Question 2:

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

During my research I ensured I explored my hybrid subgenre, psychological/ supernatural thoroughly so I could identify the codes and conventions and apply them to my products. The main focus in the film was the doll as it was the cause of the disequilibrium, and also the FGM and abuse. We wanted our products to link so that our audience could establish the relationship between them.

Firstly, we linked all 3 products through the title, Indelible. In both the film and poster we used the same font which we had downloaded from 1001fonts to allow our audience to be able to link products together and familiarise with it. Similarly with the tag line ‘It’s a chain reaction’ we had used the same font and colour in all 3 posters and it is also said in the radio trailer to foreshadow to the audience that in the film the events will reoccur.

The main feature of our poster was the doll, this was placed in the centre of frame. The doll was wearing a white dress with red blood stains signifying FGM or sexual abuse to the audience, the concept of our poster was a puppeteer. This symbolised to the audience that our main character, Madeline, is powerless and controlled by others. The doll symbolises our main actor, Madeline, in the film, as she has the FGM done on her. The face of the person controlling her is hidden and this created an enigma for our audience. Moreover, the audience are able to identify the significance of the doll as not only was it the main feature of our poster, in the film we had used repeated close-ups of the doll to reiterate the importance of the doll being the cause of the disequilibrium, this therefore created a synergy between the poster and film.

The theme of the film links to the poster through the use of the conventional horror colours, red, black and grey. The colour red is prominent in our campaign as it signifies blood, for example our title and the puppeteer strings were red, ✔in this case it connotes to the audience of the FGM.  The background of the poster was black in comparison to the dolls dress. The use of the colour black connotes darkness and evil and this suggests that our main character perhaps cannot escape the darkness and is surrounded by it. The colour white signifies purity and innocence, the contrast of the colours black and white clearly illustrates a binary opposite of evil and good. This is also shown in the film as we have the antagonist wear a white lab coat but with black clothing underneath. This makes him appear as good and trusting, however the black clothing underneath represents his dark and evil true nature. The binary opposites of good and evil is further reinforced when we have the protagonist wear white at the start of the film and at the end of the film she wears black to symbolise her change in character from good and innocent to evil.

The movie Split was released in 2017, the genre was psychological horror. It shares the same target audience as Indelible. Split had released 4 campaign film posters. Each and everyone reiterating the theme of having a split personality and a mental health disorder. This influenced our decision to produce 2 campaign teaser posters as we wanted to promote the film as well as hint the topic of FGM at our audience. ✔  The first teaser poster featured the hand of a girl tied down onto a surgery bed; the second teaser poster was of bloodied surgical equipment. This established an obvious connection between the both posters, hinting to the audience that a surgery will take place in the film. This is reinforced in the radio trailer as we added ambient surgery sounds such as lights buzzing and in addition to this, in the film we also added the same sound effects to relate back to the FGM and surgery.

In the radio trailer and film we used the same soundtrack in order to link the two products. This was because we wanted to create the same mood and atmosphere for audience when listening and viewing our products. We used non- diegetic sound of screaming to indicate to the audience that someone in the film will be hurt. This is reinforced by the use of blood in the posters and the use of the colour red.