Mary Kelly Q2 - How effective is this combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 2

Mary Kelly - How effective is this combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

We decided through our main product and ancillary texts we wanted to create an independent product package aimed at a niche audience. One of the ways we portrayed this within the magazine cover was by challenging and subverting magazine layout conventions, from the more traditional and mainstream film magazine look.

For the poster we went for a more mainstream look. We looked at other independent films that had been successful with a mainstream audience market and found that they had been promoted, to an extent, mainstream film style. For example the film Eden Lake 2009 a British Thriller which was reasonably successful in the box office, this film's poster aims for an mainstream Thriller audience. See image of poster bellow. So we went for a similar route although still retaining the fact that it's an independent film.

Through out the main product and ancillary texts we wanted to have the themes of the films narrative to be expressed. These themes include the aspects of Drama/Philological Thriller genre, the character driven narrative, the urban setting of the film and the intimacy between audience and main character. These themes are expressed in the trailer (our main product) by use of the voice over at the beginning and with the main character talking directly to the audience in an intimate fashion. Also with a series of close up shots and the focus of the shots being based around him, these all give a sense of intimacy. The mix of long shot of urban landscapes introduces the theme of the urban setting. These themes are represented through the magazine cover, with the use of the extreme close up image of the main character presenting a sense of intimacy and focus on him. And these themes are represented through the poster with again the use of the close up image of the main character, also the background image is made usinga tube map suggesting the idea of an urban setting more specifically in London. The philological thriller genre is expressed in the poster through the use of a dark background and harsh lighting on the figure.

We also implemented more simple aspects to link our main product to the ancillary texts, to make the combination more effective. These include a similar colour scheme running through the texts, along with a similar font style. We also mentioned one of our ancillary texts within our trailer, as we decided that within the trailer we would add an title slide with a quote from an article from our film magazine 'Click'. Another way we linked our main product to ancillary texts is that on our magazine cover, we decided to make it an 'Existence issue' which is something independent film magazines often do with successful films, dedicating the magazine to review the film. Also adding a quote from Finlay McGow the actor of the main character of our film, and quote him as being an "rising star" promoting the film even more. All of these small aspects result in a very effective product package in which the ancillary texts support the main product in good effect. We also implimented an House Style through the main and ancillary texts, so that each product is related. Some example of these house styles includes the use of a colour pallet, this colour pallet of black and shades of orange.