Question 2

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2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Media products are rarely put onto the market without ancillary texts that are used to support them through advertisement. When a film is created and screened in the cinemas, advertising methods such as billboards, TV adverts; websites, trailers, magazine advertisements etc are made to compliment the new media product.

When putting our products together alongside our main media text, we made sure that the correct codes and conventions that we wanted to portray to our target audience were shown in a suitable way, using a range of media and design techniques. This was resolved after a great amount of research on similar genres of film, poster and website products so we were able to recognize significant features and apply them to our work as well as using new ideas that we thought up as a group. This was a risky process and included a trial and error process throughout yet we feel that our products are a great success.

Poster

The poster consists of certain codes and conventions that facilitate the genre we want to represent.

Firstly, we can see that the poster we created follows the commonly used structure of a poster used in public for real media productions:

The red section, on the template we created, includes the names of actors that star in the short film (in a real life media product, these names usually consist of award winning actors and actresses) but we just decided to stick to the real life names of our friends who kindly stepped in to film with us.

The green section consists of the main information needed in order to advertise the film for what is included. Our poster contains the actors from behind (used to hide the identity of the actors to enhance the feeling of ‘mystery’ in the final piece). The piece of lighting that was chosen to be placed in the top left corner is there to create the imagery of another world being entered when intermingling with the danger of taking magic mushrooms. The rest of the poster is of a darker contrast as it represents the darkness from the character’s lives and the reason they would feel intrigued to take the drugs.

The mushrooms and bottles were included in order to reflect significant features that would be included in the short film. They were placed above the title to look as though they were growing from within the letters as well as representing the forest floor, revealing the setting of the short film. The characters were then placed around the décor to look as though they are walking from them, creating a 3D effect, giving the poster depth.

The blue section is where the title of the film sits. The title was created to look bewildering and mysterious to imply a similar feeling by those who decide to take the mushrooms, reflected by the shadowed effects and the colour scheme (dull colours, texture). The font used is simple yet effective in order to create the desired codes and conventions for our genre as it is easily read by the audience yet the lettering is of different sizes, giving the title shape.

The orange section on the model poster structure contains the names and logos of the institutions that were involved in the production of the film, the names of those who were involved in producing the film and their job roles in doing so, and a flash of colour in the centre stating that the film is ‘coming soon’ enabling the audience to recognize when they will be to view the film as well as enhancing their inquisitive mind towards seeing the film. *if you say you can’t do it you want to.

Website

We decided that the website as a whole, like the poster, should follow the regular structure of a website promoting and expanding on information about the film that has been produced. These factors consisted of including;

- a homepage: this introduces the film in little detail and contains the hyperlinks to navigate the user around the site, the logo representing the film, the use of the mushroom images etc.

- a synopsis: enabling the users to visit the site to read about the basis of the story without revealing the storyline so they are able to decide whether or not the film would interest them. In order for them to want to go and see the film, it was important to make the synopsis attractable, using a cliff hanger technique so they insisted on going!

- the cast and crew list: this then gave the audience insight on the backgrounds of the real life cast for those who felt the need to know. This could be due to the fact they are interested in acting, they went to the same school as the actors or just plainly because they wanted to know their names.

- the trailer: so the audience could see video footage of what the film is about. They are then able to tell a lot about the film through the codes and conventions used, helping them analyse whether or not the film is suitable or attractive for them.

- the gallery – this allows the audience to view pictures that were taken from filming the product and clips from the actual film itself. Again, this gives the audience insight to what is included in the film as well as background information about the film being produced.

Again, the codes and conventions of the film are represented by the use of graphology techniques including images, colour schemes etc.

Main Product

In order to create a successful media product, we needed to include the codes and conventions that are incorporated in short films and products used for the same genre that we are creating. When considering these codes and conventions, we found that the following were most effective and the reasons we decided to use them:

We also ensured that it followed a regular schema for a short film. This consisted of a beginning, middle and an end as well as an introduction, problem and a solution.

Introduction: Shot shots, titles, introduction to the characters as a group etc

Problem: Discovering the mushrooms

Solution: How the characters react to the drugs in their individual states

The music in the film was created by ourselves, using Garageband on the Macs, in order to avoid any copyright problems that may occur. This was a great advantage to us as we were then able to create the music using specific sound clips to create what we intended to portray.

Eg: Change in tempo

Change in rhythm

Varied of instruments

All of our media products were created with the same codes and conventions in mind. Due to the consistency of images, colour schemes, fonts, camera angles, costuming, special effects, music etc, we strongly believe we have created a media product that clearly represents the intended genre in the form of a short film alongside the ancillary texts that support the representation of this.