EVALUATION EIGHT: How have you established a brand identity?

Creating our own individual brand and being able to bring unique and original ideas was a hard task to tackle, lots of the ideas that we had, had already been done, we wanted our brand identity to be strong and successful, so we needed as much inspiration we could get in order to make our trailer and ancillary texts, fun,original and professional. Making a brand included lots of different aspects such as, our target audience, what would they want from a brand? Our titles, how do our titles present us as film makers? All of these factors we had to take into consideration to make our brand exciting but also unique

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A key area where our brand can be noticed is through the title of our trailer. 'Joke's on you'. We feel that this particular chosen title is effective as it almost plays on the idea of the clown. Clowns are associated with telling jokes, so by incorporating this into the title, it helps to give the audience a teaser into what the trailer might be about. By including the second person pronoun 'You' it demonstrates a form of direct address, where the audience are addressed directly in the title, this helps to lure and captivate the audience into the title, and therefore the trailer as well. 'Joke's on you' is also an expression, as a way of revenge or getting your own back on someone, as then the 'Joke' is literally on them. This is a story line that is portrayed in the trailer, as the clown is following the girls around and creeping up on them at different locations. The audience are not told why the clown wants revenge, which conforms to Roland Barthes 'enigma codes', that what the audience do not know helps to tease and tantalize the audience, making them want to go and see the film. We furthered our brand identity by adding a balloon into the title. We feel that the balloon added another ironic twist to the title, as not only do clowns tell jokes, but they are often associated with carrying balloons around with them, to give them out to young children to keep them entertained. We used software's such as, Photoshop to manipulate the balloon to fit into the text, we wanted the balloon to appear professional within the title,as opposed to just placed randomly. When our title was displayed at the end,we played a non diegetic soundtrack of circus music, this music conformed to the idea of the clown, and helped to 'restore the equilibrium' as this is shown at the end of the trailer, which brings the audience back around to the primary purpose of the trailer. 

Another area where our brand identity can be established is through our production titles. We used two production titles, as we feel that this made our trailer seem more professional and sophisticated.We named one of our titles  "Purple Lake" as we feel that this is a professional and yet simplistic name that makes our film look as if it would have been distributed by a successful company. We decided to incorporate a colour in our production title, in which we went with the colour purple. The colour purple connotes aspect such as: Mystery, poison, toxic, and power in which the majority of these are seen to be negative, which helps to link to the genre of our trailer. From research, lots of production companies use simplistic locations such as mountains or animals. Thus, we decided to use a lake for our production company. It was easy to find a photograph of a lake off the internet in which we then edited on Photoshop. Photoshop is a complex platform, which allowed us to manipulate many different parts of the photograph. The first thing that we did, was edit the brightness and contrast of the photograph. We made the brightness +11, and the contrast -46. These particular scales ensure that the photograph had darker edges, and a brighter centre. This gave the illusion that it had a  'Vignette'  effect to it. this particular filter, creates a eerie daunting atmosphere due to the black shadows created in the background. This makes the institution effective, especially for a film with the genre of horror.We also decided to use the Hue and Saturation tool to edit the colouring of the photograph. As our company features the colour purple in the title, we decided to include this into our photograph as well. We made the hue +3. This particular scale made the image have a purple tone/shade to it, which not only created strong tonal contrasts, but it also helped to balance out the photograph with the title of the trailer. 


Establishing our own brand meant that we had to take into account the target audience that our brand is going to be aimed at. We made our production aimed at an audience ranging between ages 15-25. Horror films are predominantly aimed at younger audiences as they seek an adrenaline rush which a horror film can provide for them. From target audience research, we were able to distinguish what types of things these audience like and enjoy. For example, teenage girls of this age like to shop in high end brands such as Topshop, River Island and Mac. Therefore, this had an impact on the MES that we dressed the three antagonists in. We dressed them in jeans and t.shirts with camel coats and bomber jackets. This type of clothing is related to people of this age, and therefore the target audience. If the characters are wearing relatable clothing, then it will make the audience feel connected ad a part of the community in the trailer. The structure of our trailer and our ancillary texts meant that we had to consider the presentation of how everything is layed out. Young people want a rush, excitement therefore we wanted everything to be as bold as possible. When editing, we used 'chrome' effects over the top of the clown, so that the primary colours on the clowns mask (red) were bold and exuberant. In addition, we used the software of photoshop to manipulate and edit the title of our trailer. To extend this bold appearance for our audience with our brand, we used a icon called 'levels' This particular icon allowed us to play with the tones and shadings of the title. It allowed us to darken it in some areas to create a eerie atmosphere and then lighten it in others to create the idea of binary oppositions. Younger audiences want a rush, which is why we incorporated the 'chase' scene in the trailer. Surprisingly, in this scene there is no soundtrack, but just a sound effect of a heart beating rapidly. This however still generated adrenaline to the audience as it made then feel suspense and anticipation as to what is going to happen next



We also established a brand through our ancillary texts. When creating a magazine, it was imperative that we made our magazine appear processional,as if it was actually going to be sold in a shop on the counter. Therefore, the graphology of the magazine was an important factor to get right. An example of this would be the bar code that we placed on the magazine. This was a conventional aspect to include, it helped the magazine seem legitimate and real. Another factor that we considered was the stickers on the front. 'Free pull our poster inside' helps to suggest that the magazine is filled with exciting and thrilling reveals about the film. Consumers want to get what they are paying for, so by adding in extra free poster's and giveaways helps to make the audience feel a part of the film and not just any old audience member.