A2 Evaluation - Question 2

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

From reviewing all three of the products I made, I can see that they really work well together. I had to plan out the ancillary texts after my music video, and was therefore able to use elements of the video to aid in their production. All three texts combined are extremely useful in showing the audience more about the artist, how she views herself and how she would like to be viewed; this allows the audience to form a strong relationship with the artist as she is being quite personal. 

The first ancillary text I produced was my magazine advert. I gained inspiration for this by doing extensive research into other magazine adverts of the indie genre. Doing this allowed me to see how an indie artist links themselves to their products when being advertized, so I had a substantial idea of how to make my own ancillary products as effective as possible. One indie artist I appealed to was Bastille; I looked at his magazine advert for "Bad Blood", as well as considering the elements the artist I chose to base my entire advanced portfolio on, Gabrielle Aplin, used in her advert for "English Rain". From Bastille's advert, I was inspired by the use of the artist on the road at night, running in the opposite direction of the camera. However, using Photoshop, I developed this inspiration by changing the image from being set during the day to during the night. I chose a countryside location to reflect the indie genre and keep the target audience appealed as the audience hold certain expectations of what to see. Furthermore, the location helps to create a more rustic feel to the magazine advert and allows the audience to automatically see the genre it belongs to. In addition, as opposed to the artist in the "Bad Blood" advert running away with a scared facial expression, I shot my artist with one of confidence. The reason for doing so is as I wanted to advocate the representation of the artist being independent and strong, as in the narrative of the music video, this is how she is shown after going through such an ordeal of losing her partner. 

Gabrielle Aplin's magazine advert also helped me as I appealed to how the artist was captured in a long shot, rather than a close up. I incorporated this into my own advert as it is conventional of the genre to focus on an idea, rather than the artist themselves. The use of dark colors in my advert was inspired by both Bastille and Gabrielle Aplin, as the former uses an image at night, which I appealed to as it connotes enigma and suspense; as if there is more to known. I thought this would work well in my own video as the audience may have started watching it presuming it would be your typical love story; therefore they would not expect the distraught plot twist. Gabrielle Aplin's magazine advert was effective to look at as I liked how she had a juxtaposition between greyscale and color; I wanted to create a similar sombre mood in my own advert, to illustrate that the indie genre has deeper meanings and connotations, that reflect real life events. Therefore this is more appealing for the target audience as they can relate to the artist and their life.

The digipak I created, alongside the magazine advert was also effective in combination with my music video as I took on board the components of the latter to provide continuity in my ancillary product. I kept with the theme of there being many conflicting emotions, as seen in my music video, by making half of my digipak have a light color scheme, whilst the other half adopts a darker, stronger contrasting one. This way, it shows how the artist does not work on the basis artificiality in their music, but rather shows the workings of real life and demonstrates how "celebrities" go through such hardships as well.

Another concept I think works well with my digipak is the use of simple editing. Other genres, such as pop or EDM, rely heavily on synthetic visuals in their music videos. However, with the indie genre, minimal editing is key. Therefore, as with my music video where the editing was quite low-key, consisting primarily of trimming and chopping, as well as adding transitions such as fades in between performance and narrative shots, to separate them, my digipak remained simplistic. I never went beyond using editing tools such as blurring/sharpening images, adding filters or perhaps cutting out an image. This helps to both maintain regularity in the visuals of both productions and show the audience consistently that this is an indie genre product; but also to reflect on the genre conventions that disregard overly complex editing, as this would wrongfully illustrate the artist to be artificial. The editing must appear natural throughout, as both the music and the visuals reflect nature; this would appeal to the target audience as they like the simplicity of the indie genre. 

With all three texts combined, I do think they work together effectively. All throughout the production of each product I have questioned each aspect I chose, asking whether it would really work and how it shows a particular ideology I have used elsewhere in my work. I also considered the role of the audience and how elements appeal to them, as they are the ones who watch music videos or buy the products, and therefore they are the ones who promote the artist, and generate more sales. Overall, I do think that my digipak and music video work the most effectively as all the sides of the digipak help to say something about what is shown in the music video. They represent the artist as being natural and relatable, through the mix of colors which help to reflect the artist's emotional complexity.