When answering this question, it must be remembered that the ultimate goal of the trailer, poster and magazine cover is to promote the product (the Hypothetical movie) to the target audience, and the role of the many different components that make up the advertising campaign through the distributor.
The distributors job would be to ensure the advertising effort reaches out to the maxmimum number of people to acquire greater profits and therefore would attempt to create a clear, synchronised image that the advertising campaign would focus on specific elements as a focal point of the advertising campaign.
Normally the role of the distributor would be to acquire interviews in magazines and TV shows, to promote viral campaigns and websites for the movie, create the trailers (Teaser and Feature), the posters and finally provide liscences to exhibitors so that the film itself can actually be watched and acquire a profit (be this through DVD, Cinema or through new Media systems such as the Apple Iplayer) however due to the nature of the project this was largely impossible for us to achieve.
The distributors job would be to ensure the advertising effort reaches out to the maxmimum number of people to acquire greater profits and therefore would attempt to create a clear, synchronised image that the advertising campaign would focus on specific elements as a focal point of the advertising campaign.
Normally the role of the distributor would be to acquire interviews in magazines and TV shows, to promote viral campaigns and websites for the movie, create the trailers (Teaser and Feature), the posters and finally provide liscences to exhibitors so that the film itself can actually be watched and acquire a profit (be this through DVD, Cinema or through new Media systems such as the Apple Iplayer) however due to the nature of the project this was largely impossible for us to achieve.
The 2 elements of the distributors role that we would therefore be in charge of were the creation of a Poster and a Teaster Trailer as detailed below...
The poster was designed with the typical "Slasher" and "Gore" fan in mind and was designed to appeal largely to them over any other audience. The poster was designed to be filled with blood, have a very vicious face and create a sense of violent movement that was designed to appeal to this target audience, despite them not being the full breadth of the audience that we would aim to attract. The reason therefore I chose to work on this demographic was due to the recent rise of "Gorenography" or "Torture Porn" as the most commonly watched style of horror, increasing the likelyhood of "word of mouth" to spread to other fanbases by using the poster to target the die hard fans of the former mentioned genres. On a side note, the poster was also designed to have a 1 colour theme with the villain as the subject in the same manner as the early Slasher posters were designed, hopefully to create a poster that was attractive to the old fans of the genre. One final minor element that was a key descision was the choice of choosing the trailer as being age rated 15. It is a long running and commen peice of knowledge amongst horror fans such as myself, that any horror film that is rated as a 15 since the early 2000`s is far more likely to have a better plot than one rated as 18, which will generally be focused entirely on adult themes (such as sex or violence) with little room left for a credible and effective story, therefore by making it a 15 I appeal once again to the more horror 'savvy' individuals of the potential audience.
The poster contained several key themes that it shared with the teaser trailer in an attempt to mimic the efforts that a distributor would try and do. One of these elements was the catchphrase on the poster of "How well do you know your freinds?" that was self refferential to several quotes within the trailer, both from the protagonist (When she says "Whats happened to Peter?") and by the intertitles themselves (with the line "And can you really trust your freinds?") having the plotline as a key advertising theme.
Character wise, the trailer and poster would also benefit from the antagonist being a central part of both (with the villain receiving most of the screen time and being the entire focal point of the poster) in a similiar manner to the campaign released for 'The Dark Knight' in which the image of the Joker appeared to be on the majority of the posters and the trailer keyed itself around images of him or his own dialogue.
The teaser trailer was also designed not only with the heavy Slasher themes (something that both the trailer and the poster extremely focus on) but it also shared its focus with blood as a key element to its make up, with the "poster boy" antagonist also being covered in blood most of the time throughout the trailer (even to the point of including a violent fit on the ground where the antagonist is noted for spewing up blood rather violently). These shocking and violent images would hopefully be self refferential when a member of the potential audience would be looking at the images on either.
The poster contained several key themes that it shared with the teaser trailer in an attempt to mimic the efforts that a distributor would try and do. One of these elements was the catchphrase on the poster of "How well do you know your freinds?" that was self refferential to several quotes within the trailer, both from the protagonist (When she says "Whats happened to Peter?") and by the intertitles themselves (with the line "And can you really trust your freinds?") having the plotline as a key advertising theme.
Character wise, the trailer and poster would also benefit from the antagonist being a central part of both (with the villain receiving most of the screen time and being the entire focal point of the poster) in a similiar manner to the campaign released for 'The Dark Knight' in which the image of the Joker appeared to be on the majority of the posters and the trailer keyed itself around images of him or his own dialogue.
The teaser trailer was also designed not only with the heavy Slasher themes (something that both the trailer and the poster extremely focus on) but it also shared its focus with blood as a key element to its make up, with the "poster boy" antagonist also being covered in blood most of the time throughout the trailer (even to the point of including a violent fit on the ground where the antagonist is noted for spewing up blood rather violently). These shocking and violent images would hopefully be self refferential when a member of the potential audience would be looking at the images on either.
Aside from the role of the Distributor, we were also tasked with the creation of a Magazine cover (a situation that would most likely have occured in part thanks to the distributor releasing press information or specific interviews from the director or producers directly to the magazine, further building the neccesary hype).
The magazine cover however was designed with a different style in mind than that of the poster.. Whilst the poster would be all "blood and guts", the magazine cover would try to focus on the supernatural element of the film (with blackened out eyes on the villain to make him appear otherworldly). This was designed in contrast to the poster not only because of the sense of intruige I would hope to create, but so also to attract audiences other than the "Torture porn" crowd, maximising my possibility for word of mouth distribution to reach the maximum number of people it can.
Rather interestingly, the magazine cover would share a colour scheme that was far more linked to the trailer than the poster would be, with the magazine focusing far more on the blue orientation that the trailer centered around.
The magazine would hopefully be very effective in part due to the role of the distributor in supplying information and "snippets" from the film to the magazine. This magazine cover for example features "exclusive pictures from the film" which would in theory garner far more hype for the promotion by requiring those interested in the genre or the film specifically to find out this special information and see this special footage by buying the magazine.As noted from the earlier theory of 'word of mouth' and due to the nation of magazine circulation and readership figures, it is very likely that if the distributor had done a good job in providing good information, good posters and an interesting trailer that the word of mouth and general publicity would be very successful and combine effectivly to attain the goals required.
Some good comments here but you need to show more understanding of how a distributor creates a marketing plan. This is divided into three areas. Advertising, publicity, and promotion. Two of your products are advertising products, and you need to explore how they work together to create a coherent advertising image for the film. The magazine is not an example of advertising, it is an example of publicity, and is not something that the distributor would control. The distributor would try to generate favourable publicity by creating press packs, organising junkets for the press, and interview rounds for the stars and director on TV and for magazine coverage.
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