Evaluation 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

https://www.emaze.com/@ACLQROIQ/evaluation-2

For my ancillary texts, I have used a structure following the theme of the magic, dance and romance - which are the running themes throughout my music video. 

Poster

I started off with my poster - as I thought that by getting the main idea for promoting my artist and album, with the poster, the digipak would be easy to follow; due to having a colour scheme so I could keep continuity throughout all products. I decided that I wanted to have Amelia on the poster but wasn’t sure on the image. Therefore, I took various screenshots from my music video and experimented with them all. 

   

Digipak

For my digipak, I chose to use the same theme of address - magic, dance and romance in order to relate back to the poster and the music video. I decided to choose ‘Magic’ as the album title as I love the connotations it has; fantasy, mystery, excitement which are all the things I wanted to put into my music video. Furthermore, when researching into existing albums, I found that most albums tell a story in chronological order through their songs. Therefore, I decided to base the story of my album around Amelia’s and Henry’s relationship, so decided carefully on the order of the tracks:

1. Amazing Day
2. A Head Full of Dreams
3. Magic
4. New Romantics
5. Move Together
6. Love in the Dark
7. Trust 
8. Survivors
9. Make You Miss Me
10. Incomplete

I have chosen to place the track list in this order for the following reasons; for example 'Amazing Day' could represent Amelia and Henry's first date, 'A Head Full of Dreams' could portray the two individuals in almost a love trance as they really like each other, 'Magic' as they have found their special bond in their relationship, 'New Romantics' as they are experiencing troubles, 'Move Together' as they have to work together in order to be together, 'Love in the Dark' as they are going through a rocky stage, 'Trust' as they have to learn to have trust for each other, 'Survivors' as they are both strong individuals, 'Make You Miss Me' as the relationship has ended and Amelia and Henry still both love each other and want to be together and 'Incomplete' as that is what it feels like when they aren't together.

Music Video

When creating my music video, I wanted it to appeal to a wide audience; targeting all ages and sexes. Although the song is classified as ‘Pop/Rock’, I wanted to create a narrative which was unconventional in the way in which it told a love story – flouting the typical conventions such as lip-syncing, variety of different locations and really fast-paced editing. However, I did include the micro-technical elements of sound, cinematography, editing and mise-en-scene. I strongly feel that my music video could appeal to all ages because it is very innocent in terms of the narrative – making it suitable for both the young and the old. Laura Mulvey believes in her theory of ‘the Male Gaze’ - where it explores how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. She argues that within media texts, the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearances which then ‘masculine’s’ the audience. This theory is often typically found in ‘Pop’ music videos. However, within my music video, I have flouted Laura Mulvey’s theory as Amelia plays a very innocent and sweet role; not acting provocative in anyway. She is perceived as being beautiful and elegant whilst her dance moves tell the story of a relationship which has broken down. 

Combination of all products

I believe that my media texts have a strong ideology due to the content and the continuity in which they all have in common; through the themes, colour and the style. Within my two ancillary texts, I made sure I produced shared elements for both, through the same font and colours used. 

I used dafont.com for the album title ‘Magic’ as I thought the font itself has connotations of magic due to it being quite a curly, flowy style like the movement and freedom of magic. 

Within my 3 products, I believe that they have cross media convergence; meaning that they all come together creating continuity. I feel that all 3 products would work successfully on the market as they are sophisticated and appear professional looking. My poster would feature in magazines such as ‘Q’ and ‘Billboard’ as these are popular magazines for promoting Pop/Rock music. I would price my digipak at £12.99 as this is a common price for CD’s due to it being affordable for most teens and young adults. Furthermore, due to me advertising ‘iTunes Music’ on my poster, I would advertise both my video and soundtrack  on ‘iTunes’ to attract a wide audience; pricing the soundtrack at £0.99 (which is the common price for a soundtrack) and the music video at £2.99 (which is a common price for a music video). When creating media products, it is very important to keep continuity in order to create a house style – so that products are easily linked and recognised by an audience for a specific artist.


Focus Group

In order to receive some feedback on the effectiveness of my music video, poster and digipak, I asked 3 members of my media class to answer 5 questions about my products. I decided to ask individuals with media knowledge as they would be able to analyse and evaluate my products from a media angle; due to understanding media terminology and language. 

I asked the questions:

1. From watching my music video, can you recognise the genre?
2. Can you identify the conventions?
3. Looking at all 3 products together, do they create a house style?
4. How effective is the combination of all 3 products?
5. What could I do to improve them?

Overall, I am very pleased with the responses I received from Megan, Lauren and Farris. They easily recognised the genre of my music video, recognised that I flouted typical conventions such as lip syncing and focused heavily upon the narrative instead, they all thought I created a strong house style and thought that the combination of all 3 products are really effective. Therefore, from conducting this focus group, it demonstrates that my 3 products are a success when targeting the late teen category; proving that I have devised and created successful and realistic media products. Nevertheless, if I did have the chance to re-do my products, I would take their advice and experiment with different colours; I would try using brighter colours to represent the pop genre further among my products.