Evaluation - part 2

The combination of our main and ancillary products is largely successful with some potential for improvement. The overall reason for this is down to the key features which link the three products; although the film poster is in colour, the colour scheme is pared down and minimal with the two main colours being black and white, reflecting the film's black and white aesthetic, with a small inclusion of red on details such as the colour of her lips - a very effective tool in connoting her dangerous and seductive character features, enhancing the audiences impression of her character. The magazine review of the "The Lover Who Lied" is similarly designed in terms of colour, with a black and white basis with the background and the text and colour images of the actors, although featuring far more red as a layout feature. The mainly united colour scheme is effective but when comparing the three products the double page spread definitely should feature less 'red' to regain the pared down, stylised cool with little or no colour to represent the film better. Also, the poster would appear more effective if the pink tone to Frank's headshot on the lower left of the poster was lowered to cohere with the skin tone of the others and improve the co-ordination of colour in the product. 

However, the poster represents the film well with its simple concept of featuring the main focus of the audience's attention in the film - our femme fatale, Rita, with two minor head shots to the left to represent her two male love interests. Perhaps the poster would be more congruous to the film if the layout showed that Jim was, however, the male protagonist and far more important to the audience than Frank, by using a larger headshot of Jim maybe peering over her shoulder to represent the narrative role he plays. I think the layout of Rita almost stepping on the film title "The Lover Who Lied" symbolises her dominance and ruthlessness in the film well, and the inclusion of the cigarette she is smoking and the fedora Jim is wearing as film noir codes tells the audience a lot about what genre of film this is. The layout of the magazine article, where Jim appears in a large image on the left of the article and an image of Rita mirrors this on the right, is successful in depicting the tense relationship and oppositional dynamic between the characters in the film, and is very for a Hollywood film poster like "Mr & Mrs Smith" however could be improved by use of an image reflecting the classic nature of their relationship in a more passionate pose together. Also I feel that the review would have represented the film better had the choice of images been screenshots from the actual film footage rather than promotional shots, given the audience more of an insight into the truly colourless noir style of The Lover Who Lied.


The recurring typeface in all three tasks is an effective convention in signalling all three products, and its jazzy, slick and highly stylised connotations not only alert the audience to the visual style, tone and setting of the film, but that all three are linked. I feel this is especially successful between the poster and film, as using the same typeface of the title sequence as in the title on the poster is a classic convention to thematically enjoin the two. The reason I feel this is less successful in the movie review is due to the fact that film articles do not usually represent the film using typeface, as they would prefer to use the uniform typefaces of the publication, but represent it in other ways such as image, colour scheme, language and layout.


In summary I feel that The Lover Who Lied, the film poster and the magazine article do successfully interlink with one another and the two ancillary tasks do effectively communicate with the audience the themes of crime, corruption, seduction and moral degeneration, the mysterious style and the genre of film, but could do more to represent its more classic, vintage era we depict and the darker, more shadowy world we created with less use of high key colour images and more screenshots of the film in the review.