How effective is the combination of your main task and ancillary tasks?

The combination of our main task and ancillary task works well together through the use of layout, design, language, persuasive techniques and mode of address. Technical appliances were need such as camera angle, lens choice, framing, shutter speed, depth of field, lighting and exposure and juxtaposition. Symbols such as objects, settings, body language, clothing and colour where there to construct a meaning for the audience. As an encoder I had to consider some semiotics for the decoder. Semiotics is the study of signs and their role in the construction and organisation. We believed written words such as headlines, captions, speech bubbles and the style of the magazine and poster would help the viewer to recognise the media text. As a group we wanted our trailer, magazine and poster to create a sense of polysemic which allows more than one interpretation of the story line so the viewers could decode the media text the way they want. The media text we wanted to create an anchorage where words are used to direct the meaning of an image for the reader encouraging them to understand a particular meaning.

Through the process of creating the poster, I decided to have it A4 portrait as most posters do. I have kept all the codes and conventions of a poster so the audience are quick to recognise that it is a film poster selling a new film. The centre of the poster is an image of the final girl who is also the main character. She has blood dripping from her mouth suggesting she is the monster in the film. She is also wearing a white school shirt and a black tie suggesting to the viewer she is still a school girl. This image may encourage the viewers to find out more on the subject matter concerning a school girl with blood on her lips suggesting she is involved with the killing of the victims portrayed around her. The six images screen shot from the trailer are there to advertise a few photos to encourage the viewer to take a rather more interest in the film. By doing so I am aware that I have given off a bit of the film as in some horror films it is not so obvious who the monster is until you are half way the movie. However my aim is to let the audience know Holly and understand her so enigma code can be raised to whether they are willing to sympathise with Holly knowing she is a killer because of her dark past or would the audience still hold something against her for being a killer anyway. At the bottom of the poster the end card is placed with the film company and the scan code for people to scan the code via their phone which will automatically access them to the film website. Not only did I not break the codes and conventions of the poster I also kept the codes and conventions of a horror film magazine. I kept the three colour schemes which were red black and grey to emphasize the horror of the film. The front cover is of Holly with blood dripping from her mouth. The layout of the magazine is sophisticated to suggest the seriousness of the film. The typography is simple with just two different fonts used for the writing. If this was a real film, Holly would be a well-known actress to a few horror films. Her face is therefore the main selling point.

The layout of the magazine is influenced and inspired by Gorezone which also has the main character at the front of the cover with blood dripping from her and a horrendous facial expression. The pictures which I have used for the poster and magazine are the same images which would be seen in the trailer giving the viewer more thrills to watch the trailer and the film in the cinema.
The types faces and fonts I have used are to encourage the viewers to read more if it is a magazine or to watch the trailer if it is a poster. In the trailer the captions are in red blocks with a horror film about it on
a black background.

This typography builds a horrific atmosphere to the film. The title of the magazine is called Gorezone taken from an actual horror magazine. This process of taking a used name is called ‘bricolage’ which is ‘borrowing’ signs and features from different text. The colours of some of the font is red as red has the connotations of anger, danger and horror. The background is grey almost like being in the middle of black and white or light and dark suggesting there is a mixture of the killer in this film; not everything is the way it seems.

The size and quality of the picture fits well with the magazine as a whole including its features. The centre image was edited to get the right light and shading to create a horrific atmosphere through the magazines and posters. Make-up needed to be applied such as black eyeliner and red lipstick illustrating mise en scene of sexuality towards Holly. Her aim was to look attractive and dangerous just like the femme fatale in film noir. The quality is of a high standard as the images were taken off a digital camera. On the poster there are smaller images of scenes from the trailer and the quality there is poor as I sprint screen the images from the trailer. The low quality is not as obvious as they are small and not the main focus of the poster. There are there to encourage the viewers to take a more positive approach to the film. The images have been cropped and edited. It is obvious to recognise on the magazine that editing has been taken place on the image of Holly as she has red eyes, her skin is clear and flawless and the edges around her hair are a bit rough as I removed the background. As I did not have the best quality software to edit the images, the magazine did not look so professional through the centred image and the rough outlines. However placing all the codes and conventions in the right placed made the magazine more recognisable. The cropping of the images on the poster and magazine are not recognisable. The photographs relate to the rest of the stories and front page as they all have an image of Holly in the same clothing and a cold and deadly facial expression. On the poster some of the images are taken from the trailer, this is also apparent as the viewer can see a dead person, someone getting strangled and someone running away from Holly. These particular images have been selected as they are there to encourage people to know more about the film if the images inspire them to.

The size of the headline of the magazine is the largest font size compared with the rest of the page. The reason being the viewer will recognise and learn what the brand name of the magazine promoting the film. ‘A Kiss of Death’ is in the same font and colour in the end card of the trailer and the poster creating a combination between them. The key words in the trailer, magazine and the poster is the title itself ‘A Kiss of Death’. The font of the title is always read. The same text effect used on the title is found in the trailer and the poster to build consistency.  The headline ‘A kiss of Death’ in the magazine has Holly as a background with red lipstick and blood dripping down her lips. This suggests the film will portray a sense of sexuality and murder. There are no words omitted from the page although I did consider placing a gripping caption on the poster. I did not go along with the plan as the poster layout did not permit me time to do so. From the poster, the headline is gripping with a horrific theme to it giving the reader the message that the film itself is horrendous. The captions in the trailer such as “they happened” gives an impression that something happened that should not have happened emphasizing to the reader a disequilibrium has occurred.
The mode of address helps to establish the relation between the media production and audience. When our trailer is released there will be a first person voice over to guide the audience through the story. Some movies the audience may know more than the characters however in this film some of the information will be held back and limited for the audience to create dramatic tension. The impersonal mode of address would sometimes be broken when the character looks into the camera and speaks to the audience and this is found in comedy. However in this horror film there will be no dialogue of Holly addressing to the audience. However the only times she looks into the camera is to give the impression that she is alone in this world and even the audience are part of her enemies.

It is important that the trailer, poster and the front cover magazine works well in conjunction of each other. I have done this through the colours and images combining the main product being the trailer and the ancillary task which is the poster and front cover magazine. After this part of the work is done, as a group we had to think of a distribution plan with the little budget we have. We decided to use synergy to help our film to reach the viewer’s social media as the vast majority of our target audience are most likely to appear on. Millions of people access YouTube on a daily basis and by placing my trailer there it will permit anyone to access it. Comments will be left and the amount of views will be shown which will encourage more people to see the trailer and be in the process of wanting to watch the film if the comments and views encourages them to. Moreover I can use social network such as twitter, Myspace, Bebo, Facebook and Hi5 to my best advantages to post the trailer on people’s pages to watch and leave their reviews. This will also encourage their friends and word of mouth will go round about the trailer. On Facebook I could even create a page on the film where questions about the film will be answered and upcoming premiers and festivals on the film would be posted up and distributed to everyone linked to the page. Moreover I could adapt the poster to place it as an online banner for people on the internet. This will give them the opportunity to access the film website and find out more on the film as well as watching the trailer.
The poster can also be distributed in public and specific areas because of the low budget. A successful place for people to notice the film would be at a horror film festival placing the poster around the area knowing my target audience would be around to see it. Located placed such as Camden where horror and gothic mainstream will attract a lot of horror fans to watch the film. On the poster there will be a bar code which will allow the viewers to scan the code on their phone which will place them to the actual film website where they can find out anything they are looking for concerning the film. Furthermore, at specific cinemas such as ones which are specific with horror films would be able to show our trailer to the audience before the actual film begins.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product.

The genre in which I am working on is Horror/ slasher films. A typical slasher film would be based in a suburban area. The reason being the audience are family with the surrounding as most of them probably live in a suburban area. The film would be more real to them as it is almost like it is close to home. There will continuously be victims (a group of students) and the offender who is the monster.  Amongst the friends there will be a mousy, quiet and virginal girl and a sexual active girl. The virginal girl is frequently the survivor at the end of the film and the sexual active girl gets killed off first demonstrating the social norm and importance of keeping your virginity for as long as you can. The sexual active girl dying first suggests to the targeted audience that education in this case is much more important than sex and boys. Physically the virginal final girl has a masculine look about her so that the male audience can identify with her. She has dark hair, and at times she takes the role of a mother when she takes care of her younger siblings; this is evident in the film Halloween.

During the time of the crime caused by the monster who is generally a man, parents are not present. The reason being, the audience may feel the character’s anxiety and nervousness when trouble occur as there is no one available of a mature level to rescue them in times of trouble. A figure of authority such as a policeman is commonly at present but incapable to handle the situation as at times he would be clueless or not believe the young victims. A benefactor however is something that the victims can confined in and seek for help. This is evident in Psycho when the doctor understood who the monster was and the reason why they were doing the killing. In our trailer A Kiss of Death parents are also absent and the killing is taken place in the woods to create a sense of fear and isolation among the audience. The audience will therefore empathy with the characters as they are away from home or any possible contact to rescue them. The benefactor does not change the plot or save anyone although that is his intension but the final girl is the one that remains alive. This shows all her goodness in her character and not following into her friend’s footstep was a stepping stone in her survival. The monster in this case is a presentation of a penis trying to penetrate his nice into the young virginal girl. Although the final girl is the victim at this point, the moment she strikes the knife into the monster in defence, she is now seen as dangerous and capable of murder as the monster. This theory is true for some critics. In A Kiss of Death, the codes and conventions have been changed where the victim herself becomes the monster. This was made to break stereotypes and to demonstrate not only men can be a danger to women and sexually deprived, women also have the ability to hurt men in such manners.

This is an establishing shot showing where the killings are taken place. Most of the killing did not happen in the suburban area like a typical slasher film, most of the killings occurred in the woods where atmosphere of horror can be felt by the audience. this also leaves the audience hopeless as they may feel to help the victims but not able to. more tension is created there will not be any help available for them in the woods; now the victims are helpless so the audience.

‘The Monstrous Feminine’ studied by Freud suggests when we are little children we live in a pre-oedipal space where we don’t recognise we apparently want to kill our father and have sex with our mothers. This theory is demonstrated through a male point of view as we live in a male patriarchy society. According to Barbra Creed who based her research on horror films comments that due to the fear and lack of castration in our society, women are viewed as a threat. Through cinematic techniques, when the monster and the final girl are in the same shot equally (this is evident in the film Alien), you can see them as the same people. The final girl has a mother figure within the film (this is demonstrated in the films Halloween when the final girl is babysitting her brother and a neighbours daughter) which brings her a desire to return to the pre-oedipal space which is therefore disrupted by the monster. The final girl/ mother eventually kill the monster. Even when it has all ended, she kills the monster making her now monstrous.

This shot is taken from the film Aliens. Some critics use this image to explain Freudian's theory on monstrous women. The final woman in this shot and the alien are equally in the same framework implying they are equal theatrically speaking.

The Freudian theory can be applied to our trailer ‘A Kiss of Death’. Holly was originally a mousy, virginal girl and by life circumstances, she could not handle the pressures of life and abuse in the past. She is seen as the final girl through her kindness and masculine look for the male audience to identify with, a desire to return to identify with, desire to return to the pre-oedipal space, which is disrupted by the monster. Eventually Holly becomes the monster by killing all those people that abused her. Through her character binary opposite is demonstrated from a sweet shy student to a man killer. She searched for revenge. The older she became the bitter she was and the more physically attractive she was the more male attention she received. In the trailer it is obvious her current boyfriend has cheated on her which has angered her. That has almost become the last straw as he was everything to her. She could not let this mistreatment slip. A rage of anger grows in her and she begins to kill everyone who has ever made her life miserable. Throughout the movie Holly would use her beauty to trap men and murder them. Her character is inspired by the femme fatale. Femme fatale occurred in film noir during the 1940s where women would play the lead role of ‘femme fatale’ where they were able to control men by their power, mystery and sexuality. Lauren Mulvey (1975) argues that women are seen through the dominant male gaze by camera angles in order to display voyeurism, and a sense of control. Holly is portrayed in such manner through her dressing. Mise en scene is identified as her revealing school uniform reveals a sexual element in her. She wears a mini tight skirt demonstrating she has sexual intentions. Her tights are ripped and she is wearing military boots which portrays to the audience she is not as feminine as she may look although her clothing suggest so. A sense of binary opposition is conveyed in the iconography of the innocence of the school universe and her murderous acts. Moreover her clothing is black suggesting she is evil. She wears a white shirt giving her sympathy as she did not want to turn out like a monster but the way life has mistreated her she had no choice. At the same time Holly is still a victim throughout.

 At this point of the film we can recognise the depression Holly is going through caused by the bullies at school and her mother at home. enigma code is raised to how she will get out of this misery adn if she will remain a victim throughout the movie.

 In typical slasher films the final girl is usually sensible, mousy and virginal. she is stuck into her books rather then boys and parties. the codes and conventions of the true nature of a final girl was not changed as we wanted a twist and challange some of the narrative of horror films.

This image is of Holly transformed into what is known as a serial killer in the film. she is not the mousy, virginal girl she was, she has now become the monster, sexually deprived teenager seeking for revenge.

Sound is dramatically important to our trailer. Sound brings the whole trailer alive and captures the audience attention to decide to spend their time and money going to the cinema to watch the film. In the trailer there is no dialogue heard or diegetic sound except for a masculine voice over. We have non diegetic sound to bring the trailer to life. At the beginning of the trailer, the orchestrated instrumental begins to go play at a steady pace in time with the camera shots. As the film gradually comes half way, the music picks up its pace as the shots also begins pick up the pace. As we approach the ending where the killing occurs the music is faster and the camera shots are in constant of the music with quick camera shots.

Narrative is the way of organising the process of telling stories. How the stories are shaped, structured and then potentially decoded and understood by how the encoder approached the message. Tvzetan todorov suggest narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium (beginning, middle, and end). We have applied this theory to A kiss of Death. Equilibrium in our trailer is that Holly continuously gets bullied at school by her peer and when she gets home her mum is abusive as she is an alcoholic. The disequilibrium is that she gets fed up and frustrated of her treatment and the last straw is catching her boyfriend cheating on her. Now her revenge tactics begin. Equilibrium is finding out a way to stop Holly from all the murders she has committed. The state is looking for her. Just when they think she is dead on the hospital bed, a while later her body cannot be found. This ending was inspired by Halloween when the ‘boggey man’ seemed dead on the floor after fighting the final girl but a while later the camera angle shots where his body was last seen and nothing was there. Enigma code is raised. Claude Levi-strauss is a constant creation of conflict/ opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution or conflict; example light/dark, good/evil, victim/monster. In A Kiss of Death we can identify some of these binary opposite through the huge transition in Holly as we have subverted the monster from being a man to a woman.  In 1928 a famous analysis, Vladimir Propp used fairy tale for his research on the different characters he could identify. The characters are the hero, the villain, the donor, the helper and the heroine. In A Kiss of Death the villain is recognised as Holly, the hero would be the state as they do everything to save the victims on time however that does not go well. Also the helper would be the teacher who Holly would speak tot occasionally about her issues regarding home and school. The helper is also the benefactor for giving Holly wise words to keep her on track although it did not affect the storyline. The character roles and the functions identified by Propp can be applied to all kinds of narrative such as TV news programmes are often presented with heroes and villains.

Action code is often used as shorthand for advancing the narrative. This is true to the trailer of A kiss of death Holly is seen walking calmly with a knife and the next shot a victim is running with speed away from her direction suggesting she is on a hunt to murder the victim. As she has power and control she does not need to run for she knows wherever the victim goes she will be able to track them down and kill them. Enigma code explains the narrative by controlling what and how much information is given to the audience. This is intended to capture the audience attention and draw them into asking questions. The aim of this storyline is to make it original and interesting by changing some of the codes and conventions so the film is not too obvious.

At the beginning of the trailer we have already introduced to the audience that the monster in the film was not born to kill however circumstances in life lead her to lose her mind and takes revenge in her own hands however in a dramatic way. The synopsis and the trailer will raise enigma code to how far Holly will go until she is satisfied she has taken revenge? Will innocent people get hurt? If her parents are one of those people that hurt her will she there for kill her parents too? These kinds of questions would lead the audience to pay money to watch the film in the cinema. Through uses and gratification I am able to understand the audience and why they consume the media. Katz and Blumler (1974) suggested four broad needs why the audience consume the media. They are: diversion; a form of escape or emotional release from everyday pressures; Personal relationships- companionship and a form of discussion with friends for entertainment purposes; Personal identity where the audience can identify with the character and sympathy with them, reflecting on their own lives and perspective. These three forms of consuming the media is useful for the film to sell to the niche market as the film can provide the audience all three forms.

The magazine and poster also work well together with the trailer giving the viewer more understanding of the film. The magazine will promote the film as it would have all the backstage gossip of the film, interviews from actors and actresses featuring the film, and also a chance to win prices by entering competitions. The main goal is for the audience to have a good understanding of the actor’s and the film itself so once they enter the cinema they are able to appreciate the hard work and feel a part of the team for taking time and effort knowing more about the film then just watching it. The posters will be a reminder for people who have not seen the trailer or read the magazine to encourage them to watch the film and get involved for entertainment purposes. As we have a small budget and a niche market, the posters would not be featured everywhere except from placed where we know our target market can be aimed; places such as Camden.