Evaluation Q2 - The Effectiveness of the Combination of Our Main Product & Ancillary Texts

Promoting a film is one of the most important stages in creating a film. The movie industry uses this to advertise and market their films, whether poster or trailer, via social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), streaming sites like YouTube, and placing posters on billboards, bus stops and buses to name a few. To further promote films, actors would usually be called for interviews with magazines, and this way the audience can find out more about the film. Top films go as far as to marketing their films through Cross Media Convergence – for example, the 2007 film Dark Knight was made into a game, a XBOX 360 model was created for it, and also Domino’s pizza would promote the film.

 

To give an idea of how our film would look being advertised in different media, I have created mocked up versions of where I would advertising using Photoshop:

Promoting Red Ink on Billboards

Film posters are advertising on billboards so even people driving cars or on buses can see the poster.

Promoting Red Ink at Bus Stops

Whilst standing at bus stop, just to pass the time, people would stare at the billboards at the shelter while waiting for their bus, which may very well have the same poster being advertised on the side!

Promoting Red Ink in the Newspaper

Newspapers would sometimes feature film posters. I decided to advertise the poster on an article based on a rape charge, as I thought the mood fitted the movie well.

Promoting Red Ink on YouTube

The art of promotion was well thought out through our many group discussions. As seen in the images above, our "RED INK" poster has been manipulated into common/ obvious places for advertisment. This was done by using PhotoShop which really helped create a more realistic vision of how our trailer would be advertised. By promoting our tailer on billboards and bus stop shelters, I feel this would lead to successful promotion of our trailer as many people ride the bus and walk past billboards. I think that our poster is very unique, eye-catching and grim which is bound to turn heads.

Now, that our poster has caught attention, it is natural for people to want to know more and further their opinion of our trailer by heading over to YouTube to view the real thing. Also, (as noticed above) there is an image of our poster that has been manipulated in a way that doesn't reveal too much, which will lead to people wanting to view our trailer even more. This has been done by many films, such as "Horrible Bosses", "The Dark Knight" etc.
 By taking over YouTube, in terms of advertisment, I think that this a brilliant way of really reaching out towards target audiences, as people of many ages visit YouTube and all most everything is online now, which helps add to views on YouTube. For others, who prefer to pick up a newspaper/ magazine and read about our trailer, this can be done as our "RED INK" poster has been manipulated into a section of a local newspaper. I think this is another effective way of advertising as it doesn't exclude those who prefer reading. In addition, a common way of advertising would be via televison however, I think that our group decided to not follow convetions and promote our trailer in a more social way, rather than discussing it in the home but by advertsing our trailer in so many different places; the cost is bound to be expensive. Therefore, advertising via television would definitely be the cheaper option. Overall, I think our advertising ideas are very effective and would lead to a successful promotion and film release.

When creating the trailer, we knew it was important to make sure the poster and magazine had the same style in terms of lighting, colour and setting. Because of this, when creating the poster and magazine we were sure to use pictures that feature the main character Eric in a dark room, which is the same setting used for the trailer. We also made sure to keep the same style of font, all being serif fonts, and the colour scheme stays as black and red. The poster and magazine both feature Eric in a drawing position, just as he is drawing throughout the trailer.