Evaluation: Question 2

COLOUR CODE:

Fenetta - Pink

Lucy - Yellow

Lauren - Blue

Ben - Green

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

By the use of the poster and the way it links to the other two pieces of products, I think they link very well. The poster’s use of a

different image from the magazine shows a different side to the poster and gives the audience an insight of another theme that may be explored in the film; isolation. We made the audience aware of the

link between the different pieced of media as we made sure that the continuity factor was present by making her wear the same clothes and the same hair and the same make-up for each item

I felt that it wouldn’t make sense for the actress to have on different clothing or different special

effect make-up as not only does it show that it’s not continuing, it also shows unprofessionalism. The poster as an individual piece is a vital piece to

the development and the popularity of the pieces, as it is usually the piece that is released first and if the poster does not appeal to the audience, they will not bother

trying to find out more about the film, meaning they won’t bother looking up the trailer or watching the film when it is released. By being able to view the poster and the magazine and other forms of the media on different platforms of the media such as on phones and iPhones, shows how wide the range of media accessibility has been set for media.

Throughout the pre-production for the poster and the other forms of media, we had the thought in our heads that the costume would be the main focus, so we added all of the blood on the first day of filming and decided not to add anymore on afterwards

otherwise it would become obvious that there is something different to the costume and this could get us marked down for continuity. Me and Lucy brainstormed ideas and write down a list of connotations in which we wanted the poster to have, so when you looked at the costume, you thought old, but yet innocence because of the fine print of the flowers and the pink ribbon along the embroidery, but when you look closely, what you see is far from innocence as you can then see the grime and the dirt infiltrated in the clothing and the blood splattered along the front and the back of the clothing.

We made sure that in each of our media products, you could see the clothing, as that was a main part of our continuity factor and even though in the magazine you cannot see a lot of the clothing, you still know that it belongs to a chain of products due to the infamous flower embroidery.

The use of the dark background works very well with the magazine front cover as they both have the very dark and eerie background. Although the background of the poster differs to that of the trailer, they still work well together due to the darkness and suspense filled atmosphere. Also the idea of isolation comes

into play here as once in a dark room, you feel isolated and segregated from the world, and darkness is a connotation of fear and evidently the horror genre.
Throughout the planning of our pieces and the development, we found various ways in which we thought we could leave a link in between the products. First, the poster. The poster of a film is usually the first media product that you see as they are usually posted all over the place. On billboards, on bus-shelters and on the sides of buses. When you see the poster, it should immediately make you want to know more about the film, and should ‘tease’ you, so by the fact that we don’t give a lot of information away on the poster is a good ‘teaser’ fact, as it immediately makes the audience want to know why there’s a girl bound with rope and also to know, why she is not facing the correct way. This puts countless questions into the mind of the audience and consumer as they begin to wonder how she got there and their questions become more analytical rather than just average questions. This linked to the teaser trailer very well because, once the consumer has seen the poster, if they are intreged by what they have seen, they would most likely go onto Google, Youtube, WikiPedia or iMDb to get some information

about the film and on one of these popular information sights, they might get redirected to Youtube to view the teaser trailer.

The teaser trailer works well with the poster, again because we do not see the character’s face in full, again leaving the consumer in need of some more information or

wanting to watch the film to see what she looks like. We have shots of her back, and her face covered by her hair. We even have a shot where her face is slightly revealed and you can see a slight bit of her eye, adding suspense but also fear all

at once. The trailer and the poster then link to the magazine, which is usually released sometime after the movie is in the movie theatre and you are finally given a shot of the actress’ face.
Not only is it a plain shot of her face, it’s a shot of her face with a stream of

blood dripping down her eye. This again, even to people that haven’t watched the film will make them want to watch the film just to understand why the blood stream is there. Although, the fact that

the actress’ face is not seen is a vital part to the suspense factor in our trailer and finally we reveal it in our magazine, all is not lost as we have other tricks up our sleeves that will add suspense and will give the audience shivers.

The green tinge in our poster is

there to show coldness of the room. We also used this green tinge on the poster to change the colour of the girl’s skin as green is an unnatural colour, it usually connotes sickness and this sickness does not always have to mean physically, but

mentally as we can tell by the shots in our trailer that the girl is deranged.

Also, our tagline gives us a lot of insight into the mind of the girl with the “She dares YOU to sing her a lullaby”.

Lullabies are usually sweet songs used to send little children to sleep, so why this girl would DARE you to sing a harmless song to her should

announce several questions into the mind of the audience, for example, it

gets the audience thinking what will happen if they do sing her a lullaby, making them want to find out more, which leads to more cinema hits.
We wanted a tagline that would scare and would leave a dramatic effect, like those of the popular films ‘Candy Man’ and

‘Boogey Man’, when if you apparently say it in front of the mirror a certain amount of times, he appears to

you. We wanted our film and our tagline to have that effect on you as an audience member. I also wanted

you to be scared of the popular lullaby which is featured in our trailer ‘Rockerby Baby’.
Not only are we told not to sing her a lullaby, we are instantly asking ourselves the

question “What has she got against lullabies?” Maybe it was something that happened when she was growing up and has deeply affected her mental state? Or maybe she just doesn’t like

them due to the child-likeness of it all.
In regards to the soundtrack, I broke an old music box in which I had and used the inside of it as a musical instrument. I went to my brother studio, recorded the sound and then edited on

WavePad. If we were to develop our film, I would allow the song from the trailer to be purchased from a store, for example ‘App Store’ on the iPhone and be enabled as a ringtone, or an alarm tone.

The font that we decided to use

on the magazine, poster and trailer is also another bold sign of continuity as it is a

scratchy written title which looks like it could be done by a crayon and by a

child.

The fact that we used the same font on all of our productions shows the running trend in our movie and it shows that this is kind of like our

trademark logo. We wanted it to be something to remember our film by, so this would be our trademark and copyright font, since we developed it for use just for this media project.

When we began crafting our project from stage one, starting with storyboarding the main idea, the group planned to add a continuity link throughout the three products we produced in each stage of making.

Throughout pre-production of the teaser, the poster and the magazine front cover the I had these theme in the back of my head, and I told the group about it, once we all spoke about the initial idea, we choose the main colour connotations to show a horror type feeling to the final product.

Using white for the "Lulla", this connotes purity and a child like feature, as the colour white doesn't really indicate anything. Red as the "bye" for the title it connotes a gruesome blood feeling, this follows the normal horror conventions as most horror films use red titles. Using the same title for "Lullabye" throughout the whole feature adds the connection to each product, which links them all up.

Throughout the pre production and post production we kept the hair, costume and make-up continuously the same to show the connection between the poster, magazine and trailer. When people look at the poster the will instantly know the connection between these three products.

Also using black backgrounds on the poster and magazine front cover, this products a link between them both, this is because they both have a similar look about them, which means they effectively join our main product.

Adding a green tint throughout the whole trailer to make the trailer look more grimy, even though Lucy "The Actress" looked grimy with the makeup used in the trailer, poster etc. The group decided to add a green tint to the trailer to add a overtop horror feel. Each shot had the green tint added, this meant there was continuity editing through out.

Although we used a Canon 550D, Lauren tried to film the ending scene which consisted of me 'jumping' out at the camera and scaring the audience for a end fright but Lauren did not manage to film this scene in focus and after many tries of different angles, we decided to give up. I think that if we were able to have that ending scene it would create more of a fright to the audience but I also think our teaser trailer can still do well without it.

This is the shot we did not include:

The effectiveness of the combination between our main product and ancillary texts are very effective as we have made sure everything is kept looking the same. For all three of our products we have used the same font for 'Lullabye' which I created on Photoshop so once people look at the 'Lullabye' title, they know it belongs to 'Lullabye'.

Usually the teaser trailer is released first to give an insight of what the film is going to be about and to attract the audience into wanting to watch this movie. The reason the date is not revealed is so that people don't know when it is revealed and the actual date of when the movie is released is usually revealed on the official trailer. By using the signature 'Lullabye' font on the teaser trailer we let the audience recognise this font with our film 'Lullabye'.

After the trailer is released, the film poster is the next product to be revealed to the audience and by using the same font the audience can immediately associate the film poster to the teaser trailer they have watched and link them together as being the same film. The only thing we change about the Lullabye font is that it is probably rescaled to make it smaller so it can fit better with the film poster.

Lastly the magazine front cover is revealed for the film and it still looks the same as the film poster and teaser trailer font but we changed the colour of the 'Lulla' to black to suit the magazine front cover better and to make it stand out more against the costume.

We have kept the visual continuity the same to keep the continuity the same and so people will instantly recognise the character being from the same movie. Visual continuity we kept the same include the hair which really captures the J-horror look which is usually seen covering their face (we also tried to capture that), the costume was worn entirely though out the production of all three products, this is also to keep the continuity the same so the audience will recognise the character when they see the signature costume. Black is also one of the main colours in our colour scheme as it is used in all three products, it is used as the background for the magazine cover which makes it look like character is alone in the dark, the same concept goes to the film poster and it is used in the teaser trailer to increase the suspense through out the teaser trailer in-between each shot. We hope that by keeping the visual continuity the same, it will be easier for the audience to match all three products together and know they belong together.

Not only have we kept the visual continuity the same in our film poster, magazine front cover and teaser trailer but we have also kept the continuity the same in the merchandise so that when people look at the mugs, t-shirts or the key-rings they will instantly know that it comes from the Lullabye franchise. With the mug and the t-shirt i used the same image which we used in the film poster so people will know they belong together, and on the mug i also included the slogan so if they were a big fan of 'Lullabye' they would also have the slogan on their mug. For the magazine front cover i decided to use a different image (the one we used in our magazine front cover) and i did not include the 'Lullabye' title or the slogan as i thought it looked good as just one image and if they were a fan of the 'Lullabye' franchise then they would know that the image also belongs to 'Lullabye'.

The teaser trailer is has been completed to a near industry standard and effects have been used effectively, with each shot and timing conventions followed to a professional standard for a teaser trailer.
The movie front cover carries the continuity of the movie poster using the same colour for the background, which is black, and another quality image.

Texts have not been used over creatively and spacing has been used to an equilateral standard. Overall furnished to a Professional standard. For the Front cover and Movie poster I used a series of effects in Photoshop to furnish the raw images to a professional standard such as Sharpen, contrasting effects. Also the movie teaser trailer follows similar guidelines using the same costumes, and character throughout. Effects

have been used moderately and effectively so that the video does not look too realistic e.g. someone picking up a camera and recording their friend. To achieve this I used sharpen and Tint effects.
Throughout the each of the products each are of a high standard, however of all products I believe the movie poster if the best, as in quality and consistency. Overall it is the most professional product as when compared to real media products, there is barely a differentiation between quality and arrangement. Conventions between the movie posters are also followed within strict guidelines. With this point I believe the movie poster can be used in public e.g. Billboards, Bus Stop Ads, Viral Ads etc. and pass as a real media product. Together all the products work well with each other.

As conventions from each product such as Character, Costumes and Typography as a Brand Identity have been used in all products, Viral Ads can also be easily made with our Brand Name and Logo as it is a simple design. Also the Visual Style can be seen as a sign of continuity. This would allow our product to be distributed between different media convergence's and recognised across our targeted audience.