Evaluation 2:

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

Consistency within the music video preserves the authenticity of the product so that it looks professional and similar to real media products. Through our media ancillaries we have tried to have consistency and coherence within features such as music records, fonts, colours and also including the appearance of the artist. This provides a relationship between each of the ancillaries continually providing artist recognition towards the audience. There is a distinct running theme presented in our media products which is represented by the artist’s style, genre and music. This has been an example of many music products for example, Take That’s latest album shares the same image as the album cover and also signifies similarities within the font. However, we decided that we wanted to use different images for the album cover and music advertisement to them different from one another but still show a relationship due to the features. We thought that if we were to use the same image, it would become repetitive and somewhat ‘boring’ for the audience. Using this thought in mind our ancillaries needed to be consistent in order for the audience to recognise that it is representative of the same artist. An example of this in the music industry is the music advertisement and album cover of ‘Take That’. They use the same image for both of their products gaining as much recognition as possible from the audience, continually reminding them of what they are seeing. This could increase profit rates as the constant reminder would encourage the audience to buy the album cover.

Clothing- The main feature that shows consistency within the music video is the appearance of the artist. We tried to use similar clothing to that of the album cover, resulting in a shirt, jeans and the same jacket. We did this so that the music video gains recognition from the audience as they can relate the clothing to the album cover. There was a correlation between the music video and the images for the album cover. For example, the same jeans and jacket were shown, although we did  change the shirt as we didn’t want to use the exact same clothing. This consistency within the clothing could remind the audience of the music video and even possibly influence them to watch it. Whereas, in the music advertisement, the artist is wearing a polo shirt and jeans, in which is used for the back of the album cover. Although the back cover relates to the front cover (by the use of colours(black and white)), it also links to the music advertisement through the clothing (and setting).

Production Companies- We used the two same production companies (which we produced) on the two ancillary texts to show consistency within our products. This allows the audience to recognise who produced the album cover and the music advertisement, which could gain the interest of the audience to watch the music video. The production companies which we used

concluded of ‘Lobster Records’ and ‘Star Records’. These were displayed on the top of the music advertisement making it visually easy for the audience to see, and at the bottom of the back album cover, next to the additional information.

Camera Shots- For the album cover and advertisement, long shots were used for both. As for the music video a variety of shots were used to show a variety of angles and distances to create different effects and focal points. Therefore consistency was fairly used and therefore the audience will be able to interlink both of the types of images together, and recognise the artist featured through the ancillary products.

Lighting- For the lighting there wasn’t as much consistency as the other features. For example, for the album cover, artificial lighting was used to make the photo more ‘vibrant’ and brighter. However, when I added the grey tone this became less apparent and obvious. For the music advertisement, naturalistic lighting was used as the images were taken in an outside environment. This lighting was quite harsh and therefore wed edited the contrast and brightness of the image to flatter the artist. Whereas, in the music video, we chose the lighting depending on the brightness of the scene- when the environment was too dim, we used artificial lighting to brighten the scene. In the outside scenes we stuck to naturalistic lighting. Brightening the scene creates more of a ‘happy’ vibe towards the audience and connotes the emotion of joy. This signifies what the artist is experiencing as the woman he is aiming the song at, makes him happy.

Font- This was one of the main features that we wanted to show continuity throughout as it would be the most noticeable for the audience. We used the font ‘Coolvetica’ for the reason of being ‘dominant’. By adjusting the colours of the font to black and red this needed to somehow be shown in both ancillary texts. For the texts the fonts were the same but the use of colours was slightly different. The same font used for artist name and album name representing consistency through out products.

Colours- the dominant combination of black, white and red was used for the music advertisement and album cover. These colours can appeal to both the female and male audience, in which we are targeting our product at. These colours were used for features such as the line banner (shown in red) and the mise-en-scene of the music advert. The red line banner relates to the red used in the font for the artist and therefore creates a relationship between both without being direct. For the album cover, the main colours used were the contrast between white and black as for the images, a grey scale was added to add the theme of realism, although in the advertisement, vibrant colours were used instead for the artist sitting on the bench. However, because we used the same idea of ‘cropping’ the images we thought that a change in the colours used wasn’t too significant.

Mise-en-scene-The mise-en-scene however was different for the front of the album cover as the images were placed on a simple white background instead of a park setting, alothough the back of the album cover the same setting as the music advertistement (park) has been used. There is also a park scene in the music video, link all ancillerie products together through the environment.- although majority of the music video was completed in a house setting, which isn’t shown in the other products. This creates a variety of different settings although still presenting consistency through some of the settings.

Narrative- The main feature that we wanted to keep consitant was the narrative. From out planning, our idea was based on the infatuation of a young man about a woman,  therefore our aim was too portray this throughout our media products.

How the narrative was portrayed through the ancillaries:Music Video-  Because the song is about her, and him claiming about how he likes her ‘just the way she is’, we decided that the main focus is on her. Therefore we showed shots of her getting ready, shots of her room, and walking to give the audience an insight into her personality. We did show some shots of him also getting ready, to create a balance between the two as the music video is about them going out to meet each other. We also showed singing shots, one of them where he is singing to her, making the song personal to the individual it is aimed at, and another in which he is walking to go meet her. At the same time, we showed shots of her, constantly reminding the audience of the narrative of the story.Album Cover- Consitency within the narrative was mainly reflected through the song names. I wanted the song names to somehow symbolise that they are aimed at the female (as mentioned in the planning) and therefore chose particular song names. I also made the font look as if it had been written, making it more personalised to the artist. I used the mise-en-scene of a letter, which I edited, to make it look as if he had written the songs into a note-pad or possibly diary where he expresses his emotions (in this case, expressing his love for the woman). The narrative was also shown in the album name, ‘With You’ automatically suggesting that the album is based on another individual.Music advertisement- There wasn’t much narrative portrayed within this media product as we wanted it to show consistency within features of the

ancillaries such as fonts and camera shots. However, the album name which is presented does symbolise the narrative due to the reason mentioned above, therefore there is some consistency.