As my project was to create a marketing campaign for a film, involving a poster, magazine front cover, and teaser trailer, I was aware almost immediately of the relationships between the three products. The teaser trailer and the poster are marketed by the company behind the film. Everything is the same, the fonts, tone, and genre. There is a common theme between them, and this is because the production company want to sell the film to the audience, and can control what the poster and teaser trailer tell, and make, the audience think.
The magazine front cover on the other hand, has very little contribution from the film company. Apart from providing the magazine with a selection of images to choose between, they have as little contribution as anyone else. The magazine has its own font, own layout, and decides on its tone. This makes it stand alone in my marketing campaign, as I had to create a magazine cover from the viewpoint of the magazine, not the production company.
As I mentioned, it was imperative that there was a relationship between my poster and teaser trailer. I had to spend a lot of time deciding on the tone of my movie, and finding a way to incorporate that tone onto my poster and teaser trailer, and be able to create a poster and trailer that convey that tone in such a way that the audience can see it, and that it comes across over both the poster and trailer. This was difficult to do because I could not treat each product by itself, for example, my tagline on my poster is "Nobody ever notices the cleaner", and this is also a line spoken by the main character in my trailer. It may not seem like to big of a deal but it is something that the audience may notice, and may effect them and attach them to my film.
The font I used was 'Headliner No. 45'. It took me a long time to decide what font to use because the genre and plot of my film is very particular, in the sense that there is normal person who has got himself involved with the wrong people, but has to do bad things in order to return to his once-normal life. Therefore, the font had to, in a way, reflect that. This font does just that, as it is a sharp font, that has a dark feel to it, but also leaves room for interpretation.
Another way the ancillary texts and my product combine well is due to the anticipation they cause. For example, I used the reviews and ratings, and the release date, to cause excitement among the audience. During my research, I noticed that many posters do not contain the exact release date of the film. This may be because there is not a confirmed date yet, but more often than not it is to create a buzz about the film. If the audience have a rough date of when the film will come up, they will, intentionally or unintentionally, think about it and look forward to it. Also, reviews and ratings also create excitement. Speaking from personal opinion and from my research, the reception the film has gathered effects the interest in the movie. The audience take reviews from respected names such as Empire and Rolling Stone seriously, and if they say a movie is good, the audience think the movie is good. Production companies know the audience notice the reviews, therefore it is a welcome part of the marketing campaign.
I used the same font for all text on my poster, except for the billing which is written in the font 'Steel Tongs', as it is the convention in all film posters to show your billing in that font. I personally like how, as my tagline ends with the name of the film, I took advantage of the opportunity to combine the tagline and the film name into one, as seen above. It may be a simple idea, but it is something which the audience will remember, as it is text that flows and is memorable. I noticed during my research of taglines that this is not such a common thing. The majority of posters include taglines that stand alone from the film title, but that is not to say that what I decided to do was wrong, but I just took advantage of the opportunity to do something different that would stand out.
Although the billing on my poster uses a different font to the rest of the poster, the billing on my teaser trailer, as mentioned earlier, uses my font 'Headliner No. 45'. By using the same font, this again causes the audience to notice a link between my trailer and my poster. I also noticed during my research that the billing does not necessarily have to be just on one page, it can be put on two pages so as not to put pressure on fitting all the billing onto one page. This allows the billing to look neat, and attractive. When I created my billing, I realised I needed to split my billing over two pages. I noticed immediately how beneficial it is, as it seemed a lot more presentable, as well as looking professional.
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