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

I feel that the combination of my ancillary tasks and my media product have been successful as I have tried to link all my products together with specific forms and conventions by using them or developing them.

I believed that an important factor in the creation of my products was a strong link between each thing. Intertexuality is and always has been a key point in many modern media products from the film industry to music industry and their productions, in order to promote synergy. I linked my products by recurring features, such as the woodland area and the lakes. Using these themes, I linked them together so that the audience for my product would recognise the images and then make a conscious link between them all.  

The combination of my products is known in the industry as a Digi-pack, or a digital package. All three of my media products were created to promote an artist and a chosen song. My Digi-pack was made from a magazine advert, album artwork and a music video. All of this was combined to give off a comprehensive image which helps portray my chosen artist and song, as well as advertise them in a way which is conventional and works.

Examples of Digi-paks:

I think my print work and video complement each other well as there is clear synergy between the two, mostly because of the style. They are shot in the same locations, all natural and they contain little effects on them as a whole. I think the genre and style of my video is easy to tell from my print work and by looking at it, makes the message clear and the impression I wanted clear that I wanted to give my target audience. It reflects the indie-pop vibe, because on the cover my artist is looking up with rays of light shining down onto the image as a background, this suggests a heaven image but also reflects a sense of hope.

The video and my ancillary texts suggest reality and that they are not just focused on the artist, it is portraying that the artist is trying to portray the music and the meaning to its target audience instead of it being all about themselves. It tells the target audience what the artist is all about and the sort of narratives and style she portrays creating a relaxed love feeling attracting more of a female audience.

The branding of my video and print work is consistent I think, the images are all very similar if not the same and all give the same impression. The whole style is also identical, very natural backgrounds and overall a clean and simplistic look. I think having synergy across all media formats is very important, it gives the audience a clear sense of the genre and style of my video and artist, which then will either entice them to buy it or view it. Also, it allows my audience to see a connection between my final media product and ancillary texts, so when they see one they can automatically relate back to the others. This makes it easier to identify my artist as it has an individual look and the synergy of my media products helps the audience to recognise the products of the artist.

The style of my font used in my bands logo was picked for a reason, because it suggests simplicity of the band and shows that the font is unique and artistic, this would attract the female target audience more because of the lyrics and the meaning of the songs on the album as they would appeal more to the female population. The colour and glow of my fonts are kept between three colours: black, yellow or white often combining them altogether as seen in the images above.

When looking at my products separately you get a good idea of the genre, the style of music and other general themes. The magazine advert itself is mainly a descriptor for the title track, showing that it involves a nature theme and story of her life, with the natural landscape and the repeated imagery of herself. The use of the artist looking up creates a sense of hope and the use of the natural light from the sunlight creates a glow to the two images layered on each other. I have taken a still shot from the ending of my music video and used it as my background in my magazine advert with the image of her looking up layered on top. I also differed the opacity levels of the images to make it look more appealing. I also used a similar idea on my front cover but in a different way.

This was my main inspiration for my magazine advert.

Would it be appropriate for your target audience?DIGIPAKI think my digipak is appropriate for my target audience because I aim my target audience at a younger generation with the age of 21 and below. It is specifically aimed at young females. I have made my album front cover natural but glamorous to replicate the Ellie Goulding role. I wanted to present my model in a way that the audience would see her as a role model.

Ellie Goulding’s fan base:

The main reason of my media product and ancillary texts combining well together is the running colour scheme throughout. In my movie I included edits of changing the contrast and brightness of each clip but by also included effects to create an autumn but winter feel at the same time. This is also applied both in my album network and magazine advert as I have used font with a yellow glow inside and out each letter and I have also included a yellow tint to my images therefore it is maintained throughout all my products. I think that I could have made my album network a bit brighter by changing the backdrops to a lighter colour however with the faded leave effect and the glow around the text it was necessary to have dark colours to make the text stand out and it was effective.

As seen on my album network one of my images are in black and white therefore there is a clear link between this image and the narrative part of my music video and I changed the video clip to black and white and added a timecode.

Personally I think that my media product and ancillary tasks would be successful at selling the artist as I have stuck to the custom codes and conventions of the pop and indie pop genre on all my tasks. I think this would encourage audiences of the genre to find interest in my project. For instance, I had a simplistic and clean looking cover that wasn’t overcrowded, which was easy to read and identify therefore it would appeal to an audience of the same genre. The image was eye-catching which was similar between my ancillary tasks and the scenes in the video, so there was a clear consistency in all three products.

Has the combination of your media product and ancillary texts been successful?

Similar facial expressions and poses of the artists both in the images and the scenes of my video show a clear theme; a theme of love and unity which is the content written in most of the songs in my chosen genre.

The use of synergy between my products are easily recognisable as connected projects, so that straight away the audience gets a feel for what my project is about and what the artists is about.

However, whilst creating the synergy and following the standard codes and conventions I have created an individual and unique project, which I think is one of the most important things when trying to encourage an audience to buy.

Other formats of synergy which I could have created to help promote and sell my artists are things such as a website page, where i would further promote and market my artist as a product to my audience. Also in the present day internet is easily accessible therefore it would be easy to promote my work on this. On the website I would use very similar aspects to my products that I have already created, obviously maintaining the codes and conventions of a website page into this. I would include the same colour palette and the images as well as my fonts and my overall design, this would help create further synergy so that the consistency is continued through the development of my artist.

Similarly a Facebook or Twitter account for the artist would help to promote and market them further, these social networks are often available to the target audience of my products which is relevant in promoting my artist and song. Having additional attractions such as tour dates and pictures would appeal to my audience and help grow and develop a larger fan base for the artist.

These sites are useful as I expect the majority of my target audience take advantage of social networks in the present day because of new technology. These sites would be useful for connecting with the audience on a more personal level (especially on Twitter), as well as advertising my artist through for example: photographs and tour dates. As is common with artists due to technology advancements, my artist’s own website would be extremely useful for branding and advertising my artist, by e.g. streaming their own music videos and selling merchandise. Synergy across all of these platforms could be achieved through using the same colour palette and effects, such as black and white editing/colours. The same images and fonts/font colours would also help to create synergy and consistency across all of my products.

Example of synergy across platforms (Rihanna, LadyGaga & Ellie Goulding):

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