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

Even though our main product was our teaser trailer, it was very important that our other ancillary texts all represented the same genre and all hooked in our target audience. There was a combination of promotional packages that we wanted to create to the audience, as we wanted to stick with typical conventions but also market our media products in a way which would suit are target audience. As our genre was a romantic comedy which is a very popular genre of film, our media products were mainly seen to be packaged in a mainstream manner. This is due to the fact that our genre is very popular and can be seen everywhere. For example rom-coms such as How to lose a guy in 10 days and Sleepless in Seattle are typical rom-coms which include all the conventional elements which they should. This makes the way they are packaged mainstream, as they suit a mainstream audience and consist of all the usually elements that a rom-com trailer or poster should. We also created a niche audience, as our teaser trailer is very stereotypical and suits a rom-com genre we would want to package it in a way which would target our audience and hook in people who are interested in this genre of film. A way in which we could create this niche audience is to show our media products in a way which would suit our genre and audience. For example our teaser trailer could be shown in the cinema where another rom-com film was being shown therefore it would be targeted an audience that enjoy rom-com films. For our poster and magazine we need to work more on the overall presentation of the media product so that when they are seen the audience are immediately hooked to it. The last way in which we plan to package our product is through viral marketing. This is done with many teaser trailers in order to package them to the correct audience and get them seen by as many people as possible. For this to be done, it could be put on a website which would show the media product to our audience, and easily get them hooked. By creating viral marketing it allows the media product to be noticed easily and will spread through our target audience. These three elements work together well as they allow our media products to be seen easily by our target audience and will package them to suit a rom-com genre therefore targeting the correct people in society.

In our media products I think there are specific strengths that have made it a success but there have also been some limitations to our work which has produced some problems which my group and I have needed to overcome. One of the main elements with our media products which were successful is the voice over. As this was an important convention of a teaser trailer we decided to use, we thought that it worked really well with our media product. This is due to it illustrating the teaser trailer and making it easier for our target audience to understand what the trailer is about. The voice over also adds to the comedy part of the trailer as it is a rom-com this is an important element for our media product to have in order for it to be successful. I also think that the soundtrack is a strength we have in our teaser trailer. During our research we found that all teaser trailers have some sort of soundtrack such as in 500 days of summer and 27 dresses. It is a good way to hook in the audience and make the teaser trailer more appealing. It is one of the main elements of our teaser trailer as we thought it linked in well with our storyline and helped to make the trailer more up beat and attractive for our audience to watch. Another element which I think worked well is the use of pans in our teaser trailer. We used this camera shot when we first say Mercedes at the start of the trailer. We wanted it to add a slight mystery at the start of who it was, so we decided to start filming her walking panning from her feet up to her head. We thought this worked well as it makes the audience wonder who it is and gives some variety to the different camera angles that we used. This was previously shot just seeing Mercedes walk straight in but after trying to edit it later we decided it didn’t look like a trailer and didn’t add to the mystery of who the girl was. In our Magazine the part I thought were successful was the picture as it showed our main characters as glamorous and made them stand out. Also the use of colours and variety of fonts that we used worked well. We wanted to make the magazine show the genre as rom-com and also make it appealing for our target audience and by using the variety of pink and blues I think we achieved this. On our poster the elements that I thought were successful included the font of the title. We wanted to use a font that was unique and suggest our genre as well as make our poster look attractive for our target audience. I also think the combination of the two pictures work well with our layout and overall storyline of our teaser trailer. As we wanted to illustrate what our storyline was I think by using two different pictures with the aid of costumes and props it works really well and is very effective for the audience to look at.

While creating our media product there is a specific problem that my group and I needed to overcome in order to make our trailer, poster and magazine a success. Once we had filmed all the necessary parts for our trailer and started to edit, we made sure we saved our work every time we made a big change. Once we went back onto the laptops to continue editing our work wouldn’t open, we tried very hard to open our work but this was not possible. In order to overcome this problem we reopened Pinnacle and started again. This was a problem for our group as we had worked hard to edit all the filming. We just began again and did our best to edit it in the correct places as before. This was one of the main problems that our group needed to overcome, this allowed us to work together as a team and re-edit our filming to make it as perfect as possible. Another problem we had to overcome was the soundtrack. The song we originally wanted was Taylor Swift Back to December, after emailing her record company a few times asking for there permission to use her song. We didn't hear back, so as a group we decided we needed to find a new song to use as our soundtrack. As it was getting closer to the deadline we needed to act fast and find a new song. This was a problem we needed to overcome, we did this by looking at local bands as we thought this would make it easier to ask permission to use their songs. We finally found one that fitted which was called Cheer up darling by Hands shaped like hearts. They are a local acoustic band who we emailed to see if we could use their music and they replied back giving us permission to use their song. Although we have worked really well as a team to make our media products look as professional as possible there are some weaknesses to our trailer and ancillary texts. In our teaser trailer one of the weaknesses which was pointed out by audience feedback is the fact that Alex looks at the camera accidentally right at the start. We tried to cut this part down but we need Alex to look up and see Mercedes, therefore when we were cutting it down it didn’t flow as smoothly as it once did. We therefore decided to leave in this for the fact that it makes the video run smoothly without any unnecessary cuts that would make it look unprofessional. We could of also used tracking instead of panning in certain parts in the teaser trailer which would of given us a wider variety of camera shots in our media product. One of the main limitations to our magazine front cover was that there is a tiny gap at the bottom of the page in which we thought about putting a block along the bottom which would advertise other films. After experimenting with this we thought that it made the magazine look to squashed and didn’t leave enough white space which makes the magazine eye-catching and attractive to the audience. One limitation of the poster was the fact that after putting on the photos and title, it looked very uninteresting so we needed to experiment with different elements to make it look more appealing to the audience. We then put on some small hearts on the poster, which we decided enhanced the fact that it is a rom-com genre and by the comments we received from our target audience which suggested this made the poster look a lot more attractive.