How effective is the combination of your main?

How effective is the combination of your main?

• 1.
  HOW EFFECTIVE ISTHE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TASK?
• 2.
  MUSICVIDEO All the creativethoughts and processes stemmed from the music video, as this was the main product and needed a lot more research and planning. However, as soon as I started thinking about what song I was going to do I instantly began to think about the digipak and magazine advert I would have to create.This meant that the creative thinking and planning for the music video helped influence my ideas for the ancillary texts.Throughout planning there was the constant question in my head ‘how can I make this have synergy with the digipak and advert’. I thought about what the music video was about and how I could turn it into artwork. I did this by taking a semiotic approach (Saussure) and choosing signs and what they signify in the video. Examples of this is the BTTelephone Box and the BMX bike. I knew that these were key objects in the video that steer the whole content, so I felt that this was necessary to put in the ancillary texts, as it creates a link between all three products, thus, creating synergy. I felt that the bike was a really important part of the mise-en-scene in the music video so I wanted to include it in the inside panels of the digipak.There are several shots in the music video that are front-on, medium-long shots of the character riding the bike with his hands placed firmly on the handle bars. In a photoshoot we used a green screen and took photos of the character (me) holding the handle bars. We felt the birds-eye-view shot was the most aesthetically pleasing. This was the same for medium shot of the back wheel and seat of the bike.
• 3.
  DIGIPAK The digipak washeavenly influenced by the content of the music video. As I mentioned in the previous slide, I used what I thought were key objects in the music video and used them for the artwork of the digipak. For example I made a silhouette of the BT telephone Box for the back cover as it links in with the start of the music video. I did the same for the front cover except I made a silhouette of myself riding the bike.To strengthen the connection between the texts I made it so the digipak artwork was the same size and framing as the music video. For example in the music video there is a side on medium-long tracking shot so I used the same size and framing for the digipak.This was the same with the long shot of the BTTelephone Box. The use of the BMX bike being on the font cover and the main object in the music came from the fact that this is a stereotypical bike for an indie audience and as Dyer argues that stereotypes reinforce the idea that there are big differences between different types of people, I felt it was important to stereotype as it represented the character as an indie character further targeting the audience. MUSICVIDEO MUSICVIDEO DIGIPAK DIGIPAK
• 4.
  MAGAZINE ADVERT Just likethe digipak, the magazine advert was heavily influenced by the music video. In my research, I learnt that magazine adverts conventionally, use the exact same artwork as the album cover. Although I use the same kind of style and image I decided to make it slightly different, whilst still sustaining synergy. I did this by using the same silhouette of me riding the bike, but instead of making it multi-coloured and have wheels, I removed the wheels and made it full white. I used the ‘O’s’ in the word ‘technicolour’ as the wheels. In the Uses and Gratifications theory (Blumler and Katz) it suggests that the audience have expectations which they expect to be satisfied by media texts, one of those expectations being ‘diversion’.The idea behind the music video is its about escapism and the character being able to escape the harsh reality of life by hearing the music and escaping into a bright new world. I tried to convey this in my ancillary texts by having the silhouettes being multi-coloured.The graphic designs gives a sense of escapism in a pop art way, especially with the magazine advert that has the character riding the word ‘technicolour’. MUSICVIDEO DIGIPAK ADVERT
• 5.
  TYPOGRAPHY Typography is onethe key features of creating synergy as font gives a product an identity. I had to really think about what font I wanted to use, as fonts represent certain moods so I needed to choose the perfect one that related to the ‘technicolour’ theme. I decided to use the ‘Egyptian Nights’ font as it is a font with a hollow design . I thought this was the perfect design for linking with ‘technicolour’ as I could fill the different gaps in the text with colour, giving it my own personal design.The coloured in version of the font, was the font I used for all three of the products.This gave ‘Life inTechnicolour’ an identity over a number of different platforms which is what I was trying to achieve during my planning and construction.This was effective as I could change designs slightly but still sustain synergy. MUSICVIDEO DIGIPAK ADVERT
• 6.
  COLOUR I was ableto start thinking of a colour scheme for all three products quite early on in planning, even before I made the music video.This was due to the song name ‘Life inTechnicolour’ practically giving the colour scheme to me. I decided to give the products a multi-colour effect. I chose the colours by choosing the last 7 colours on the top row in Paint. Initially I was going to add an effect to the colours to give a more personal theme to the product, but in my research I saw that the indie genre tend to use block colours as they follow a minimalist approach so did the same. I used these exact colours for the text and images on all three products. As you can see on the right, I used the exact same order of colours as the default Paint colours.Also, I believe that the Pop Art style with the combination of bright colours is an indexical sign for happiness.A variety of bright colours never signifies sadness (Saussure).To further create synergy with the music video I decided to make the disc a BMX bike wheel.Again, to sustain the bright technicolour theme I filled the gap between the spokes of the wheel with each of the 7 colours .
• 7.
  CONTRAST In my musicvideo you can see a clear contrast in the dark, depressing world before the music starts playing and the bright, happy world when the music starts playing. I tried to mimic this in my advert and digipak. I did this by making the main colour black so that the foreground colours would contrast more strongly. In the video the name of the song fades in as hollow text first, then fills with colour before fading. I did this as it foreshadows what is going to happen in the music video: plain to colourful. I had the same idea when constructing my digipak and advert, so used the black background as the ‘plain’ before the ‘colourful’. More specifically, this was the reason I chose the figure riding the bike to be white in the advert as it contrasted with the black background highlighting the figure and giving it more attention. Levi Straus proposed the theory of binary opposites where by different things have exact opposites. Black and white is a binary opposition and I learnt that it is effective in drawing attention to an object.