Final Product (Ancillaries)
Our ancillaries can be seen down below. We had to complete a marketing poster and an article/review for our film. It was interesting for us as a group to delve into the ins and outs of film marketing and to look at how film companies are able to reach mass audiences (as well as niche). Perhaps most importantly for us, though, was the way we looked to make all of the ancillary work fit in and keep to a theme for our film too so it all related with each other nicely. The point behind this is so the marketing is smooth enough to point people in the direction of our film; for example, if someone can associate our poster with our film, they'll be more likely to want to come and watch. Anyway, though, below are our finished products and how we got to them - I hope you enjoy following our journey!
Film Poster
For our Poster, the research took a little bit longer than it did for the article because we really wanted to give our film the kind of marketing that would make everyone want to see it. We wanted it to really stand out. In order to do this we looked at a few posters from others films that really stood out to us. Of which one was a poster that came out with the neo-noir crime/action film known as “Drive” (starring Ryan Gosling). This was chosen specifically because we knew it would contain certain aspects we could look at drawing from due to the film’s genre being very similar to that of our own. As you can see from this poster, it’s very heavily focused on the vehicle with the main character standing in front of it. The combination of this plus the bold and large title tells us straight away the type of content is going to be in this film (car chases and a cool/collected protagonist) which is something we liked a lot. As a result, it gave us the idea that we wanted to have our Audi as the main focus of our poster and perhaps our protagonist too because we were able to get a few cool looking shots of David during filming.
The other poster we looked at in detail was one from a road action film called “Vanishing Point” which, although it’s an older film (1971), still contains a lot of features that we really liked a lot. In much the same way as “Drive”, this poster also has the car head on in the image although, in this one, the car feels like its driving right at us which is something that we felt we wanted to incorporate into our own poster. Due to the car being the focus, it allows for the rest of the background to be blurred out which also gives off the feeling that the film is high octane action and will keep you compelled the whole time. Fortunately for us, we had taken a lot of shots during our car chase looking at the Audi from an angle behind the Astra which meant we could definitely go somewhere with this concept if we wanted. The bigger focus we took from this poster, though, was certainly the font. Because it’s angled and blends into the road, it gives the idea that the car is moving at a very high speed and adds to this idea we get from the rest of the poster that makes us think this film will be full of continuous and rapid-paced action. Something we wanted for ourselves.
Although nothing in this poster would lead you to believe it, we also took something else away from it in that we thought that if we used a further out shot of the Audi, it would add to the tension of our film. We’d probably need a catchy tagline to emphasise the point, but if we had the Audi further back, it would give more of an idea of a chase like how the helicopters are used in the “Vanishing Point” poster. Not only this, but it would create an air of mystery for the film that would draw people into coming to watch it.
From here, then, we went on to create our poster. Below shows our progress through each stage of creation and the way it developed over time and with each section added:
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Final Version (Final Product)
Film Article
Our article didn’t take too much research because we already had an idea of what we wanted to write about, it was just a case of looking to base our graphical design off of something else’s layout. To do this, we looked some different interpretations of Spider-Man film articles. Both articles use a large image of the protagonist so that, immediately, the audience is aware of exactly what film it is and (in the case of the Spider-Man 2 article) who the antagonist is in the film too. This led us to coming up with the idea of making David (protagonist) the focus of our background for our article. Not only this but we thought that we could substitute the bag in for the potential antagonist and it would remind people of our film’s mystery. Either way, people would know what film was being discussed in the article if they saw David so we knew we’d have to get him on there in some respect. Besides the large image of the protagonist, though, the two articles are laid out fairly differently and offered us two avenues to go down for our design.
The first article covering “The Amazing Spider-Man” has a very theme-heavy layout. There’s a single shot that takes up the whole of the background with the text going across the whole double-page spread. This is a good way of keeping the article relevant to what’s in the film the whole time and remains as a constant reminder of what film the audience is reading about. Then there’s white writing going across this mainly black background image which offers an aesthetically pleasing effect for the audience and eases reading.
Alternatively, the “Spider-Man 2” article is laid out in a far more simplistic manner. The text is only on one side of the double-page spread and is entirely separate from the image of the protagonist. It’s also black on white which is less interesting but maybe this is more important for doing the job of just being the article without drawing too much attention away from the content.
Because we liked both designs equally for the most part, we decided to try out both styles and see which we'd prefer. Below are the stages that we went through whilst making both and then what one we finally went with:
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Final Version (Final Product)
NOTE: We went with this design in the end because we felt it came across as more professional plus we liked the idea that an audience would associate David as being with our film and want to pick up the article based on this premise.