Question 2 -Evaluation

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

I knew from the start of this year’s course, that I wanted my products to interlink together, in a variety of ways. Our biggest link throughout, was colour. I wanted to ensure there was

continuity within my video and both parts of my ancillary texts. When researching for inspiration at the start, I knew that I wanted a vibrancy, almost Pop-Art

feel towards some scenes. The reason for this, was because of the young, excited feel the track conveyed. Looking into this idea, I found Andy Warhol’s work was vibrant, bold and adventurous. I noticed In his work, he was often thought as controversial because of his

particular shot focus of the female body. He often photographed the lips, as his main focus, as he thought that was the most feminine thing about a woman. I believed this would be an

interesting contrast between the rebellious behaviour we were trying to portray and that of which we were trying to show through colour.

I wanted to continue this brightness of colour in my video, to convey to the audience, a young and fun attitude

towards life- which after all, is what I believe the song is truly about. Here are some images from our music

video, where we focused on the lips. By using vibrant lip colour, and Laura’s seemingly bright purple hair, I feel it

injected a certain amount of uniqueness, giving our video more entertainment. I also

thought about the genre itself and it’s conventions as a whole. Pop-Punk/Rock

music videos are known for their ‘pop’ of colour and sense of fun throughout.

We hoped that once our audience saw our music video, and grasped the concept of our lip theme, we believed it would make the band more recognisable. I found that from research,

Rihanna for example, often had the initials of her name printed everywhere. They appeared on her website, on her digipak spine, at the end of her videos and she even had it tattooed onto

her arm!

Each artist has their own special signature or pose that makes them instantly recognisable, which is why we decided to continue on with our lip theme, interlinking it with our digipak

creation. The appearance of the lip theme on the digipak occurs in two places. One on the inside

panel, next to the CD tray and one on the reverse side of the digipak itself. Feedback told us it would be an interesting idea to link the logo within the lip theme, so that people associate

this image, with the band; this would help when wanting to promote the band and the release of the music video. With this, we also wanted to overlap the two images, alternating

the opacity, so that the images could freely merge. This was much like our music video too, as we overlayed and altered the opacity of some scenes, so that a multiple

of clips could be played all at once.The inside panel was for me, the most vibrant and

interesting. Containing three lips, linking to the girl’s in the actual video itself, was intended to to help refresh the

audience’s mind of each member of the band. In addition to the inclusion of vibrant colours, in the video

we wanted to have an individual colour that was associated with each member of the band; Green with

Emily, Blue with Ellie and finally Purple, because of Laura’s hair. These colours were continued throughout.

BECOMING RECOGNISED

Both these two panels, were the ones that specifically linked to both the video and the website, with regards to colour and choice of shot.

The signatures around the inside panel, was something we added in quite late on in the process of creation. The reason behind this, was I felt I wanted the digipak to become more personal. On the website, we included a tab, where each bio of

the members were placed. I believed the inclusion of the bio would make the relationship between the audience and band members increase. So, with this in mind, I thought it would be an interesting idea to include personal signatures of

the girls on the inside; this way, fans would feel closer to the band (much like the effects of receiving an autograph).

Including the logo on the inside, as well as the reverse side of the digipak, would again help to link all of my products together. The inclusion of the ‘AA’ logo was a must on the homepage of the website. To show the ‘togetherness’ of the band, we wanted to place the logo alongside images of the girls together, as I believed this

would promote a healthy relationship between the three.

As you can see from the image on the left, we attempted to incorporate the colouring theme within our clothing

choices. Some of the images we captured whilst filming, were then placed on the website, to create continuity- Also I thought audience would be intrigued if they saw

the website and wondered what the shoot was from, they could then access the music video to gain this

information. Whilst still wanting to convey a rebellious attitude, we wanted to show a more flirtatious side to the

girls.

Looking at music videos of the same genre, I found that artist’s often flirted with the camera. This not only helped their star image, but it makes the audience become more interested; perhaps even boosting

advertisement. I believed this would be a great inclusion for our music video. The eyes were the most widely used flirtatious shot, so I implemented this within my footage.

I felt these shots increased the entertainment. Because each member was looking directly into the camera, I felt it was almost ‘breaking the fourth wall’, which resulted in again, the audience feeling more of an

intimate connection with the band.

I wanted to run with the flirtatious eye shots, so I decided to include them on my digipak cover. The combination of the two themes; colour and eye shot, were then designed with this finish. Not only did the eye shots achieve the intend effect, but they also made the band members look powerful, determined and

beautiful. This is another representation we originally wanted to show.

Referring to this panel again, the font was a particular difficult choice to make. Having used a slightly different font on the website, due to font downloading restrictions, we wanted to have a fun font that would

reflect the type of music the band created. I found that most aritsts’ digipaks, would contain at most, 3 fonts. One font for legal information, in small print. Another, for track information and finally, one more font for the title of the band/artist. I wanted to adhere to this general convention, because I felt it would fit in nicely with

not only my genre, but others too.

The font colour of ‘Autumns Abandoned’ links to the website homepage. The ‘A’ is a striking red tone and is of resemblance to that of the red colour used on the cover of the digipak. Once again, by

linking the two products together through font, colour and logo, we are making the band and their products become more recognisable by linking some features together.

On the website, we created a tab that would show visitors any new updates. Predominantly new music video releases and secret updates on digipak

releases. This helped the audience to become more involved and resulted in more music video views. The subscription button on the website also aided us

in ensuring the audience were constantly given free news and information. This meant that we were always promoting our products, through use of the new

website addition.

Having a Twitter, Facebook and Instagram link on the website, provided us with a similar result like the overall website. However, with all of these social media

technologies we were primarily able to post videos, images and audio clips onto each; increasing the variety of posts to the audience (ensuring interest

levels were kept high).

The combination of all my media products, have been extremely helpful. I have tried to make all my products interlink somehow,

through features of my website, colours and specific shots, clothing, social media, and more. I believe I would have

increased my band’s advertisement through achieving all of the above.