Q2 (Evaluation):

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The primary role of a music video is in advertising where it markets both a song and artist for the purpose of exposure as well as expansion of the artist’s profile. It also offers the chance for a song to be presented in visual form and this links to the theorist Andrew Goodwin and his ideas that the content of a music video relate to aspects of the song such as the lyrics. For some genre’s such as R and B a music video allows an artist to demonstrate other talents excluding singing such as dancing. However overall a music video’s main purpose is in advertising and invoking a reaction from the audiences, causing both the song and artist to be remembered.
Andrew Goodwin specifically stated that music video’s demonstrate key characteristics of their genre such as performance in an Indie pop music video. In order to exceed the audience’s expectations I went with these characteristics and followed the performance aspect of this genre and therefore in this way I fulfilled the purpose of a video in terms of its generic conventions. I personally feel that the predominant role of a music video is in displaying a song in its visual form and therefore it’s crucial the video remains entertaining for its audiences. I ensured this through my use of fast cuts and editing which kept with the pace of the song and made sure the audience’s attention was not diverted at any point. Additionally the positive themes I utilised in my video can be seen through the uses and gratifications theory as providing audiences with escapism. Escapism is a major aspect of this theory where audiences use such media texts as a means of entertainment, by reinforcing these fun and positive themes it made sure my target audience could use my product as a means of escapism, specifically because its overall narrative wasn’t complex or deep meaning it requires little thought process. Therefore in this way my music video served one of its primary purposes, entertaining the audience through its visual form of the song.
Additionally key aspects of my video such as my use of ordinary individuals to perform parts of the song would have appealed to my target audiences in terms of both personal identity and relationships. I purposefully chose people of a similar age range to my audience to feature in my video and through my sign use I communicated to them with issues which were directly applicable to specific aspects of their lives i.e. relationships. Therefore this would help my audience in feelings of personal identity where they may have been able to relate to the people featured in my video, finding reinforcement in their own values depicted by the signs. This is further strengthened by my use of casual clothing, by using such costumes it created an overall message for my audience to decode in terms of Stuart Hall’s encoding model where they were able to view those featured in my video as down to earth and therefore connect to the artist more, specifically as my target audience can be described more as realists than for example aspirers. Therefore by actively creating a product my audiences would use as for entertainment and as part of the uses and gratifications theory it ensured it fulfilled its role as an effective product.
In terms of advertising I personally feel that by not including the main artist in my music video it helped in creating some sort of mystery and ambiguity surrounding him. This may have directly caused potential audiences to further research into the artist and his former songs and therefore by not including the main artist in my video I think it worked in promoting all of the artists work rather than just the one song. I also think my music video served it’s purposing in terms of advertising due to the fact it stuck to its basic generic conventions, sustaining the audiences expectations of this type of video as well as being overall entertaining.
The purpose of a digipack as a whole is in selling the album to the audience as well as including important information about the artist and album. The front album cover primarily acts in advertising both the artist and album and therefore it’s crucial it stands out to attention in order to attract potential audiences. The back cover whereas is important in informing the audience about what songs are included in the album, rather than in selling it, while the middle digipack’s are primarily used as a form of design, in demonstrating the artists personality and the style of music featured in their album or they can be used as a means of saying thank you to producers etc. I believe every part of album cover served their purpose in this respect where for my first digipack design I included bold, brightly coloured fonts as well as a striking puzzle piece effect design which attracted attention to important details on the cover, details such as the artist and album name which were important in terms of advertisement. For my two middle album covers I developed a unique design portraying the personality of my artist and his style in terms of his music. For my second album cover I picked out a main image I felt particularly stood out, specifically reinforcing part of the artists performance and then decided to make it appear as if the artist was singing however instead of featuring musical notes coming from his mouth I used puzzle pieces, this was a unique idea which allowed me to express the artists overall personality. For my third cover I created a design consisting of collage of puzzle pieces with images of the artist in them. I think in this way both of my middle digipacks designs served their purpose as almost creative ‘memorabilia’ of the artist, they were specifically unique to both him and the album and his overall style of music. In terms of my back album cover because it’s primary purpose is in informing the audience I made sure I used clear fonts and numbers. I also followed the puzzle piece scheme I had adopted throughout all of my ancillary tasks. Keeping a house style across all of these products with this puzzle piece effect was very important in terms of both consistency and making these products personal to my artist. The puzzle pieces not only interlinked with the album name but created a unifying theme amongst all of my designs which linked all of my products together.
In terms of my magazine advert its main role is in advertising the album and the artist on the whole. In order to advertise a product effectively it had to be eye catching and dominating, I achieved this through the use of bold fonts and adopting the red and black colour scheme I had in my previous designs. I also included an ambiguous image of the artist, this was particularly important in serving the adverts’ purpose in giving away basic details about the artists release date however overly not giving away too much, causing potential audiences to want to research further into the artist/ album. I also used the puzzle piece design I had on my digipack covers in order to adopt a house style across all my products, once again giving my product consistency as well as a individual ‘signature’ that the user would associate with this product. This was reinforced by my black and red colour scheme which I also used through all designs.