Question 2[1]

Daniella Johnston

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

For my ancillaries, I took inspiration from many digipack and magazine posters that had clear conventions of the genres indie and rock, in particular the Kings of Leons ones for the album ‘Only by the night’. Researching similar media texts allowed me to explore the conventions of these genres and I was then able to use them in my own work. Some of these include the use of night rather daylight, industrial landscapes, dark colours, shadow and low key lighting, instruments and stereotypes of rebellion and power. I feel my ancillaries use all of these conventions.

As you can see, my front cover consists of three images merged with one another making it look blurred and distorted. This relates to my video as I have used fast paced editing numerous times to disorientate the audience linking with the themes in the album, and in the song. The image of lines gives the cover an overall ‘smashed and shattered look’. Inspired by the masthead of music magazine ‘Kerrang!’ I felt this this would be suitable to use as it highlights the stereotype of rebellion associated with rock music (violence and vandalism). I took a photograph of a guitar as it iconic of rock music allowing audience to immediately identify the genre. I have also used a long shot of a road in the city of Manchester, which we could argue has an industrial feel to it due to the old buildings and lack of colour. There is synergy between these images and my music video as the guitar is played by one of the band members in the video and the other is in fact a screen shot taken from the video that has been used in it on many occasions. The back cover is a replica of the front images but I decided to remove the image of the guitar to tone it down as it began to look crowded with the track listing positioned on the back too. There are no band images on either ancillary. This makes it more exciting and draws the audience in. I decided not to advertise their bands image, similarly to the ‘Myloxyloto’ album of Coldplay’s as the band is already well established

Daniella Johnston

and successful. They don’t need to advertise their image to the public in the way mainstream artists do, as it isn’t what sells their music, it’s the actual content of the album. This opinion is shared among many rock bands therefore I thought it would be a good idea to do the same thing on my work. For that very reason, I also didn’t include the bands name on the disc or the front cover. ‘Kings of the night’ can only be seen on the sides of the back cover piece, it is very abstruse and can easily be missed.

The disk lacks everything. However, I think this is effective because the white colour connotes feelings of loneliness and being lost, representing the concept behind the video. I took this idea from the Kings of Leon’s album shown above and decided that I would only add the record label they are signed to on it. Song BMG is one of the largest music groups in existence. It successfully highlights the career of the band.

In terms of colour, I have stuck to a colour pallet consisting of black, blue, green and white. Not only are dark colours typically used on a digipack for a rock album but they also allow the white text to contrast with it making it stand out even though it is very simple and minimalistic. This juxtaposition of opposites is another convention of rock music I discovered when researching. The other colours keep to the albums theme. Dark

green is commonly associated with greed and jealousy and carries a connotation of money. In the video the lead singer is successful but envious of the life of a normal person, who has the time to enjoy life and have a relationship. He is lonely. Blue is symbolic of hope. I have used this to show that there is hope for the lead singer as he could ‘Use Somebody’. The use of these colours is continued in my poster for the album and in the video adding to the consistency of the house style. The text is consistent too. ‘Cicle’ is used throughout both ancillaries making it a part of the house style. It is subtle and doesn’t draw the audience’s attention away from the images.

As you can see my poster promoting the album shows a clear synergy with the digipack, and therefore with my music video. Using the same image again creates an identity for the album; it makes people know what to look for when they go out to purchase it. In comparison to many real products, this is very popular with many artists of different genres including Adele, Eminem and the Arctic Monkeys therefore using it makes my poster seem more realistic and professional. The language is direct and to the point. It effectively fulfils its purpose to inform the audience that they can buy the album now. ‘OUT NOW’ highlights this. The use of the colour red makes the text more powerful. Like many magazine posters advertising the release of a new album, mine explains how the album features well-known tracks that have already been released to give the audience a taste of the entire album.

Daniella JohnstonTaking into consideration the distribution of images compared with text, there is an even amount giving both my ancillaries design balance. They also have a consistent house style. The layouts of both use, develop and in a sense challenge conventions of real media products. Synergy between both pieces of work with my video was difficult to achieve. It was only when I finished the first draft of my video I realised they didn’t gel. As a consequence I had to recreate my digipack and using images from the actual video made this easier to do. As you can see from the first digipack I constructed below, it has no synergy with the video whatsoever. It’s plain and boring. Iconography of the guitar suggests the genre of the album is rock but it doesn’t give the audience any indication on the content of the album. This made me realise just how important it is that products promoting each other synergise with each other. Accessing one of them and instantly recognising another from it shows they work together well. I see many elements of my video in my ancillary projects. They now have a clear synergy between them. As a result, they have a greater impact on the audience making the combination of my video with my ancillary tasks much more effective.