Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Monday, 21 April 2014
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When researching horror film marketing campaigns, we found that an important aspect of it was continuity between the products. For instance, when looking at continuity in 'the woman in black' marketing campaign:
click image to view annotation
(left to right: screen grabs from the trailer, fangoria insidious magazine cover, insidious poster)
There is a clear house style throughout the trailer, magazine cover and the poster for the 'Insidious' marketing campaign, most notably through the font used for the title, as well as the red, blue, black and white color scheme. This helps the audience identity the products with one another, and builds on their cultural capital in the film, which helps to develop a familiarity with the product, so the audience are more likely to watch the film.
We emulated this in our marketing campaign, using the same font ('I still know') and colour (white) for the title of our film, 'Annabelle' which made it very clear that all three products are part of a campaign for the same film. We also used the same colour scheme of black, white and dark blue. We also featured the doll and the protagonist throughout these products, as they are the main visual elements that ensure continuity between these products.The location of a normal, middle class family home in east London is also emphasized, with various shots throughout the trailer showing the house, and highlighting the east London accent, the poster also has the house in the background.
click image to view annotation
We also used the same colour scheme (black, white, dark blue) throughout the trailer, poster and magazine cover. This is a conventional colour scheme that is utalised by many horror films. As Steve Neal stated, “Genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variation” which argues that some conventions, such as a de saturated colour palette, must be repeated in order to anchor the horror genre .
For instance in the poster, the text the was white, the stormy sky background was dark blue, and the title's drop shadow and the protagonist's hair is black. The trailer also has this continuous colour scheme, with the titles having the black/blue grungy texture in the background, and white text. Many shots have a dark, de saturated colour scheme, with black playing an overriding influence, and some shots have hints of blue (refer to image below - shows a few examples of these shots). The production logo in the trailer also follows the colour scheme, with a black/blue/white stormy sky background and a white logo on top. The film magazine cover is slightly different, although it has the main colours black and white, the red/orange hair of the doll is the main colour and really stands out. We thought that even though this is slightly different from the normal colour scheme, its okay because the cover is still linked to the film though the title and it's font.
One of the main differences is that the red/orange colour of the doll hair is exaggerated. This is mostly because magazines like 'little white lies' make the image on the front cover look really artistic and imaginative.Our magazine brand, 'dark truth' took a lot of inspiration from 'little white lies' in terms of aesthetics, which is why we wanted to make the cover stand out and look quite surreal and unconventional, while still maintaining the horror genre. We also managed to keep the continuity between the magazine cover and the trailer by using the same font for the film title.
When creating the poster, we needed it to be easily identified with the trailer. To do this, we heavily featured the female protagonist, who is even wearing the same outfit. Also, the poster clearly shows her ethnicity, because the protagonist is from Asia, which may help appeal to a tertiary target audience of people from Asia, or other minority ethnic backgrounds. This can be explained by Blumler & Katz (1974) ‘Uses and Gratifications theory’ which suggests that audiences use and seek out media texts for a variety of reasons, one of which is to ‘identify with characters’ which people may do because of a shared ethnic background.
The doll is also featured in the poster, which links to the magazine cover and the trailer, although in the poster the doll is shown more subtly, but still looks quite creepy and malignant. Most of the feedback from a focus group suggests that the visual elements of the doll, along with the colour scheme, where the most significant indicators that the three products were advertising the same film.
Also the protagonist skin was deliberately manipulated in post production to look sickly and pale, to connotate fear, which links to numerous shots in the trailer where she is shot from a high angle to look vulnerable and scared. The house is also emphasized in the poster and the trailer, which helps the audience to relate to the characters, as the primary target audience are likely to be from a normal, middle class family, which makes the characters relatable, and creates this theme that this 'demonic possession' can happen to anyone, even to someone in the audience, which may make the narrative theme seem even scarier.
All three products create a narrative enigma and don't reveal too much of the actual narrative. Roland Barthes argued that the use of a ‘narrative enigma’ in films trailer also helps to capture the audience’s attention by asking them a question and not giving them the answer, which makes audiences want to watch the film, to answer the question.For example, because our product was a teaser trailer, we could afford to be more cryptic in terms of the narrative, and so focused more on setting up the environment and characters. This meant that very little of the actual narrative was revealed, and this acted as a narrative enigma. But because the audience formed a connection with the characters, they feel like they have to watch the rest of the film to find out what happens to them in the end.
These three products helps to target our primary target audience. primary target audience.These are likely to be horror film fanatics, who are mainly male students, aged 15-45, from a C1C2D economic demographic. This is because they tend to seek the ‘thrill’ and adrenalin rush associated with horror films. They are also likely to have much cultural capital in the genre, and are consequently more likely to be desensitized to the ‘gore’ associated with slashed horrors, and are now probably more attracted to supernatural, psychological horrors where most of the shocks are delivered by implication, like in our film where the antagonist isn’t shown, and in the films poster and magazine cover, which dosen't feature a traditional 'moster' but rather a creepy doll, and a scared girl. The primary target audience are also likely to have gained ‘personal relationships’ (a category of the uses and gratifications model) as they are likely to have formed connections with other fans who are eagerly awaiting the film. With interactive web 2.0, consumers can develop personal relationships because of their mutual interests. Trailers are part of the promotional campaigns that has the intention of stimulating promotion through word of mouth promotion by creating a ‘buzz’ before the film’s release. The poster and magazine cover can also help with the off line marketing campaign for the film, and then lead people to watch the trailer and feed into the online, viral campaign.
Overall, we feel the combination of our main and ancillary is effective, the connection between the products is clear, and targets our primary, secondary and tertiary audiences well.
click image to view annotation
(left to right: screen grabs from the trailer, fangoria insidious magazine cover, insidious poster)
There is a clear house style throughout the trailer, magazine cover and the poster for the 'Insidious' marketing campaign, most notably through the font used for the title, as well as the red, blue, black and white color scheme. This helps the audience identity the products with one another, and builds on their cultural capital in the film, which helps to develop a familiarity with the product, so the audience are more likely to watch the film.
We emulated this in our marketing campaign, using the same font ('I still know') and colour (white) for the title of our film, 'Annabelle' which made it very clear that all three products are part of a campaign for the same film. We also used the same colour scheme of black, white and dark blue. We also featured the doll and the protagonist throughout these products, as they are the main visual elements that ensure continuity between these products.The location of a normal, middle class family home in east London is also emphasized, with various shots throughout the trailer showing the house, and highlighting the east London accent, the poster also has the house in the background.
click image to view annotation
We also used the same colour scheme (black, white, dark blue) throughout the trailer, poster and magazine cover. This is a conventional colour scheme that is utalised by many horror films. As Steve Neal stated, “Genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variation” which argues that some conventions, such as a de saturated colour palette, must be repeated in order to anchor the horror genre .
For instance in the poster, the text the was white, the stormy sky background was dark blue, and the title's drop shadow and the protagonist's hair is black. The trailer also has this continuous colour scheme, with the titles having the black/blue grungy texture in the background, and white text. Many shots have a dark, de saturated colour scheme, with black playing an overriding influence, and some shots have hints of blue (refer to image below - shows a few examples of these shots). The production logo in the trailer also follows the colour scheme, with a black/blue/white stormy sky background and a white logo on top. The film magazine cover is slightly different, although it has the main colours black and white, the red/orange hair of the doll is the main colour and really stands out. We thought that even though this is slightly different from the normal colour scheme, its okay because the cover is still linked to the film though the title and it's font.
One of the main differences is that the red/orange colour of the doll hair is exaggerated. This is mostly because magazines like 'little white lies' make the image on the front cover look really artistic and imaginative.Our magazine brand, 'dark truth' took a lot of inspiration from 'little white lies' in terms of aesthetics, which is why we wanted to make the cover stand out and look quite surreal and unconventional, while still maintaining the horror genre. We also managed to keep the continuity between the magazine cover and the trailer by using the same font for the film title.
When creating the poster, we needed it to be easily identified with the trailer. To do this, we heavily featured the female protagonist, who is even wearing the same outfit. Also, the poster clearly shows her ethnicity, because the protagonist is from Asia, which may help appeal to a tertiary target audience of people from Asia, or other minority ethnic backgrounds. This can be explained by Blumler & Katz (1974) ‘Uses and Gratifications theory’ which suggests that audiences use and seek out media texts for a variety of reasons, one of which is to ‘identify with characters’ which people may do because of a shared ethnic background.
The doll is also featured in the poster, which links to the magazine cover and the trailer, although in the poster the doll is shown more subtly, but still looks quite creepy and malignant. Most of the feedback from a focus group suggests that the visual elements of the doll, along with the colour scheme, where the most significant indicators that the three products were advertising the same film.
Also the protagonist skin was deliberately manipulated in post production to look sickly and pale, to connotate fear, which links to numerous shots in the trailer where she is shot from a high angle to look vulnerable and scared. The house is also emphasized in the poster and the trailer, which helps the audience to relate to the characters, as the primary target audience are likely to be from a normal, middle class family, which makes the characters relatable, and creates this theme that this 'demonic possession' can happen to anyone, even to someone in the audience, which may make the narrative theme seem even scarier.
All three products create a narrative enigma and don't reveal too much of the actual narrative. Roland Barthes argued that the use of a ‘narrative enigma’ in films trailer also helps to capture the audience’s attention by asking them a question and not giving them the answer, which makes audiences want to watch the film, to answer the question.For example, because our product was a teaser trailer, we could afford to be more cryptic in terms of the narrative, and so focused more on setting up the environment and characters. This meant that very little of the actual narrative was revealed, and this acted as a narrative enigma. But because the audience formed a connection with the characters, they feel like they have to watch the rest of the film to find out what happens to them in the end.
These three products helps to target our primary target audience. primary target audience.These are likely to be horror film fanatics, who are mainly male students, aged 15-45, from a C1C2D economic demographic. This is because they tend to seek the ‘thrill’ and adrenalin rush associated with horror films. They are also likely to have much cultural capital in the genre, and are consequently more likely to be desensitized to the ‘gore’ associated with slashed horrors, and are now probably more attracted to supernatural, psychological horrors where most of the shocks are delivered by implication, like in our film where the antagonist isn’t shown, and in the films poster and magazine cover, which dosen't feature a traditional 'moster' but rather a creepy doll, and a scared girl. The primary target audience are also likely to have gained ‘personal relationships’ (a category of the uses and gratifications model) as they are likely to have formed connections with other fans who are eagerly awaiting the film. With interactive web 2.0, consumers can develop personal relationships because of their mutual interests. Trailers are part of the promotional campaigns that has the intention of stimulating promotion through word of mouth promotion by creating a ‘buzz’ before the film’s release. The poster and magazine cover can also help with the off line marketing campaign for the film, and then lead people to watch the trailer and feed into the online, viral campaign.
Overall, we feel the combination of our main and ancillary is effective, the connection between the products is clear, and targets our primary, secondary and tertiary audiences well.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Film Poster - Draft one
overall we were quite happy with the way the poster turned out in the first draft. We also collected audience feedback on it to assess whether it could clearly be identified with our film's brand, and also to assess if the supernatural horror genre was clear, and we also use this feedback for any cosmetic changes. We also made changes such as making her skin look more pale to emphasize expressions such as being scared which was also a generic convention of horror, along with removing a red dot on her nose which was caused by the camera quality that we used.
Friday, 28 February 2014
Film Poster Production
The first step in producing the poster was to make a basic, generic template with the name of the film, the credits and the sell lines using the text tool in photoshop. After that, I inserted the image of the central protagonist, after I had removed the background from the original image using the free select tool. After that, I adjusted the 'curves' and 'levels' in order to make the picture look darker so it fits the horror genre better. I also decided to move the credits to the the top, and move around some of the other sell lines to make it look more stylistic. I also decided to add a backdrop to the main title 'Annabelle' to make it stand out more then the other sell lines. I also decided to add a circular gradient of dark navy blue to black in the background to make it look more interesting then just a solid black background. To make it look more stylistic, and more attuned to the horror genre, I decided to make a 'dark, stormy sky' in the background. I did this by finding a picture of a very cloudy sky on google images, and then scaled this image to fit in the background, and then set the layer to 'multiply' ontop of the gradient. This created a nice, subtle background texture. After that, I cut out the house using the free select tool, and removed the background. I then pasted the house into the poster, and placed the image ontop of the 'background' layers (solid black background, the gradient, and the clouds) and behind the text layers and the layer with the image of the protagonist. After that I adjusted the colours and curves so that the house looked a bit older and went with the desaturated colour palette to match the horror genre. After that, I cut out the bckground from an image of the doll, and scaled it so that it it would look a realistic size in the window of the house,to do this i had to crop it, and I also adjusted the curves and colour's to make it look more natural. I had also added the logo for 'nfy productions' aswell as adding a 'rated' warning. I also added the national lottery logo to anchor the idea of it being an independent film, and I also added a hashtag '#shewillnotsleep' to make media convergence links to social networking sites, which is becoming more common in many film campaigns.
Teaser trailer: Third draft
NFY final edit final from Media @ St. Bons on Vimeo.
After trying to edit our original trailer, we had found that many of the elements had been deleted therefore we decided to produce a new trailer including some of the old elements, but also going out and recording more footage in order to anchor our horror genre. This is our first edit of our new horror teaser trailer.
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Trailer development
During our teaser trailer development, we had to alter the sound effects in order for it to link to the conventions of horror soundtracks. Therefore, we had to mute each scene to allow us to add on other sound effects such as 'eerie wind music'. Also, as teaser trailers consist of a time length of 40 secs to 60 seconds, we then had to time stretch various scenes to fit the timing.
Friday, 10 January 2014
Magazine cover: Final product
After we showcased our products to our target audience, we received some feedback for a few changes that we should make to the magazine cover, these were:
1) To fit 'dark truth' into the triangle
2) to make the background more interesting
this is the final product we came up with in response to this feedback:
1) To fit 'dark truth' into the triangle
2) to make the background more interesting
this is the final product we came up with in response to this feedback:
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
Friday, 20 December 2013
Development of final shot
For one of the final shots in the trailer, we had planned to create a shot where the dolls eyes (and nothing else) would move, like one of the shots in the 'dead silence' trailer. To do this is I started off my taking pictures of the doll, experimenting with different angles, and in the end chose one I thought would work best.
This is the final product:
I then opened the image on photoshop, and used the 'polygon lasso tool' to select the iris of the dolls eye, and cut and pasted it as a new layer. I then selected the rest of the eye, and once again cut and pasted it as a new layer. I then filled in the blank parts of the 'whites of the eye' using the 'brush tool' and the 'smudge tool'. I then darkened the corners of the eyes once again using a black 'brush tool' and then using the 'smudge tool' and 'blur tool'.
After that, I manipulated the colour of the iris by adjusting the 'hue/saturation' the 'levels' and 'curves' until i got the sharp blue colour. I wanted the eyes to stand out and look almost lifelike and real to juxtapose against our already perceived idea of the 'lifelessness' of an inanimate object like a doll. I also darkened the edges of the iris to make it look more sinister, by creating a new layer and using the 'brush tool' and then blend it by making the layer blurry (filter>blur>Gaussian blur).
I then wanted to manipulate the colour of the skin to look pale and sickly. I did this firstly by selecting the skin of the doll and then cut and paste it as a new layer. I then adjusted the hue/saturation until the desired look. I then created a new layer, and using the 'brush tool' in black with an opacity of 50% I went over areas where I wanted to darken. I then blended it by using the 'Gaussian blur' filter. I repeated this step once again in areas I felt needed to be made even darker. I then changed the colour of the dolls lips by selecting, cut and pasting them as a new layer. I then manipulated the colour using the 'curves'.
After this I saved the three different psd files, one with all the layer for the iris, another for the whites of the eyes, and another for the skin and the rest of the doll.
I then opened these psd's on after effects, positioning them so that first was the main image of the doll and skin, next was the iris and beneath that was the whites of the eyes. I then clicked the stop watch icon for 'position' under the layer for the iris.I then entered a key frame at the start where the iris is placed in its original position, and then a key frame near the end, where the iris is placed to the left.
This is the final product:
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Teaser trailer first draft: feedback
A focus group of seven students aged 15-20 years old, from an ABC1 socioeconomic bracket had watched the first draft of our teaser trailer and then completed this survey.The findings are summerised in the prezi bellow.
or click here.
or click here.
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Teaser trailer: First Draft
This is our first draft of our teaser trailer in which we started to embed our footage.
NFY edit from Media @ St. Bons on Vimeo.
NFY edit from Media @ St. Bons on Vimeo.
Monday, 16 December 2013
Edited images!
For our teaser trailer we decided to add some fast paced shots of original images of the cursed doll Annabelle as it is based on a true story and we thought this would invite more of a wider audience. We decided to edit the images so they are not exactly the same of the original ones and we did this using Photoshop by editing the colour, brightness and contrast. We tried to make them look as historical as we could.
Friday, 13 December 2013
Soundtrack influences
For our first edit of our teaser trailer, we chose to use a sound track from an influential film to us which is called 'Dead Silence'. At first, this version seemed to fit into our narrative and was going to be used throughout, however as everything started to come together, it did not bind with the images or clips shown at the time and did not submerge with our edit the way we intended it to do so.
After noticing the soundtrack did not fit, we searched for the same soundtrack but in a different version which started off quietly and tied our teaser trailer together.
We went back onto our research and was drawn into how 'The Conjuring' had a contrast of an 'uplifting' music' in binary opposition to the loud horror music towards the end. This enabled us to understand the generic convention of a horror trailer and decided to follow the same pattern by using the same soundtrack which is called 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' by Donovan. Along this, we recorded mouse clicks to sound like camera shutter lens to portray the historical images which can also be seen in 'The Conjuring' from 00:26 seconds and we thought was to be effective.
After noticing the soundtrack did not fit, we searched for the same soundtrack but in a different version which started off quietly and tied our teaser trailer together.
We went back onto our research and was drawn into how 'The Conjuring' had a contrast of an 'uplifting' music' in binary opposition to the loud horror music towards the end. This enabled us to understand the generic convention of a horror trailer and decided to follow the same pattern by using the same soundtrack which is called 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' by Donovan. Along this, we recorded mouse clicks to sound like camera shutter lens to portray the historical images which can also be seen in 'The Conjuring' from 00:26 seconds and we thought was to be effective.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Magazine cover development
I started to develop the magazine cover by firstly by looking at the covers of independent film magazines, particularly at white lies, and found that many of the covers took a very abstract, surreal, artistic way in manipulating pictures to make them look like sketches and illustrations, which I thought looked very unique and I wanted to replicate that in our magazine cover.
We all then drew up some drafts for the general layout of the magazine cover, and in the end chose to incorporate aspects of all of them. We decided a central medium shot of the doll was the most suitable, with an upside down triangle as the basis of the logo which we all thought looked very unique and edgy. We also copied some aspects of little white lies with the half the barcode overlapping the logo. For the title we had also decided on 'dark truth' because it infers the horror genre with the word 'dark' and 'truth' helps suggest the magazine is reviews and rates films.
In the production stage, I started off by taking a shots of the doll at different angles and then picked one. I Then developed a template based on the feedback from the rest of the group. I started off by developing the logo, by creating an upside down triangle with the 'rectangle tool' and the 'free select tool' in the colour black. I then added the title using the 'text tool' and positioned it on top of the triangle, making the text a little bigger. I then right clicked the text layer and selected 'alpha to selection' and using the 'paint brush tool' coloured the parts of the text outside the triangle in white. I then decided that a black background would look better, so I inverted the colours of the layers (colour>invert).
I then began manipulating the image of the doll I had taken, I started by duplicating the image and going to (fliter>gaussian blur) and set the radius quite high. I then went to (colours>desaturate) with the setting lightness. I then adjusted the curves (colours>curves) so that the outline of the doll could be seen more. I then set this layer to 'overlay' ontop of the original image, and merged them together. After this I removed the background using the 'free select tool' and adjusted the curves, levels and brightness-contrast, so that the colours stood out more. I then pasted this into the magazine cover template. After this I duplicated the layer three time, on the first layer, I filtered it (filters>blur>gaussian blur) and set the radius very high, and i also set the layer mode to 'hard light'. On the next layer I set the mode to 'dodge' and then to the layer ontop of that I simply adjusted the opacity and colours until I got the desired look. Then I simply added the barcode and the text 'Annabelle' to the cover.
this is the first draft:
We all then drew up some drafts for the general layout of the magazine cover, and in the end chose to incorporate aspects of all of them. We decided a central medium shot of the doll was the most suitable, with an upside down triangle as the basis of the logo which we all thought looked very unique and edgy. We also copied some aspects of little white lies with the half the barcode overlapping the logo. For the title we had also decided on 'dark truth' because it infers the horror genre with the word 'dark' and 'truth' helps suggest the magazine is reviews and rates films.
In the production stage, I started off by taking a shots of the doll at different angles and then picked one. I Then developed a template based on the feedback from the rest of the group. I started off by developing the logo, by creating an upside down triangle with the 'rectangle tool' and the 'free select tool' in the colour black. I then added the title using the 'text tool' and positioned it on top of the triangle, making the text a little bigger. I then right clicked the text layer and selected 'alpha to selection' and using the 'paint brush tool' coloured the parts of the text outside the triangle in white. I then decided that a black background would look better, so I inverted the colours of the layers (colour>invert).
I then began manipulating the image of the doll I had taken, I started by duplicating the image and going to (fliter>gaussian blur) and set the radius quite high. I then went to (colours>desaturate) with the setting lightness. I then adjusted the curves (colours>curves) so that the outline of the doll could be seen more. I then set this layer to 'overlay' ontop of the original image, and merged them together. After this I removed the background using the 'free select tool' and adjusted the curves, levels and brightness-contrast, so that the colours stood out more. I then pasted this into the magazine cover template. After this I duplicated the layer three time, on the first layer, I filtered it (filters>blur>gaussian blur) and set the radius very high, and i also set the layer mode to 'hard light'. On the next layer I set the mode to 'dodge' and then to the layer ontop of that I simply adjusted the opacity and colours until I got the desired look. Then I simply added the barcode and the text 'Annabelle' to the cover.
this is the first draft:
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Magazine sketch
At first, from researching other independent magazines such as 'Little White Lies', we decided to follow the same conventions used by using a main focal point. However, since our genre is horror, we changed the title and did the opposite which led our magazine to be called 'Dark Truth' to anchor the meaning behind it. To make it our unique selling point, we altered the shape to a triangle in order to not be too similar to existing independent magazines.
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