EVALUATION - QUESTION 2 - FINAL

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

For the music video we decided at first to do a video for two of our friends who performed together occasionally, we decided that this would be a good idea as they lived nearby which would allow us to be able to film easily as we were all within easy reach of each other. This meant things could have been re-filmed if necessary, allowing for the best product. 

Sadly as we got into the second week of our shooting schedule we still hadn't received a song from them so we decided to take it upon ourselves to write and perform our own song, we had been thinking about forming some sort of group so this was a good opportunity. We managed to write our own song but sadly this had taken up far too much time for us to be able to justify it, this was our first mistake as it meant that we obviously had much less time to spend on the video which I feel largely impacted my video. 

So we were left with creating the music video for 'Autumn Term' and our song 'Layers'. This was the Debut single and this was heavily highlighted throughout the ancillary products. We decided that we wanted to try something different than just a performance video of a narrative based so we had seen the concept of long exposure shots used to create text within the stop-motion shots  using lights etc, so we attempted to contact Toby Lockerbie several times to no avail. But we eventually worked out how to use the shots were constructed which allowed us to experiment but after realising that it would take far too long to do all of the words to an acceptable level, we settled on the shaking text which I managed to finish within two weeks. 

One of the main things realised throughout this project was that relating the ancillary texts to the video was much more simple than the other way around. So I decided to base my digipak and magazine ad around the video instead of vice-versa. 

I settled on a video that would show the artists which would settle the need for a performance piece and using the band I also created. Meaning that anyone who saw the video would recognise them as part of the band if they saw them elsewhere (recognition being an important part of any unsigned band). Also it helps the audience and fans feel perhaps more connected to the artists, which can be difficult and lacking for other artists such as Deadmau5 with his trademark mask. However I thought that a concept video would fit in most with the small but ever-growing in popularity  genre 'indie-rock'. As they are (in my opinion) the least used in today's music videos. I had a basic idea of the structure of the video which would be that we would be following 'Justin ' around on a normal day of his and it starts out with him hanging out with friends and it makes numerous references to drugs and alcohol which grow in size throughout the video highlighting his spiral into 'madness'. Then it all climaxes with the chorus and the intensity of which the text shakes and the high volume of the music.

Digipak

When it comes to the combination of the digipak and the video I tried to really put across the idea of America and how that is a huge part of the characters life. So firstly I left the area where the band name was blank, this meant that it does resemble the American flag but is a subtle reference and not glaringly obvious. Again in the translucent pictures which would make up the 'stripes' part of the American flag you can recognise certain aspects and landmarks of America, such as: Times Square, Hard Rock Cafe, One World Trade Centre (the new 9/11 memorial) and the view from the top of the Empire State Building. The largest part of the digipak's link with the video is the same as the magazine ad's which is the faces of the two band members on the inside of the digipak. This is I believe the most helpful tool for recognition with the fans as when you open the digipak the first and only thing you see is the faaces of the two people in the video you also saw. This leaves no mysteries as to who the people were in the video or who the people were singing the song and doesn't involve asking friends or looking all over the internet for answers, which would deter many other possible fans.

Another band that utilised the ideas of a re-occurring theme are The Streets. While their genre may be different in musical style, I like to think of it as similar due to the fact that there is no-one genre that Mike Skinner belongs to, as he utilises a range of different kinds. His album "A Grand Don't Come For Free" is actually a story being told about how his life was great at the beginning but how he loses his girlfriend and it starts going downhill. The bus stop featuring on the album cover also appears in one of his videos. 

Another band which also do this is Gorillaz. In all of their videos they exist as avatars of themselves (Interestingly enough this is the only format in which we are allowed to see them). In all of their videos they exist in this work which is created, for instance a flotating island and a windmill appear with in both 'Feel Good inc.' and 'El Mañana'. Their many other videos also display them together in different parts of this 'world' they have created.

Another aspect to consider, which is an advantage to having two band members, both male and female is that it may attract both male and female audience regardless of sexual orientation or gender. For instance an example of this could be when Rhianna does collaborations with other male artists which draws a new audience in, not just the audience for music but for people who are attracted to the artists themselves. So I have taken this idea and  applied it to both of my ancillary texts. 

I thought it was prudent to look at every aspect of the digipak and find ways of combining it with the magazine ad. just to make it that much easier for the audience to link the two together. One of the main ways in which I have done this (which has been previously mentioned within the blog) is the font and band logo. The band logo is made up of the same fonts and colours and merely structured it differently (I merely changed the structure for practical reasons, as if I had put the words Autumn and Term above each other on the spine it would have been unreadable and therefore far less professional looking) in both the front cover and spine of the digipak and the magazine ad. Again the audience can link these two together. I have done the same with the song just to make it as easy to recognise as possible, I have created a song logo which appears in both the magazine ad. and the digipak. 

Finally, as previously mentioned in the blog the largest connection there is between the digipak and the music video is in fact also one of the most subtle ones; the pictures which are translucent within the digipak show many different types of shots i.e. some dark, some light, some with and some without friends. This may appear random but in fact there is a very specific point to this which links to the video. In the video and the song lyrics it shows our character 'Justin' going through hell at night and waking up in the morning to spend his day at school. We re-iterate this in the structure of the pictures on the digipak. As you can see at the top the first pictures are in the dark running about with friends and the pictures are mostly too small to get any specific detail and are unclear. But as we progress downwards through the pictures they become larger and therefore more easily visible and understandable until we get to the bottom when the pictures are the largest they have been and the most clear - they are also in the daytime for the first time. This may seem random but in fact shows 'Justin's' progression from night to day. At night everything is indistinguishable and hard to understand but when he wakes up in the morning everything is clear and he can finally 'see'.