2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two ancillary texts that we chose to do were the film poster as well as the film review page. Those two options seemed more approachable to us due to us not having access to sound recording equipment for the 3rd ancillary text- radio trailer. For Monster, we decided to create a poster campaign as opposed to just one poster. A poster campaign includes a few posters that hold the same themes and ideas along with the same ‘house style’ to target different audiences or show different sides of the film. Our main poster featured Lilly with her friends on a mary-go-round with an outline of a tree bordering the entire poster. The fact that Lilly is seen sitting separately from the two girls shows the difference between the characters in the film- i.e. Lilly is the main character. That is the overall image that differed from the other posters because the house style of all three posters included- the slightly opened door in the background, the title “Monster” at the top written in children’s handwriting on a piece of lined paper, credit block, as well as the quote ‘Not all monsters live under your bed” in the follow up 2 posters. Each and every detail of the poster had a direct correlation to the film. The door in the background of the posters represents the father and the abuse. Where as the tree surrounding border holds the representation of the park and how her days are spent. All 3 posters included the leaves that were all made to resemble the meaning of the park. The escapism symbolism of the park is seen in all 3 posters. I believe the posters have a great correlation to the actual film without giving away too much information about the film. They all feature the main character which lets us know the film is about a young girl. It has hidden details such as the kid’s handwriting for the font in the title written on lined paper, quote, and actor’s names. After our posters have been completed I saw the posters for Where the Wild Things Are- these reassured me that we did the right thing with the kids handwriting as font because this also looks like a film based about a little boys life which works well with the text.( http://popprop.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/where-the-wild-things-are-poster.jpg) However for our poster these texts can easily be analyzed as being there because the main character is a child; however it also has a deeper meaning due to the fact that the entire plotline is of her writing an actual story. These details that would not be completely understood unless the film has been viewed can also be seen in the posters for 500 Days of Summer. (http://jbellan.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/500_days.jpg) The following poster has sketch drawings of buildings at the bottom. One would not understand the meaning of that unless they have seen the film. The main character was a failed/aspiring architect therefore this ties into the theme of the movie and is displayed on the poster as a minor yet significant detail. The poster with Lilly smiling and the shadow of her in the background crouching has a great contrast of happiness versus sadness and neglect. This is a direct correlation from the movie where she has two distinguishable sides to her life- the joyful side with her friends at the park and the neglected side of her father abusing her. The poster is part of the post-production area of filmmaking. It is a marketing strategy used to attract the target audience. Therefore it is placed in areas where the target audience has most access to. This could be at bus stops, shopping centres, movie theatres and more.
The film review was the second option for our ancillary text. This included research into film magazines such as Filmstar, Empire, and Total Film. As the task was to create a review that had the look of a real review page that could be featured in a currently running magazine, we chose to use Total Film as the template for our review page. Total Film includes every type of genre of movie ranging from child abuse to romantic comedies. That is why our film would target a good audience by being featured in this magazine. The British magazine has reviews, interviews, commentaries and much more-everything having to do with the film industry. The review we have created includes Monster being the featured review being located at the top of the page with most text and the largest picture. This is often done in magazine reviews to highlight an ‘editor’s pick’ or a newly released film. The picture that we used for the monster review is of the three girls lying in the park laughing and smiling. This represents the innocence of the girls and shows a good representation of the movie to the audience reading the review. Even though reviews come out after the actual release date, it is still important not to give too much information away in interviews, commentaries etc. so that the audiences, which have not seen the film, will still endure the shocking affect of the story. Therefore this picture is more affective as opposed to having a screenshot of Lilly crying alone. The text is also very pun filled and metaphorical. (As most reviews are) Reviewers tend to use a specific type of English to describe the films in a more interesting and slightly obviously rude way. A great example of a film review pun can be seen at the UP film review in Total Film. (http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/up-1) “Pixar reaches for the skies once more” is more than obvious when it comes to the reference of the plot line of the film. Taking a quote from our review- “Klaudija Alasauskaite does it again, in an epic tale of deception where we find out not all monsters live under your bed…” This sentence from the review takes the direct tag line of the film to interest and intrigue the readers. Using this tagline ties together the two ancillary texts together as the posters also includes the tag line. The other reviews on the page simply allow for the page to look more realistic and appealing. However everything is positioned in a specific way to where your eyes first jump to the review of Monster.
0 Thoughts:
Post a Comment