How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?
When designing such important aspects of marketing such as the posters, it was important not to stray too far from the narrative, genre and morals of the film however not revealing too much to the target audience. I immediately began researching other feature length and short films that related to my own. One of the posters that inspired me, even though it lacked links through narrative and genre was in fact ‘Public Enemies’. I enjoyed the simplistic view and that created a bold message that reflected the narrative. When designing my poster I realised I had quite a unique film in terms of I took the approach that we was in fact creating a short film, and never tried to portray my project as anything else, making my distribution more believable. In order to get my target audience on board I created posters that had depth and was meaningful, almost as if they were the cover of a novel rather than one for a film, this would attract those who watched films religiously and took film making seriously rather than an audience that would rather watch other genres and blockbusters. Within the first of the posters there is a picture of Max walking away as letters fly from his bag. This shows the mystery through the character and narrative as he is walking away and you can not see his facial expression, but there is a clear indication something is wrong as his body language gestures he is worried. The film revolved a hell of a lot around Max’s diary entry, revealing to his mother his woes and how he truly felt about his father’s death, that’s why I incorporated letters into the main poster. To market, distribute and promote our film, ‘Lost for words’ in the ‘correct’ way it was clear we had to be extremely professional about the way in which we went about it. The film was described as ‘meaningful’ and ‘powerful’ and we wanted to get that across when promoting the project, attracting our target audience and getting as much publicity and feedback as possible for a short film. The first ancillary task I began work upon was a film review, instantly allowing me to create around the project, making audiences aspire to watch the film. I began research into worldwide known film magazines, such as ‘Empire’, ‘Total Film’ and ‘FILM’. I believe this research was extremely helpful to look at how the language allows those distributing a project can influence the audience to watch it. It was clear in the layout of the magazines that everything was carefully thought about and obviously magazines such as ‘Empire’ have a working formula, so why alter that? This made me think about the type of magazines I was researching. These magazines where for big scale films and it didn’t seem plausible to have a short armature film in the same house style as one of the biggest film magazines of all time. So I then began researching magazines, less known for their status in the business but more known for helping market short films, I then come across an up and coming new magazine, named ‘Gorilla’. Its name represented the magazine perfectly as it was big in name, it was big in stature, it was bold, brief and was hard hitting. I believe this represented my film perfectly. My film was meant to, in the words of Tessa Ross, ‘Shock and surprise our audiences’, and I believe a magazine such as this could perfectly represent that. Within ‘Gorilla Magazine’ the language was bold, however simplistic, it was not fancy and it was very straight to the point, it gave the readers what they wanted to hear, and presented that well. So when writing my review I followed the same codes and conventions ad the magazine presented to me. I just gathered my feedback and portrayed my film to the audience how I originally wanted to, bold, to the point, a piece that will shock, surprise and move you in ways an audience would not believe a short amateur film could do so. There is a clear house style that feature throughout the posters, involving the same colours, characters and emotions which allows the audience to familiarise themselves with the piece. Communicating to the audience through the connections between the posters, demonstrating the morals throughout the narrative and how and why our target audience should watch our project.
Within the review you had to portray it correctly, and in a professional manor, so almost unbiased and from an ‘outsiders’ perspective. I used language that showed both sides of the narrative, exposing minor flaws but backing that up with several good points about the film, influencing the audience to want to watch it. While doing this I had to incorporate actor’s names, as long with my own and some of my previous work to show audiences as a director I was used to the field, I had experience and I was able to create a good narrative and show it well when on screen. I almost had to reassure the readers that ‘It is ok, trust me, it’s good’, as we are nothing but students, with a lack of experience in the world of film, you had to show the audience I was passionate and I believed in my project and in myself, hoping they would then believe in my judgement and watch my project. I also used three small images within the film review, one of ‘Max’, played by Michael Sams, and one of ‘Sarah’ played by Louise Hewison. The third image was one of both characters, with space between them, and through their body language and facial expression, showed the relationship between to the two characters. This, along with the language, allowed the audience to get a real understanding of the piece and I believe influenced them well.
My second ancillary task was posters. After completing the review I believe I had a good formula in which I could sell this project, also by incorporating images into my review it gave me an understanding of how to influence audiences to watch my film through the use of image and very little text. I created one magazine poster, and two billboards of ‘Lost for words’. The first, the magazine poster, I believe was the strongest, I believed with the billboards, it was hard for people to miss so it did not have to be as appealing, as long as the date of release and the title was in bold letters, the rest was up to the audiences. However the magazine poster had to make to audience turn the page and stop and really inspect it and want to watch our film. The posters consisted of ‘Max’s’ character walking away, with his shadow coming towards the audience, this showed us that he did not know his identity and he was almost lost. The text and images used where ‘tasteful’ and ‘pleasant’, leaving some mystery to the project. I researched films that had the same themes to ours, however my film, had alternatives endings, so I had to create posters not indicating to any happy endings such as the film ‘I AM SAM’, which has the same codes and conventions as our film but the poster is bright yellow and features the main character, Sean Penn, smiling and laughing with his daughter. This made me want to go in the other direction, involving a grey background and while, or dark red writing, with an almost elegant look, as my main objective was to make this look professional rather than ‘tacky’. And I believe as a group we achieved that successfully, and the feedback that we received was extremely good.
When I first began my review it was clear the main objective was to make people believe in my project and allow the audience to get a clear insight into what I had created. When looking at other reviews I had to take aspects from my film that where strong and the weaknesses to make it believable and unbiased. For example I praised camera shots and other aspects, to attract the audience to watch it, however informed them on flaws such as the relationship between the mother and son, appearing as though they were a couple. However later I explained how the narrative in retrospect redeemed itself through the use of a voice over, explaining the relationships. I incorporated such aspect of the film into the review that would surprise our audiences, revealing the uncommon genres which are mixed throughout the narrative and how the films codes and conventions are different to those you would expect to see. This allowed me in the review to create suspense around the project. This linked to the language used within the review. Containing formal language that related back to the film, in terms of themes and narrative.
Creating a review and poster is too simply show how much we actually know about the representation of our film and how the audience will preserve it. The ancillary tasks of the posters follow the same house style created by myself however the review would follow the language, layout and other aspects of an already existing magazine. Both tasks would create hype around our project, giving the audience an insight to the genre, narrative and also familiarise the audience with the project. The review does this more in depth as it actually describes the narratives and gives in a rating, preparing the audience, and informing them weather it is worth watching.
When designing such important aspects of marketing such as the posters, it was important not to stray too far from the narrative, genre and morals of the film however not revealing too much to the target audience. I immediately began researching other feature length and short films that related to my own. One of the posters that inspired me, even though it lacked links through narrative and genre was in fact ‘Public Enemies’. I enjoyed the simplistic view and that created a bold message that reflected the narrative. When designing my poster I realised I had quite a unique film in terms of I took the approach that we was in fact creating a short film, and never tried to portray my project as anything else, making my distribution more believable. In order to get my target audience on board I created posters that had depth and was meaningful, almost as if they were the cover of a novel rather than one for a film, this would attract those who watched films religiously and took film making seriously rather than an audience that would rather watch other genres and blockbusters. Within the first of the posters there is a picture of Max walking away as letters fly from his bag. This shows the mystery through the character and narrative as he is walking away and you can not see his facial expression, but there is a clear indication something is wrong as his body language gestures he is worried. The film revolved a hell of a lot around Max’s diary entry, revealing to his mother his woes and how he truly felt about his father’s death, that’s why I incorporated letters into the main poster. To market, distribute and promote our film, ‘Lost for words’ in the ‘correct’ way it was clear we had to be extremely professional about the way in which we went about it. The film was described as ‘meaningful’ and ‘powerful’ and we wanted to get that across when promoting the project, attracting our target audience and getting as much publicity and feedback as possible for a short film. The first ancillary task I began work upon was a film review, instantly allowing me to create around the project, making audiences aspire to watch the film. I began research into worldwide known film magazines, such as ‘Empire’, ‘Total Film’ and ‘FILM’. I believe this research was extremely helpful to look at how the language allows those distributing a project can influence the audience to watch it. It was clear in the layout of the magazines that everything was carefully thought about and obviously magazines such as ‘Empire’ have a working formula, so why alter that? This made me think about the type of magazines I was researching. These magazines where for big scale films and it didn’t seem plausible to have a short armature film in the same house style as one of the biggest film magazines of all time. So I then began researching magazines, less known for their status in the business but more known for helping market short films, I then come across an up and coming new magazine, named ‘Gorilla’. Its name represented the magazine perfectly as it was big in name, it was big in stature, it was bold, brief and was hard hitting. I believe this represented my film perfectly. My film was meant to, in the words of Tessa Ross, ‘Shock and surprise our audiences’, and I believe a magazine such as this could perfectly represent that. Within ‘Gorilla Magazine’ the language was bold, however simplistic, it was not fancy and it was very straight to the point, it gave the readers what they wanted to hear, and presented that well. So when writing my review I followed the same codes and conventions ad the magazine presented to me. I just gathered my feedback and portrayed my film to the audience how I originally wanted to, bold, to the point, a piece that will shock, surprise and move you in ways an audience would not believe a short amateur film could do so. There is a clear house style that feature throughout the posters, involving the same colours, characters and emotions which allows the audience to familiarise themselves with the piece. Communicating to the audience through the connections between the posters, demonstrating the morals throughout the narrative and how and why our target audience should watch our project.
Within the review you had to portray it correctly, and in a professional manor, so almost unbiased and from an ‘outsiders’ perspective. I used language that showed both sides of the narrative, exposing minor flaws but backing that up with several good points about the film, influencing the audience to want to watch it. While doing this I had to incorporate actor’s names, as long with my own and some of my previous work to show audiences as a director I was used to the field, I had experience and I was able to create a good narrative and show it well when on screen. I almost had to reassure the readers that ‘It is ok, trust me, it’s good’, as we are nothing but students, with a lack of experience in the world of film, you had to show the audience I was passionate and I believed in my project and in myself, hoping they would then believe in my judgement and watch my project. I also used three small images within the film review, one of ‘Max’, played by Michael Sams, and one of ‘Sarah’ played by Louise Hewison. The third image was one of both characters, with space between them, and through their body language and facial expression, showed the relationship between to the two characters. This, along with the language, allowed the audience to get a real understanding of the piece and I believe influenced them well.
My second ancillary task was posters. After completing the review I believe I had a good formula in which I could sell this project, also by incorporating images into my review it gave me an understanding of how to influence audiences to watch my film through the use of image and very little text. I created one magazine poster, and two billboards of ‘Lost for words’. The first, the magazine poster, I believe was the strongest, I believed with the billboards, it was hard for people to miss so it did not have to be as appealing, as long as the date of release and the title was in bold letters, the rest was up to the audiences. However the magazine poster had to make to audience turn the page and stop and really inspect it and want to watch our film. The posters consisted of ‘Max’s’ character walking away, with his shadow coming towards the audience, this showed us that he did not know his identity and he was almost lost. The text and images used where ‘tasteful’ and ‘pleasant’, leaving some mystery to the project. I researched films that had the same themes to ours, however my film, had alternatives endings, so I had to create posters not indicating to any happy endings such as the film ‘I AM SAM’, which has the same codes and conventions as our film but the poster is bright yellow and features the main character, Sean Penn, smiling and laughing with his daughter. This made me want to go in the other direction, involving a grey background and while, or dark red writing, with an almost elegant look, as my main objective was to make this look professional rather than ‘tacky’. And I believe as a group we achieved that successfully, and the feedback that we received was extremely good.
When I first began my review it was clear the main objective was to make people believe in my project and allow the audience to get a clear insight into what I had created. When looking at other reviews I had to take aspects from my film that where strong and the weaknesses to make it believable and unbiased. For example I praised camera shots and other aspects, to attract the audience to watch it, however informed them on flaws such as the relationship between the mother and son, appearing as though they were a couple. However later I explained how the narrative in retrospect redeemed itself through the use of a voice over, explaining the relationships. I incorporated such aspect of the film into the review that would surprise our audiences, revealing the uncommon genres which are mixed throughout the narrative and how the films codes and conventions are different to those you would expect to see. This allowed me in the review to create suspense around the project. This linked to the language used within the review. Containing formal language that related back to the film, in terms of themes and narrative.The posters, review, distribution, marketing techniques and the film as a whole complement each other well, and as a combination, I believe attracts the target audience. Allowing us to create hype around the project, and almost create a ‘fan base’. The project becomes recognisable, if portrayed in the correct way. This is why the two ancillary tasks work so well together.
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