uses yellow, orangey-brown and black. We did not like the use of yellow against the brownish picture because the titles were illegible, making the poster ineffective, so we decided that to make the titles on the poster, website and trailer effective, they must be white and/or so to be legible.