How Effective is the combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

There was a clear awarness to make sure as a group that our brand was obvious and notible. As our teaser trailer went along the lines of a ‘real-life’ cult we wanted our advertising to be all similar and striking enough to know that it was our brand straight away. We knew our audience was probably to be aimed at a 15+ audience and therefore we made the branding less childish and more sophisticated

When looking at our main ancillary tasks we knew that as there was to be a strong link between all three tasks we  looked at several factors that effected all three.

TYPOGRAPHY 

We experimented with many different kinds of typography. However in the end we decided on the font 'typewriter condensed' from the font website 'dafont' it seemed to have a  very sci-fi feel to it, but therefore holds those connotations of conspiracy and suspense that we'd like. It also looks like a lot more modern in the style of typewriter - like old 90's computer font which gives more technological connotations we'd like. 

(Research: Typography)

(Final Poster Design)

We used the font in all three of our tasks therefore creating a clear sense of connection between all three.

CHARACTER

One of the codes and conventions of psychological thriller is to have a key protagonist and especially in our case we only introduced one key character who may be seen to be our cult leader or the leader of the political broadcast.

We used our actress in all three of our tasks.

(Screen Test Lauren Bradley)

TECHNOLOGY IMAGERY

In all of our tasks, especially our trailer itself we gave connotations and ideas of technology throughout. On our website we used a television static background, giving connotations of problems with the ideas of technology involved. In our poster design we used a bright screen with our cult symbol on it to reflect onto our actress' eye. This again gives connotations of a technological cult impacting on the mind through brainwashing. And in our trailer itself we used many short shots involving technology.

(The Resolution: Viral)

(Subliminal Messaging)

(Green Screen Test #3)

Final Poster Design!

We'd originally been playing around with using graphics and symbols to get across this idea of technology and our cult using Photoshop, but decided that though this correlated with our trailer, on its own didn't make logical sense - it was almost too subliminal and psychological, too linked into our cult as opposed to advertising the film itself. We decided to go with a photographic image in the end - after one unproductive afternoon Googling Google, we stumbled upon this image of Google reflected in an eye (above - we can't seem to find a source!) We thought this could work for our cult as well - replacing the Google logo with our cult's symbol being reflected into the eye, we liked the concept, that hint at brainwashing we wanted to get across - it reminded me of the brainwashing sequence in The Ipcress File, and the close up of his eyes as the flashing images reflect in it - I liked this idea that the cult was visually penetrating the brainwashee, or that the cult was always inside of us.

The Original Image:

We used our actress - Lauren Bradley's eye, because not only were they piercingly blue, but it established this idea that she was the cult's puppet, that she had been manipulated and brainwashed like all the other cult members even though she figure headed it and that the cult were in complete control of her. It took quite a few attempts to get all the positioning quite right - we used the dark room, keeping the whole room in darkness except for a laptop we placed on Lauren's knee with the symbol on its screen and tried to reflect directly into her pupil - we thought the artifical light of the laptop onto her face gave that technological feel to the shot, the whiteness and hints of blue it reflected. This was the best shot and I think we got it almost exactly how we'd envisioned it, we now just needed to edit it.

First Edit:

We wanted her face to have the same white finish it had in the trailer, and enhanced the exposure of the shot, lowering the saturation very slightly but also upping the contrast so that her eye lashes, and particularly the logo, stood out the most. We added slight tints of blue to add that technological feel and increased the whites of her eyes to make them unnaturally white - we wanted it to look like she was mid brainwashing, stunned and blinded.

Almost Final Edit:

Here we added in the font - we compositioned the eye slightly more to the right and added in the titles in our chosen font, Typewriter Condensed - borrowing the bottom credits from another film poster. We enlarged the whole picture very slightly as we wanted the majority of the lower half to be white, smoothing out her skin on Photoshop and again increasing the levels of white and the contrast just a touch. We wanted to refit the text, it seems stretched and we wanted the The Resolution very slightly bigger and the tagline - 'We are the answer, the only answer' - slightly smaller as well as eliminating the white background it has unfitting to the poster's, we wanted it to be just text on top of the image.

Research: Typography.

1942 Newspaper: Too creepy? This would be part of all of the cult's advertising campaign and though we want the viewer to be aware of the danger the Resolution hides, the Resolution wouldn't openly advertise this which I think this font does. The slightly eerie typewriter feel, not all quite printed, doesn't fit with our cult's clinically sharp feel, it seems too old fashioned and too creepy.

Old Newspaper: Too thick? Not sure that the title suits being in capitals, it's too much of a statement and again I don't think the typewriter effect works - too old fashioned. The Resolution needs to be modern and contemporary but with an eerie edge.

Typewriter Condensed: In the end, our chosen font. It seems to work much better in lowercase as well - it seems more approachable? The font does seem to be slightly similar to the font of the X Files, it does seem to have a  very sci fi feel to it, but therefore holds those connotations of conspiracy and suspense that we'd like. It also looks like a lot more modern in the style of typewriter - like old 90's computer font which gives more technological connotations we'd like.

Orwell: I think this would work well if it were an older cult, it seems like a font you might find in an old book slightly jagged around the edges, but again we wanted something more modern than this.

Dactylographe: Too wide, it seems disproportionate as a font. I think we liked the look of it because we thought it had a modern, computer type feel but it seems obscurely wide and doesn't have that professionalism we wanted.

Telegraphem: This looks like old army font which is completely the wrong connotation we wanted to give off - we wanted to allude to the cult perhaps having ties with the government and military by including shots of protests and an A-bomb but this would set the tone as a predominantly military based film I think.

TYPOGRAPHY

Clear Stand-out Clarity Text Emotions Genre

Typography is about the font, colour and degign of the text and how it can prevoke emotions and give ideas to the audience.

Typography can also be creative and artistic.

Typography can also introduce the idea of being 'confusing on purpose'