Media final evaluation

In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Lauren Parkins

MUSIC VIDEO

By classifying a media text under a certain genre, you can limit the audience who will consume that text ~ Hartley. Our group chose to create a band which would be classified under the pop/rock genre, and so we chose to look at music videos within this hybrid.

There are certain codes and conventions of The Script’s music video ‘For the First Time’ which we have chosen to follow within our own music video production.One convention being the repetition of colour effects throughout the storyline and performance:*colour = storyline*black and white = performancehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DTQsJ6ZaOQ

As you can see from our own music video production (on the right), we have followed this particular convention – making our storyline appear in colour, and the performance vice-versa in black and white.Other than choosing to do this to follow this bands convention, we added these effects as it draws a clear line between the two.

We found from our audience feedback that the storyline we chose to go with was popular amongst our target audience. The youth culture we are targeting are at the point where they are questioning and challenging themselves and their friendships/relationships, and so we felt as though our storyline is something they are able to relate to easily due to going through similar situations in their own lives ~and therefore supporting ‘The Uses and Gratification’ model, which states how a media text: informs and educates, creates social interaction, entertains and allows the audience to identify personally with characters and to ‘escape’ their daily life.

We chose to challenge the typical male-lead role and went against this convention by creating a female lead instead ~ this is a binary opposite due to the reverse in gender roles. By challenging this convention we created a unique selling point, as only one other band which we came across within our genre had a female lead.

During our music video, whenever the band are shown as a whole, the female will always be shown standing in front of the male members.As you can see from one of our promotional images, the female is standing slightly closer to the lens/in the foreground – we found this to be a popular way to establish the status of a particular band member. By placing a single person in front of others it instantly states that they are of more importance – this female is whom the band revolves around.

The below images are promotional shots for the pop/rock band Paramore. This is the only other band within our genre to have a female lead, and as you can see they have stated this role by placing the female closer to the camera in each of these promotional images – we have used this bands convention in the same way.

Though our band is categorised as a hybrid genre, we chose to challenge some pop conventions. Pop genre is often associated with ‘glam’ and ‘flashiness’ – an example of this type of artist is Lady GaGa. Although she falls under the same genre, she focuses mainly on her image as opposed to her music, and is known for her controversial outfits.

On the other hand, Paramore’s clothing represents the kind of image they are trying to portray of themselves, which is very laid back and casual. They do not try too hard with making an effort with the way they look, but want people to focus solely on their music and performance - this type of image makes them easy to relate to. I believe that Willis’s theory is applicable to this as he explains how media ‘idols’ (celebrities) are used by teenage audiences to help them understand themselves, but teens end up shaping their personalities like the idol.

As you can see from the music video stills (left) for Paramore’s ‘Ignorance’, their productions consist mainly of their music and performance as a band. They do not appear to focus at all on their image and what they look like, but concentrate fully on giving a performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9A6tn_P6g

So when it came to creating our own bands image, we chose not to follow conventions of the pop genre, and instead chose to follow those which were rock. These are some of our promotional images for each of our band members.

As you can see from the images of the two male band members, each are holding a musical instrument – this helped establish their roles within the band (the drummer and the guitarist).We dressed our band in casual high-street clothing, so as the personality they portrayed came across as both relaxed and easy-going, and not at all glamorous. Creating these types of characters allows the audience to relate to the members easily – thus creating ‘idols’.

Above are images of our original female lead. She is shown free standing - symbolising that she is strong and able to stand powerfully on her own - our lead singer is not a stereotypical portrayal of a female (weak and vulnerable) – therefore challenging almost every media text created, and going against Gauntlett’s theory which describes how women are represented in a sexualised way by men, so as they can reclaim the power they have lost to women through feminism.

We chose to challenge the typical convention of music video titles, and instead made them appear at both the beginning and end of the performance. We found that it was not a common convention to have full screen titles either, and so we chose to do this to be different from many other bands within our genre.

We discovered that Lady GaGa’s music video for ‘Alejandro’ had titles which appeared full screen at the beginning – first her name appeared (GaGa), followed by the title of the song. We chose to use this convention in the same way.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA

Below are our opening titles. The band’s name appears first, followed by the title of the song a couple of seconds later – this establishes first who the band are, and then the title of the music they are about to perform.The same titles appear at the very end of the performance, but featuring the name of the band only – this states again who they are. In this case we used pop conventions but challenged rock conventions, as we did not manage to find titles at the beginning or end of any rock videos we came across.

The effects, transitions and editing techniques we used within our music video followed conventions from both genres.

This is an example of one of the transitions we used (left) – a fade, superimposed over the two separate scenes, so as both are shown at the same time for a short second. We found this to be a popular way to transfer from one scene to another which is in a completely different period of time and location.A band I found had used this same transition is Radiohead - a rock band, who have used the fade in a similar way to superimpose two images on top of one another.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTB-iiecqk

We chose to use a ‘soft edge’ effect on the scenes which were storyline, so as to make it clear that this is what HAS happened previously.Though not as obvious, I discovered that the pop/rock band Coldplay have used this effect also.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE

This is an example of another of our transitions – ‘dissolve’. We used this to transfer from the performance to one of our insert shots.

Editing techniques such as quick cuts are typical of this genre, as it matches the fast pace of the music and contributes to representing a fast and pacey atmosphere. We used this technique throughout the entire performance scenes for this reason. The lighting effects we used throughout the performance were also a typical convention of this genre, as lighting is another concept which plays a big part in creating an atmosphere.

We showed creativity by placing ‘insert shots’ within the music video sequence. This makes us different from others within our genre as we have not found another pop/rock artist which has done so.

We chose to do this as we found it a way to represent ‘Amie’ losing her friends over time - First all three friends are shown together, then gradually each friend begins to disappear, until Amie is left standing alone without any friends beside her.

DIGIPACK AND MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT

The colour trend that is repeated throughout Paramore’s clothing is black, white, grey and red. These colours all relate to the stereotype of the rock genre, but red can also relate to love and romance which could link to the pop side of the band? These colours are repeated throughout the bands entire brand, e.g. on their album, etc. This is to link each product to one another. We liked the way the band repeated this trend, and so tried something similar with our own band.

This is the final draft of our Digipack cover. We chose to use the same conventions as Paramore, but using the colours – black, white, grey and yellow. By repeating this trend throughout we are showing a clear house style, which links each product.

We chose black, grey and white to follow rock conventions ~ as rock is portrayed in a way which associates it with dark, lifeless colour. Whereas, yellow represents pop, which is represented as being very bright, quirky and colourful.

In a similar way to Madonna we have placed the artists name within the top section, used rectangular shapes to place information about the digipack, and positioned the image of the band within in the centre section, as does hers. Though we have some similar aspects to Madonna’s Digipack, we have developed this idea by creating a band logo, including other promotional images…

As you can see from our band titles we have made the lettering of the V and R a lot larger than the others – this is what makes up our bands logo. On the back cover of our Digipack you can see in the centre our logo ‘VR’ – this is an iconic symbol, as it makes our band instantly recognizable to our audience.

An example of an iconic logo is rock band ‘The Rolling Stones’. Anyone who sees this logo can instantly link it to this band, and this is the type of reaction we wanted to be able to create for our own band.

This is our final magazine advertisement. Again we chose to stick to the house style colours, so as it linked to the digipack .

We have challenged the typical placement of a bands name on a magazine advertisement, by placing is vertically in the far left. The typical placement of this is commonly within the top third, along with the release date. We have gone against this by arranging them in two different places – Interpellation (Althusser) ~ we have become aware of this model and instead we have resisted it, and positioned our text on our own terms.

As you can see from this magazine advertisement for the ‘Ordinary Boys’ their name is placed in the top section, as it typical is. The information about their album release and album information is positioned in the bottom section, along with a brief review quote from ‘NME’ magazine – this is the magazine of which we chose to place our ad as it typically featured other pop/rock bands. We have developed these conventions by positioning them differently.

The institution we chose to go with was ‘Universal music group’, as we found this media conglomerate to own other pop/rock labels such as Paramore.

As you can see from each of the images below, we have used and developed Paramore’s repetition of colour, managing to create a house style throughout our entire brand: band name and logo, titles and effects in our music video, our promotional images, digipack over and magazine advertisement – each product is demographic - black and white or has elements of these colours.

Our promotional images show our female lead stood in the foreground in front of the two male band members, symbolising that she is most powerful – going against the female stereotype. Though we break this convention Mulvey’s theory on ‘Male Gaze’ is applicable. ‘Amie’ is the only female, her top does not quite cover her stomach – could this be seen as suggestive? Is her pose slightly suggestive?

I believe that in comparison to many other media texts, we are challenging the stereotypical portrayal of women. As you can see from this ad featuring Beyonce, she has a very low cut top on and is standing in a suggestive way. Then this image of Jennifer Anniston, where she appears to be completely undressed, covered by only a towel ~ both of these perfume advertisements follow the stereotypical representation of women in the media.

How did you use new media technology in the construction,

research, planning and evaluation stages?

Stuart Cruickshank

Imac Computers

Throughout the researching, planning, construction and evaluating stages, we have used Apple Imac computers to document our progress. Using Safari, the internet explorer on the computer to research and plan. Final Cut Express to upload media, import and edit the content in the software. iTunes music software which we used to import our music track of ‘ignorance’ by Paramore and transfer in into Final Cut Express.

We have used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to produce the digipack and magazine advertisement, this is specialist artistic software allowing us to produce professional looking ancillary texts. Adobe Photoshop was used to crop the promotional images so we could use them in the ancillary text.

Planning: BloggerDuring the planning stages of this music video production, we created a blogger account which would allow us to post all the development throughout the whole production of this music video. We used blogger to separate all the different areas of this music video production, including genre and audience research, band planning, magazine advertisement and digipack developments. We included a production log to allow us to manage who had completed what tasks and if it had fitted in with the deadlines set.

Planning: General ResearchGoogle Documents is a new form of media technology which we have included in our general research by creating our initial proposal document using this new software. This allows us to create the document that all the members of our group could open and edit whatever, whenever and wherever.

Google Images is another form of new media technology which we used to collect images for our genre research. We had to collect images of artists we were intending to base our representation like. We would collect the images to support the research we had collected and refer back to the images collected.

Planning: YouTubeIn the planning of the music video, we conducted research into successful and established artists and bands within our chosen hybrid genre which is pop/rock. We used YouTube to generate ideas by watching existing videos in the genre and taking elements to use in our music video.

The Script’s ‘For the first time’ music video features black and white in the performance section of the video and that was part of the inspiration to use black and white in parts of the music video we created. We used YouTube to continuously keep researching new ways to break, challenge and develop conventions.

YouTube: Use of TitlesWe used YouTube to research the use of titles by successful and established artists in our hybrid genre of Pop/Rock. Lady Gaga’s music video ‘ Alejandro’ is an example of the idea we had for our music video for Vintage Rocks.

After finding the right example to use for our development, we used YouTube screenshot to show the ideas we had, we posted a full screenshot of our research into titles with artists. This was later added to blogger to show our results in our genre title research.

The idea for titles to appear from a black screen which meant we were breaking conventions of titles usually appearing the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

Planning/Construction: Final Cut ExpressLeading up using final cut express for construction, we have to create an animatic which planned out the camera angle, movements and timing schedule.

We drew the shots on the post-it notes which we could re-arrange if we preferred. Next using the digital video camera to shoot the post it notes, creating a video which would give us an idea of what our planning would appear in a sequence.

After filming the of the post-it notes, we uploaded them to final cut express and editing the shot into the video sequence.

Planning: Facebook and Twitter PagesWe have used both Facebook and Twitter social networking sites to promote awareness we need for our band. Both sites are intertextual as they both used for the same purpose for the band, to create a fan base for the band starting up.

Both social networking sites are popular with our intended target audience and this is a technique to introduce our new band and appeal to the people we want to be interested in VintageRocks.

Linking with music bands and artists, we would use these sites to add any extra content and keep in touch with our target audience.

Audience Research : Second Roundhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=&feature=player_embedded

For our second round of audience research, we used new media technology in the form of Final Cut Express to create this short audience video.

After interviewing four members from the intended target audience, we brought the four clips back into Final Cut Express editing software to combine all four together to produce a short second round audience research video.

Second round of questions for audience research1. If you were buying a CD, what would you expect to see? colours, band members, instruments etc.2. If you were in a pop-rock band, what clothing would you find appropriate for a music video or CD cover?3. If you were using Facebook, would you take notice of a fan page for a new and upcoming band?4. If you were to watch a music video, would you find the storyline relevant?5. How much would you pay for an album or download?

Construction: Live Type

A brand new example of new media technology is the lettering design programme called ‘Live Type’. This program we used to create the open titles of the music which you can see from the screenshots (Left). This software allowed us to create the style of lettering we wanted to fit in with the whole bands house style and iconic ‘VR’.

The only limitation with this form of new media technology is that is produces a smaller version of the title than you expect. We created various different drafts judge the overall size of the titles and for the particular impact we was wanting them to make.

Construction: Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

We used have used Adobe Photoshop to manipulate the promotional photos for the magazine advertisement and the bands digipack.

Cropping of the promotional images which allowed us to fit them in the intending area of the ancillary texts.

We used another form of new media by using a SLR digital camera to take a photograph of the brick wall which appears on the front of the digipack cover. After importing the image into Photoshop, we wanted to keep the overall style of band by including in the background of the magazine advertisement

Construction: DSR Digital CameraOur use of new media technology is extended by the use of a DSR Panasonic digital camera. This new form of media technology was used to take the promotional images of the band for the digipack and magazine cover. This 12 mega pixel camera with 18 times optical zoom allowed us to take professional quality photographs of the band.

This meant that we would be confident of the images being a professional quality to upload to Photoshop and illustrator to create the ancillary texts.

The insert shots included in the construction of our music video were taken by a camera of this make and model. This type of camera allowed us to change the settings on it, so we could make sure the setting suited the situation and time we were taken it in.

Limitations YouTube& Internet: Drafts of the music video would not upload to YouTube which meant we were unable to post the YouTube link onto blog to show our development through the different drafts. The solution was using iMovie to burn the drafts onto a disk which we had created before the final music video.

Photoshop & Illustrator: On several occasion the software would not allow us to save the ancillary tasks which we have worked on. This meant we would be stalling in creating the ancillary tasks after progress was lost on several occasions. The size of the files are quite big and with the drafts of the ancillary tasks as well, we found at times the differculty of finding room.

Final Cut Express: The differculty of importing the titles into the music video and this results in Final Cut Express crashing and closing. The size of the music video resulted in the files being very big resulting us requiring 12GB more disk space from the I.T technicians.

LiveType: The limitation of using LiveType for creating the titles of the music video, is that the scale of the title would not appear big enough for the screen we wanting it to fit in. This meant we have to persevere with creating the titles in different fonts and slightly different style so we could achieve the right one eventually.

What Worked WellPhotoshop & Illustrator: to create the ancillary tasks and using both programs to transfer and create different elements to combine into the overall Photoshop documents. We found that we gained a vast amount of knowledge about both programs and how they can be used to create ancillary texts.

Final Cut Express: The knowledge and capability of using this software was widen even more after a years experience under our belts. There was no hesitation or confusion towards the production of the music video. We all knew how we wanted to use the software to create the effects and sequence on the storyboard produced.

Second Round of Research: This allowed us to connect with our target audience members more personally rather than a paper questionnaire. By doing a second round of audience research, it had given us a group more of an insight into what detail we needed to include to reach the target audience. By producing a small video, we were progressing with our skills and that worked well for our bands progression.

Lighting System For Music Video: We used the performing arts lighting system we were able to create a flashing light sequence throughout the performance of the video. This gave the music video a realistic pop/rock music video style which we see in established videos in our hybrid genres.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Ella Hindley

We created a number of questionnaires before constructing our music video in order to find out what content was ideal for our target audience. We made sure we did not ask bias questions, we wanted true and honest answers from our target audience to ensure we were creating a music video suited for them. As a group, we decided to also use both quantitative and qualitative questions to receive broader answers from our audience. By doing this we were able to include all the typical conventions that are expected within a Pop/Rock music video.

For the first round of audience feedback we decided to use a simple written question and answer sheet. We were careful with the language used as we did not use media terminology as some participants many not have understood it. It was key for the audience to understand the answers so we could receive the clearest answers possible.

Through our audience research we learnt not to reject any data because of our own opinion or view. All data was valid and useful as it helped us to improve and develop our drafts.

To differ the first round of audience research from the second, we decided not to use a written questionnaire but to ask people from within our target audience to answer our questions whilst being filmed. This allowed us to look back on the footage and review their visual responses to our questions. It also gave the participants the chance to elaborate on their opinions and allowed less opportunity to think about what they perceived as the correct answer. This was not possible via the textual questionnaires.

We found that because of these reasons, the second round of audience research was more useful to us when creating our final product. However, if we were to use the idea of filming the audience feedback again, we would ensure that the quality of sound was improved.

Although we felt this type of audience research was more useful, we did discover that we would have benefitted more if we were to ask a more questions like in the textual questionnaire.

http://cruickshank-parkins-hindleya2media.blogspot.com/2010/06/audience-research.html (the video of our second audience research)

After each set of questionnaires, we summarised the answers into graphs and action points. The action points allowed us to focus on the key elements which we thought were most important to included either within the music video or the production of it. The audience said that they would like to see our band on popular social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’. We agreed this would be a good idea as after researching, we discovered that bands create a personal bond with their fans via social networking sites. It also allows bands to reach a much wider target audience. Word of mouth is especially an advantage because users of these sites can promote the band through statuses, etc.

Our audience research also revealed that our target audience would like to see the band along with a recognisable logo on the digipak cover. We all feel that we successfully did this and met the audience’s expectations. They also said they want to see bright colours on the cover, we incorporated this into the rock genre by also using black and white. The clothing on the cover and within the music video was also important. The audience research showed that our target audience would like to be able to achieve the bands look. Our target audience was both male and females aged between 16 and 20. We chose to use casual clothing from the high street. This made it relatable to our audience and allowed easy access to the bands fashion. Our audience said they would pay up to £10 for a new album from an upcoming band so we made sure to promote this offer on our magazine advertisement. As our target audience are of the younger generation we also decided to make it available on iTunes and also added this to the magazine advert. Overall, we successfully included all the key elements our target audience asked for within our audience research on both our textual products and in our music video.

We used these icons to promote where our audience can get songs by our band.

We enlarged the price of the digipak to catch the readers attention and buy our product.

The third round of audience feedback we conducted was after we completed our final product of the music video. Again, we asked non bias quantitative and qualitative questions to gain broader responses from our audience. The feedback was mainly positive but some slight changes were suggested such as: improvement on the framing, more images of what to expect in the product and shouldn’t be so crowded with text and images. The positive feedback proves that we successfully followed the typical conventions of the hybrid pop/rock genre and the requirements from our target audience. We have learnt that consistent audience research was the best way to ensure we were meeting the expectations from our target audience. The feedback each time allowed us to change anything in order to make the final product the best we could.

How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

Hayley Cruickshank

Music Video During the post production process, we added a black and white effect to the performance parts of our music video; to show the band is the reason for the broken down friendship in the storyline.

Digipack CoverWe carried the black and white effect from the music video through to our digipack cover and magazine advertisement, through the use of our promotional images.

This is one of the promotional images of the band. This has been placed on the back of the digipack cover to show what the content is like.

This is another promotional image. However unlike the other one, this does not show the content. It is in the style of a poster, as many bands typically sell merchandise such a posters to promote themselves.

The main image on our front cover is again in black and white to carry this effect through from the music video. Putting this on the front cover has created a clear house style.

We have placed the band members in the same clothing as in the video. This way the target audience can clearly link the video with the digipack cover. This is also made easier as the promotional images on the back and the front cover are set in the same location as the performance of the music video.

Magazine AdvertisementAgain we have used this black and white effect on our magazine advertisement, as shown below:

We placed the cover of our digipack in the centre of our magazine advertisement to link both of our ancillary texts. We did this as during our second round of audience research, the interview stage which can be seen on our blog, the target audience said they would like to see the band on the cover, so it is easily recognisable. Not only this, but by placing our product on the advertisement, they can clearly see the product we are trying to sell and know what to look for if they choose to purchase.

The background for the magazine advertisement is the same location again as the promotional images and the performance scenes. This links the three texts together, as the audience again can instantly associate this setting with our band.

We created the black and white effect for the magazine advertisement and digipack cover to link to our hybrid genre of pop-rock. This links to the rock side. The reasons for doing so are continued on the next slide.

Magazine Advertisement ContinuedWe decided that we would distribute our magazine advertisement in to magazines such as NME and Kerrang!, to target their rock, most dominantly male audience.

The advertisement to the left is a real media advertisement which featured in NME. They have used the black and white effect, like ours, which relates back to the genre of their band; rock.Our magazine advertisement is effective, as the black and white clearly fits with the typical advertisements featured in this magazine. The bright yellow on our advertisement helps to differ us from the rest, whilst catching the target audience’s attention.

Not only have we used the black and white effect to help link our main product and ancillary texts, but also the use of the colour yellow.

We decided to use a bright colour, as in our second round of audience research, the people in which we interviewed said bright colours would catch their attention.

We used the colour yellow at the top of our magazineadvertisement to make themost important informationstand out to the audience.

The yellow on the magazine advertisement links to the magazines we chose to place our advertisement in, in order to target the female ‘pop’ side of our genre and target audience. We would place them in magazines such as Closer and More.

The bright colours link in to the bright theme of this magazine

cover. In the same way the yellow made us stand out in NME or

Kerrang!, the black and white would make our advertisement stand out in this magazine as it is not typical.

Digipack CoverIn the same way the most important information was within a yellow box on the magazine advertisement, we did this again for our digipack cover.

We did this as the important information would stand out against the black and white photograph it has been placed against. Also, by carrying the colour yellow through, we have created a clear house style.

We also used yellow stars to accompany a quote from MTV, to catch the audiences’ attention. This was placed at the top of the back cover, so that it is in the top third – where the audience typically look first.

Music VideoIn order to keep the colour theme running throughout all texts, we kept the narrative of the music video in colour. We also placed one of the ‘friends’ in yellow to keep this theme running too.

In the same way that the black and white effect was used to represent the rock side of our hybrid genre, we have used colour to represent the pop side, as many music videos, album covers and promotional advertisements for many pop acts contain bright, eye catching colours.

The purpose of the combination of the main music video and the two ancillary texts were to create a ‘band identity’. We did this primarily through the use of a logo.

This shows our logo on the back cover of our digipack cover. Not

only is this lettering used for our logo but for the main name of our band too.

As we are not an established band, we still needed to include the full name of our band, so that the audience can recognise us.

Our reasons for creating a band logo and identity was decided during our research and planning process.

We researched in to other artists in our genre, in which we came across Lady GaGa. She uses iconography with the use of the lightning bolt symbol, as her logo, so she is instantly recognisable. As an established act had created an icon for themselves, we wanted to do something similar, resulting in our ‘VR’ symbol. This shows that we have taken influence from real media productions when creating our own.

IntertextualityWhen creating our band, we used both of the social networks - Facebook and Twitter - to create a page to help promote them, as these were popular social networks used by our target audience. We used the logo again here as the display pictures to help the target audience associate this logo with the band.

This is effective in the combination of our main product and ancillary texts as when they see the logo on the digipack cover and magazine advertisement, and associate this logo with the image of ‘Vintage Rocks’, they will link it directly to the music video.

Representation We carefully considered representation when creating our band. We broke the typical rock convention by having a female lead singer represent our band. You can tell through each of the texts as she is the main focus of the band as she is in the middle of each of the texts; whether that be a photograph or whilst performing in the music video.

We placed the lead singer in the middle, as the audience are likely to look in the middle first, especially as she is singer. Even though the other band members are important, the lead singer is primarily the focus of the band. She is also central to the storyline. This is shown in the insert shots throughout the narrative.

With using a hybrid genre, we had to consider conventions fromeach of the genres individually. With representation comes rolemodels. Role models are typical of the pop side of our genre.However these role models are usually represented in a waywhich is not obtainable for the target audience.

This look is not particularly obtainable for the audience as they would have to spend a lot of money trying to style themselves in Lady GaGa’s type of clothes.

Her hair style, even though it is pretty simple, would cost the target audience money to have it styled this way. This links to the ‘glamorous’ pop image typical of this genre.

The typical representation of a rock act is not as glamorous as apop act, making it easier for the target audience to obtain theirlook. We wanted to incorporate this in our work, representing allof our band member as having a look which is obtainable for theaudience. As our group is mixed gender, we can target both themale and female sides of our audience well.

StuartA simple check shirt from ‘Topman’, a shop which the target audience are familiar with. His jeans and shoes also from high street stores, so the target audience can easily afford these items.

Andrew We styled him around Danny from The Script. Placing him in a blazer, again from a high street store. We pinned our own badges and pins to create an embellished look. This can easily be copied by the target audience.

AmieShe is styled in ‘Topshop’ clothing, a popular store amongst the female side of our audience. Her hair has been styled using curlers and she is wearing minimal makeup, so that the audience can easily replicate this look.

With representation comes role models. By representing ourband members in a way which can be replicated by the targetaudience, we have created role models for them. As DavidGauntlett says, music and magazines represent women in acertain way, sexy or independent, the way men want them. Thiscreates a role model or an ideal for the audience. We have triedto create role models, not only our lead singer but the otherband members too, as previously explained.

Once we decided to represent our band as role models to thetarget audience, by showing them as having an affordable look,we needed to link this through to each of the texts. We did thisby making sure the band wore the same outfit in the ancillarytexts, as well as part of the music video; the performance parts.

We have placed each of the band members in the same clothes so that the audience can link the texts together, making the product instantly recognisable, combined with the use of the monochrome effect. This is effective with the combination of texts, as the audience can clearly see each of the texts belong to Vintage Rocks.

With a clear house style, the black and white effect with asmall amount of the colour yellow, each of the texts arelinked together. Also with the use of placing our band at thefront – for the magazine advertisement and digipack cover– or the start, for the music video, the audience can seewho the text belongs to straight away. By linking the textswith instantly recognisable features, the combination of allthree texts is effective.