Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

•The aim throughout all of our work was to promote our artist ‘Heidi’ through the same record company with a variety of different products including a music video, a magazine advertisement and a digipak. Because of a decline in record sales, it is important for an artist to have a strong image through consistency of themes. In order for our work to be effective, it was essential that the print work and music video related to each other to give the same style and image of the artist.

•We tried to keep all our products similar, but in a way which makes them all unique. We did this by using similar photos and kept the same colour scheme of black and white throughout all of our products, these colours contrast each other which is eye catching to the audience. It also reflects the softer, elegant and more serious side to the album that we wanted to portray.

Aim

Mise-en-scene & codes of visual language•In all three products, we used low-key lighting to fit in with the serious elegant side to the album. We wanted to make sure the focus would be kept on the artist to promote her image. •This is reflected through the central positioning of the artist throughout our music video, digipak and magazine advertisement. In the music video when ‘Heidi’ walks forward away from the podium, this amplifies her dominance and influence amongst her fans. •‘Heidi’s’ facial expression is quite emotional through the music video, this is to reflect the song lyrics. However, in the ancillary products it shows ‘Heidi’ as happy and is shown smiling in almost every image. This is to show she is just a normal person like everybody else, which appeals to her target audience. •Heidi is shown in a variety of different outfits, all which are quite revealing. This gives her a consistent image, as many of fans could see her as a style icon.

For our ancillary products, we created a logo for our artist’s name. This gives her a consistent image as an artist, and it creates familiarity to her audience as it will appear on all of her products.

We also used the same font and style of text throughout the magazine advertisement and digipak. This makes them effective as they really relate to each other and give the same connotations.

Mise-en-scene & codes of visual language

Following Andrew Goodwin’s theory, we developed a reoccurring visual trademark for our artist. As the name of the song in our music video is ‘Pearl’, we thought it would be effective to have the album and artist based around a theme of pearls, which also amplifies the elegant side of the album. We incorporated pearls into the music video by having our artist ‘Heidi’ wear a pearl necklace, earrings and bracelets. We followed our theme of pearls through to our digipak by designing our CD in the shape of a pearl.

Theme of pearls

In addition the background of the CD is also an image that consists of smaller individual pearls. On the back of our CD for our track listing we incorporated pearls by placing them next to the track name, which gives them the effect of a bullet point. Our magazine advertisement is focussed on a large image of the artist, where her jewellery of pearls is clearly noticeable to the audience.

RepresentationIn the music industry, the way in which an artist is represented to their fans is vital to achieve commercial success. Popular music is part of our popular culture, and especially for the youth audience it is more than just the music. Fans often relate closely to the representations of artists, this can influence how they perceive themselves and may affect their everyday lives, for example how they dress and act.

Across our products, our aim was to represent our artist in a way different to other pop artists. Through the lyrics of the song we made the performance side of the video to look like a motivational speech to her fans who are having relationship problems. Through the narrative we showed a young girl standing up for herself, after watching this motivational speech. This reaches out to her fans in a different, more emotional way, they can relate to her and look up to her for inspiration to overcome their own problems. We incorporated this into the print products through the same styling and colours of the music video. We also featured a thank-you page in the digipak from the artist to her fans, this creates a relationship between them, which makes it more personal.