Evaluation Question 2

EVALUATION QUESTION 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary

texts (digipak and advertisement)?

Visual links between my music video and ancillary products

-Before I produced my music video or ancillary work I did some research on other artists of the same genre (pop), I looked at how they made clear visual links between their music videos, ancillary products and merchandise. I concluded that it is crucial to use synergy (linkage) within my own ancillary work and music video. (whether it would be the layout, colours or images) Including this will make it clear to the audience that these things are connected and they will be able to identify certain visual links when seeing the artist or their products.

Synergy • To begin with I had various ideas as to how i

could effectively use synergy within my products. My first idea was to have Molly's silhouette looking away from the camera with her hair blowing in the wind. As well as this, she would also be outlined by bokeh lights. This may have been realistic as we were filming along the Southbank in the evening, which meant their was wind and plenty of lights. However It proved to be quite difficult. We originally pictured the wind to be calm, resulting in Molly’s hair being slightly moved and create a warm atmosphere. We ended up with strong winds where the slight hair movement was hard to capture. We managed to capture some points throughout the video but very few.

• When producing my ancillary work, other people within my group wanted to still use this wind effect as well as our overall main piece of synergy, therefore we used a fan in the studio to act as wind.

Synergy- Bokeh lights After some failed ideas, I concluded that these ideas were too complicated. This

resulted in me and my group choosing just the bokeh lights as our main piece of synergy. We all agreed that this was quite unusual and could work really well if planned correctly. As we were filming on the Southbank it was quite a suitable location due to the various lights. We were also going to be filming during the evening which meant the lights would contrast with the sky and be remembered as one of the main things in our music video. Although we were taught in AS to always keep the camera on auto focus, we felt confident to use the camera in manual focus which worked our really well when filming the lights as we were able to get our desired look of bokeh lights. The use of bokeh lights is featured a number of times within our music video. At some points its purely just the lights on their own, however there are also points where we merged a shot of bokeh lights and a shot of Molly. We then changed the opacity which resulted in the shots both being present within the frame and overlapping one another.

Synergy-Ancillary Products• Although our idea of bokeh lights worked well when

filming our music video, it was slightly more challenging when it came to producing our ancillary work. I took photos of Molly in the studio on a plain background. I then used a photo of our bokeh lights and applied this on Photoshop to become part of the image. Although physically it didn’t work out as planned (because my skills with Photoshop are not to good), I believe it is clear what I was trying to achieve.

• Across my digipak there is full use of the bokeh lights, this creates a clear visual link between my digipak and advertisement. I decided not to merge the two images on the front panel (as I had been doing in the video) because I felt Molly is a new artist so it is important that she can be seen clearly to increase promotion.

• For my advertisement I didn’t use the same idea of bokeh lights for the background. This is because I didn’t want to detach the viewer and make it difficult for them to read. However I still featured an image of the album cover to the right on the advertisement, so the audience were still able o identify Molly Clift.

Direct links between my products

Use of synergy (Bokeh Lights) featured across my ancillary and music video

Tried to keep all shots clear showing Molly's face as she is a new artist trying to be established therefore needs to be easily recognised.

AncillaryMusic Video

Ed Sheeran•An artist who I believe currently uses a good use of

synergy is Ed Sheeran.

•The first thing I notice about the album cover straight away is the use of colours. Black, white and orange. Ed

Sheeran is notoriously known for his ginger hair so already the colour orange is depicting a statement.

•The album cover in general is quite simple and fairly easy to look at, his name is in black and is illustrated in the top left hand corner. The black font contrasts with

the orange making it stand out and easy to read.

•The name of his album is a symbol + which is very unique and easily recognisable. It also includes a

symbol of a paw print beside his name on the right hand side. This paw print can also be seen on his guitar

which is featured in many of his videos.

•Finally, the advertisement also uses the same font as the album and has the same image shown.

•All of these things are a clear example of effective synergy as they create visual links between each product allowing the audience to identify the artist

immediately.

Katy Perry•Again Katy Perry is another good example of

using effective synergy.

•The first thing I notice about Katy Perry's album is also the use of colour. The predominant colour

shown is pink along with reds and blues. (All colours related to sweets).

•From her ancillary products to her music video, the colour scheme is kept the same making it extremely easy to connect all three products

together.

•The name of the album is featured on the advertisement but also in the same font, along

with her name which is also kept in the same font as the one on her cover.

•It is clear that across these different media platforms the theme was kept the same

throughout, this will create visual links for her viewers and make it easy for them to recognise

her and her products.

Target AudienceAs a group we decided our core target audience was going to be between the ages of 15-25. I believe that my target audience would recognise my products and be able to link them because of how strong our synergy of bokeh lights is.

Across my work I used appealing colours and imagery along with well known locations included within my music video in which our target audience would be able to relate to.

Conventions

1. After doing some research and looking at other artists of the same genre (Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran), I found common conventions in which they had used and that I also had used in my own work.

2. I tried to keep my front panel fairly simple and encourage focus on the artists face and her name. I also included a font which was easy to read yet effective in terms of fitting in with the genre. I made it clear as to where people would be able to find my artist through promoting her twitter, instagram and iTunes across my ancillary work.

3. Once again as a group we agreed to have no narrative as our artist was trying to establish her image and become known.

Conclusion

• Overall I feel the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is effective for a number of reasons. Firstly I believe I illustrated clearly the visual use of synergy through bokeh lights which I featured largely across my ancillary work and music video. I also hope that my work looks realistic and professional and produces a clear representation of our new artist ‘Molly Clift’. I tried to use appealing colours and locations for our main target audience, and make the images appealing to look at.