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Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

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

For my A2 Media coursework, I had to create a music video, along with two ancillary tasks; a digipak and a magazine advert. For the music video, I chose Marina and the Diamond’s song ‘Teen Idle’. The ancillary tasks would help create a brand and aid any potential marketing for the song release.

When given my ancillary task, I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. To do this, I needed to research around the topic. I began my research and planning for my digipak and magazine advert by looking at existing products. I focused my research on Ed Sheerans products for his ‘X (multiply)’ album. There are similarities between both his digipak and magazine advertisement in the colour scheme and font. There is a restricted use of green and black in both products and both use the typewriter font for his name. Linking both products in this way connects them together and creates a recognisable brand for his audience.

The combination of my media product and ancillary texts is effective to great extent. I limited myself to using only shots from my music video in both my ancillary tasks. I wanted my artists brand to recognisable, similarly to Ed Sheerans, so I used distinguishable shots from my video but edited them. The different styles of fonts, and grungy colour scheme on his album was something I was keen to replicate, as well as the structuring of the song list and style of placement in terms of having the song list on one side of the back cover rather than down the middle. The way in which the artist was featured throughout the digipak was something I also liked, as a marketing technique it is important to create a memorable design. I also liked the CD design, of utilizing the opportunity to include information on the CD as well as the sleeves.

This was the final design for my digipak. I conformed to the conventions of an Indie genre digipak by having the main focus be on the artist, and by using low-key lighting and dark colours, as well as alternative clothing and makeup. In relation to my music video, I wanted to keep the colour palette very similar as to make a link between the video and my digipak. Therefore I made sure to use dull lighting and dark colours for my digipak, reflective of that in the music video.

The magazine advert’s I researched tended to focus on the artist more than anything, and made sure to include social media links for marketing and promotion. Magazine’s also featured the album cover somewhere on the advert so it was important to make a clear correlation in design between the two. This is my final design for my magazine advert.

Throughout the music video and digipak, I made sure to keep the running theme of conflict and breaking down of lives present. I used the conflicting bright and dark colours in my music video and then transferred that to my digipak.

In conclusion, I believe I created a clear link between the digipak, magazine advert and music video. In order to gain a wider viewing audience, it is important to create links between products and merchandise so that the audience can begin to understand the style/themes of an artist. I conformed to the conventions of the electropop genre to ensure that there would be a link between the three.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Final Magazine Advert

Final Digipak

Digipak - Inside Cover

Digipak - CD Cover

Digipak - Back Cover

Digipak - Front Cover

Digipak Analysis - The 1975

The 1975 are a British indie pop band and the digipak below is from their second album "I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It". One of the most prominent things about this digipak is that, unlike with most cover art, there is no track list on the outer back cover. Another noticeable thing is the "The 1975" logo is the only thing on the front of the album cover. The logo is a continuous thematic throughout their previous album covers and is something that would be recognizable to their target audience and established fan base. But the logo has a difference in that it is created by pink neon light, whereas for the first album the logo was in black and white digital art. This could symbolize a change in style for the band, whilst keeping the essential parts of their identity.

The use of pink in the artwork complies with the bands image as their lead singer to defy gender stereotypes and so this is shown through the use of a traditionally "feminine" colour on their album network.
Much of the reason people will buy this album is because they know the band and have enjoyed their music before. This is because the artwork of the CD cover is based heavily around the logo of the band and so appeals to their current fanbase.

Digipak Analysis - Ed Sheeran "X"

Ed Sheeran is an English singer-songwriter. This is the front cover of his X (multiply) album. In a live webcast on Youtube, Ed Sheeran stated that he feels "every single one of his records should have a theme that runs through it, even if its just a colour. The first one was orange, throughout, everything [he] did was orange. The X album is going to be green throughout, and everything [he does] will be green in terms of artwork". He cited Coldplay as an influence for this, as they keep with the image of each album they release "for the next two years". The physical versions of the album come packaged in a green jewel case.
This digipak cover doesn't include his face. This reflects his general anonymity in his music career. Its a general theme in both his album covers and music videos - he rarely shows his face. Alternatively, he does make an appearance on the back of the digipak.
The fluorescent green background makes the black X stand out more prominently. This is eye catching and appealing to his target audience and also reflects the acoustic pop style of music he makes.

Final Music Video

Electropop Record Labels

The song I chose for my music video falls under the electro-pop genre. I want my digipak to be as realistic as possible and to do so, the addition of a record label is necessary. I researched a couple existing record labels in my genre.

1. XL
XL Recordings is a British independent label that began as a dance music offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records in 1989. In recent years XL has earned acclaim as one of the world's best independent pop labels through artists such as: Adele, Radiohead, Vampire Weekend and Jack White. As this company is focused on independent pop music, I think it would be good for my music video. An example of a music video released by this company is:

2. Sub Pop

Sub Pop was introduced in the emergence of grunge in the early 1990's out of Seattle, Washington. They were the first label to sign successful artists such as Nirvana and Soundgarden. Sub Pop survived the demise of grunge and continues to be a force in the development of independent recorded music and I think it would be a good record company for my video. A music video done by Sub Pop is

3. Domino Records

Domino is a British independent label formed in 1993. Franz Ferdinand's You Could Have It So Much Better hit #1 on the UK album chart. Its key label artists include Arctic Monkeys, Dirty Projectors, Franz Ferdinand and Hot Chip.

For my digipak, I am going to use Domino Records for my record label. I think their music videos are most similar to mine and have also had the most success, which I would want for my artist.

First Draft

Filming Day Three

So today I was sat editing in the media room when I saw that I had quite a lot of gaps in my video that needed filling. I watched a couple existing media products and saw that it was common for the artist to be seen singing to the camera in front of a colored background. I chose two different backgrounds as shown. I chose the red because red imagery connotes blood and danger in media texts which relates to the theme of decay in my video.

A very common convention of music videos in the electropop genre is the use of shape symbolism. I did not use the exact image shown because I could not find the one I used but this was very similar. 

Costume Ideas

I made a collage of costume ides for my music video. I took inspiration from existing characters such as Effy Stonem from Skins and Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl. The look portrays laziness and yet lowkey style.

Magazine Advert Analysis - Kodaline

Makeup Decisions

Along with my two looks - external and internal, I wanted matching makeup looks to further this portrayal. External having a full face of makeup on, altering what she doesnt like. Internal having messy or no makeup on.

Hair Inspiration

For my music videos character, I wanted to portray a certain thing so I researched thoroughly into her look in order to convey that effectively. It was important that she had two sides to her, her external and internal. Her internal look was the messy hair, messy clothed look - portraying her actual self whereas her external look was the perfect hair, perfect makeup image in order to portray her conforming to society.

Editing Day Two

Today I continued editing but focused on matching my lip syncing. Having lip-syncing that is correct is important to make my video as realistic and close to conventions as possible. Also, some of the shots were looking a little long so I decided to shorten the length of some shots but then repeat that same shot with the screen cropped closer. I made sure to edit this to the beat so it matched the music.

Intertextuality

Today I researched into a few more theories and came across Julia Kristeva's idea of Intertextuality. She states it is "any text that is the absorption and transformation of another!. I began looking for examples of intertextuality in media texts and found that it is very common for media texts to be influenced by eachother.
For example:
Avril Lavinge's music video 'Alice' is a direct link the novel "Alice in Wonderland" as well as the 2010 film.

Editing Day One

I started editing my music video today and I think its going quite well so far. I started adding in the lyric pieces onto my video like I talked about on my last post. I didn't like the exposure and brightness on some of my shots so I adjusted them as shown so that they were all alike. I think my progress is good and I have set a deadline to finish up to thirty seconds into the video by the end of today.

Mental Health Research

One of the underlying themes of my music video is mental health, and my protagonists struggle with her 'inner demons'. In order to understand how to portray this character I did some research into mental health and some illnesses that our video could reflect.

"Pyschosis" - a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

In my video I am keen to explore the break between reality and fantasy, as our protagonist is unable to function in reality (the home/school scenes) so she escapes to a fantasy she creates (forest scenes).

Originally I was going to explore Multiple Personality Disorder

"Multiple Personality Disorder" - characterized by the appearance of at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person's behaviour.

To explore this I was going to have our character change costumes depending on which personality she is, because it's a music video it would've been hard to portray the change without any verbal speech. However we decided against this idea, as we felt it wasn't an accurate representation of this particular mental illness and might make it seem a little 'cheesy'. Instead, I decided to represent is through colour symbolism.

Filming Day Two

Collage Research

This is a picture of the collage I made for my music video. I wanted to use the collage to portray the female characters confused mindset. I included pictures of Barbie and magazine covers to show her self-esteem issues in relation to the lyric "aint youth meant to be beautiful?" and to challenge societies pressure to be perfect. I made sure to use lots of pictures focused on the human body - from a skeleton to Vesalius' diagram of the human anatomy. I did this to really accentuate the theme of decay and death. I also included some war imagery and references to suicide to show her confusion.

Lyrics In Video?

I was watching some music videos to get some inspiration and I watched Issues by Julia Michaels lyric music video and I really liked the idea of having the song lyrics on the screen. But after thinking about it, I decided that I didn't want all the lyrics in the video, instead, just a select few words that I could use to emphasize the message of my music video.