Evaluation: Question 2

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

My ancillary tasks deliberately have discontinuity with the main production and were more focused on the on the personality of the character rather than how the trailer conforms to the codes and conventions of the genre of a psychological/ action thriller as a whole and the format of a trailer. The trailer largely focuses on the narrative of the story behind the character rather than the character themselves, therefore within my ancillary tasks I wanted to show that and focus on the character more. The combination of both the main task and poster and magazine cover works well however there is a clear discontinuity between them. The magazine as seen from my planning and research is largely based on the French movie magazine Premiere and the way that the main character image is the only image present on the cover. The image takes up most of the cover to make it the main focus and to draw all attention to the image; therefore no other images are used unlike other magazines such as Empire and Total Film. The colour scheme for both the ancillary poster and magazine are alike as I wanted them to have a clear continuity between both and represent the character on both. The poster uses only one main image following the codes and conventions of most movie posters, however during my research, I liked to way the Black Swan poster used a central image of the main character using direct mode of address.  I used the same font for both magazine and poster as, the use of Trajan Pro 3 a bold font with a slight cursive effect font allowed me to reflect the personality of the character not only by the body language of the character within the central image but also through the font used.  I used this font and the way that it could is bold and stands out from the page, I wanted this to reflect how the characters personality is strong willed, this is linked to the trailer and how we see him action scenes during the trailer, and how the bold text represents his desire and passion to find the truth. The cursive effect of text reflects how he is sophisticated and of a high class as we see him dresses suites through the trailer. The red and white scheme used throughout the magazine and poster connotes both danger with the read font perhaps suggesting death or suffering and the white suggesting innocence this also reflects on the whole narrative of the characters situation. This red and white theme I decided would be considered as my house theme and would be portrayed in both my ancillary tasks. The deliberate discontinuity was made as the trailer is very dark, this is reflected through the lighting used as well as the characters clothing making the character blend into his surrounding and become part of the narrative as he should within the trailer. However I wanted to put more emphasis on the character as said before therefore the use of bold bright text and more focus on a central image of the character on both the magazine and poster allowed me to do this. On the other hand the trailer as product is represented as modern and wanted this to be continuity that is reflected on all of the products, this is also reflected in the font of both the magazine and poster, with the title font Arial bold used to give it a modern feel and reflect on the meaning of the title its self, with the font looking similar to that used on a computer screen log in and introducing the idea of it reflecting a modern product as the trailer also has on screen text that appears in a similar font. In conclusion the products work well together and have aspects that link them together; however there is clear discontinuity between all of the products to reflects on the creative decision making that was made during planning and research and what I wanted the main focus of the ancillary tasks to be.