How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?

Main product – Music video Ancillary texts – Album and Magazine advert

By Amina Begum

Introduction:In terms of combining our main video and print task, I found that it is much more challenging that I expected. At first I didn’t think that it was going to be hard to match the video and print task but realised as I didn’t think I would need to focus on facial expressions of the artist and how these small aspects change how she is portray and realised it was one of the difficult parts of this project because if we didn’t get link the print tasks and the music video successfully than it wouldn’t make any sense as audiences would get confused in how we were trying to portray our artist. We wanted our artist personality to be fierce and strong as this is how we envisioned her to be through the help of the lyrics of ‘Sell Out’. So it was very important that the group and I were to match the personality and emotion from the video to the print task. This is what we found difficult because it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Initial print task:In our initial print task we made did not really fit the personality of our artist that was shown in the video.

These four panels was going to be our initial album cover. If a person was to look at this (without looking at the music video), they would think that she is sweet and innocent as she is portrayed this way from her facial expression, especially her facial expression on the back cover where she is smiling making her look very innocent which was not how we wanted to portray her. Moreover, her costume was too casual, one of the feedback we got was that she looked like ‘a school teacher’ which our group agreed with and it didn’t work. This costume didn’t fit because even if she was portrayed as this sweet and innocent girl she would still be more stylish, as nearly all music artist’s wear stylish and trendy clothes in their album covers. This is because they are role models to audiences and people/fans look to them for fashion therefore this casual clothing for album cover didn’t make any sense in terms of trying to make her look as a realistic artist also how we wanted to portray her personality.

Combination of Initial Print Task and Music Video:

Shot from Music Video

Initial Print Task

Linking the print task to the music video, you can see that the combination of the two wasn’t effective at all. The music video portrays our artist as fierce, tough and strong also shows a little bit of her bitchy side to her. For example, from the shot from the music video of the right, it’s a shot of her rolling her eyes which clearly shows some bitchy side to her. Looking at her costume and the red lipstick is evidence of her fierce and tough side to her, it shows that she is the type of girl that can take care of herself whereas in the print task she is wearing quite natural makeup which again doesn’t match. However, if you look at the print task there is no links whatsoever. In the print task she looks very innocent as sweet as said before on the previous slide, which is the opposite of how she is seen on the music video. The costume choice we used wasn’t good as it was too casual making her again portrayed as too innocent, in comparison to the clothes she is wearing in the music video where she looks fierce and tough which is how we wanted her to be portrayed. As music video and print task’s are about selling the artist, the print task doesn’t do this because the costume is too casual, usually all music artist are stylish and trendy so that the as the audiences look to the artist as fashion icons so it is important that what they are wearing is stylish. Therefore the combination of the two doesn’t make any sense as the artist personality doesn’t match at all. Therefore we had to re shoot the photo’s so that we can make the music video and the print tasks match. As we knew these images wouldn’t work, we didn’t bother making a magazine advert with these images.

Improving the Print Task:In order to make the combination of the print task and music video more effective in order for the portrayal of our artist to match, we needed to reshoot the pictures. When we were planning to reshoot, one of the main things we had to change was the artist’s costume. As said before it was too casual for our type of artist and the costume was a part of why the combination of the music video and print task wasn’t effective. As we had to re-film our recording studio scene, we decided that we’d do both in one day, so then the two products would have more links as the recording studio scene and the print tasks would have the same costume. After researching we thought of a costume that was trendy but also showed our artist personality more. We told her to wear leather jacket, white top, gold jewellery etc (recreating Tulisa’s - Female Boss and Kelly Clarkson – All I ever wanted album cover’s). We also asked her to wear more makeup, so for instance winged eyeliner and red lip which would bring out her fierce and strong side more than the neutral makeup she wore in the initial print task. As our costume had been sorted, another important aspect was the artist facial expressions being made, as in the initial print task she looked too innocent, partly because of her facial expressions. Therefore we had to rely on our actresses facial expression and personality to shine through and match the personality she showed in the video.

New Photos for Print Task:

As you can see from these images they have improved so much in comparison to the old pictures we had. You can see that the costume, makeup and facial expressions made such a difference to the portrayal of our artist.

Old Print Task VS New Print Task

As you can see, when you compare the print task’s with each other you can see a massive difference between the two. The old print was too casual and didn’t fit the character and personality of her in the music video which is why we had to reshoot the pictures. As you can see in the new print task there is a drastic change in terms of the personality we get from her as it is more fierce, strong and has a sense of bitchiness to her in the pictures like in the music video. So it was really good that we reshot as we obtained much better images so that we can successfully get her image across.

How effective is the combination of your music video and new print task?

The combination of our music video and print task is much more effective now. The music video and print task has much more links in terms of personality, matching the emotions of both products and portrayal of our artist as this is what makes the combination more effective. Throughout the video we see our artist as a strong, dominant and powerful woman, this is shown in many parts of the video, for example, in the video, she rips the teddy bear with her hand portrays that she is really strong. This is then backed up by the print task as she looks really powerful, for example, her red lipstick (which is worn in both music video and the print task) shows that she is confident and a strong woman which is showing clear links between both products. Moreover we get a sense of bitchiness with her personality in the many parts of the video, especially when she is looking at him in the restaurant scene. This also is backed up and linked with the print task as in the front cover, she is doing a bitchy pose (picking her nails) portraying her bitchy side showing audiences and potential boyfriends to never mess with her. Her overall personality in the music video showed that she was really fierce and tough which was also shown through the print task. It was really good that we reshot because it allowed us to create a more of an effective combination of the artist as it allowed the products to compliment each other and for us to show her personality. Since the point of a music video, album and magazine advert is to sell the artist it was important that we showed our artist in a certain way so that audience can know about the artist, also its important it all linked so it doesn’t confuse our audience in how they see her.

Challenges we faced?

Even though the combination of both products was effective there was still problems in terms of matching the level of emotion and personality. As we improved the print task so much and created her personality to be brought out so much in the print that she didn’t seem as fierce in the video but we didn’t have time to re-film everything again, so we left it. As you can see even when we tried to match the print task and video it was hard to find the balance in personality that was shown which was surprising because we didn’t think the combination of the prink task and video would be so hard to do but realised it was one of the most challenging parts of creating these products.