Evaluation Task 3 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Our aim was to create a promotional package made up of a trailer, poster and website for our new film ‘North Chamber’. With this package, we intended to target a young audience of 16- 21 year olds and entice them into wanting to watch the full film in the cinema.

Before we started to think about our main product and ancillary tasks, we researched audience so that we could make sure we were effective in appealing to a target audience. As we had decided to do a horror film, we researched other similar horror film audiences. This included primary research such as questionnaires and a focus group and secondary research for example looking up IMDb statistics and BFI case studies.

We then researched horror film conventions used within similar texts. I analysed the Woman in Black trailer, picking out conventions that we could use in our trailer to make it more effective in scaring the audience. I went on to analyse the film poster conventions used on the Annabelle poster and I then looked at the Cabin in the Woods website to get an idea of what should be on a popular film promotion site.

We wanted to make sure our ancillary tasks matched our trailer so that they were recognisably shown to be promoting the same film. To do this we made sure the colour scheme and title fonts were the same on the ancillary tasks as the trailer.

In our trailer, some scenes are set in the past and we wanted to make the transitions from past to present easily noticeable so we decided to make the past shots black and white. However, Cassandra’s red ribbon plays a big part in the story as she is bullied about wearing it, it makes the main character easily recognisable and it is used to connote danger. By using black and white, the colour of the ribbon was lost. To compromise, we used an 80% monochrome filter on the scenes set in the past so that the colour of the ribbon could be seen slightly.

We also used this technique of emphasising the red ribbon, on our film poster. We decreased the saturation of our main image to -100 which made it black and white and then we painted the red ribbon back on. By continuing this theme over both platforms, the audience will hopefully notice the connection between the poster and trailer which will help them remember the film.

We used a black, white and red colour scheme throughout our promotional package so that everything looked professional and worked together to promote the film. We also used the same title across the numerous promotional platforms.

We also included social media throughout our promotional package, including the hash tag ‘#NorthChamber’ on our trailer and poster and putting links to our social media on our website.

The making of North Chamber was extremely challenging as half of the film was set in the past which meant we had to choose locations, props and costume very carefully to make sure our trailer would be believable. It was difficult to keep modern day things, such as plug sockets out of shot and we had to make sure the tables the 1940’s students were sat at looked true to that time period. Cassandra’s diary was made up of ink drawings and scribbles using old-fashioned fountain pens rather than the pens we would use today.

Trailers can be seen in adverts at the cinema, online (YouTube) and on TV and target people that are either already viewing something else or looking to watch the trailer. Posters, however, can be seen anywhere; from billboards to bus stops. They promote the film to a wider audience that may not be looking for a film to watch; they can catch someone’s eye and spark an interest. The viewer then may want to find out more, so they search online where they can find the film trailer and website. All of these platforms support each other and help gain a wider audience when promoting a film.

In my opinion, I think our promotional package works well together as we have used similar themes that make the audience aware of the genre and features of the film. I think that if North Chamber was a real film, we would be successful as we have used common conventions used in popular real films which have been proven to work. Our lack of experience, professional equipment and software have meant that our trailer doesn’t look as professional as I would have liked, but I believe we have included everything we needed to make a successful promotional package for North Chamber.