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

I am representing my artist “Lauren Mills” as a fresh, new, female R&B performer, and I needed to make this clear to my target audience.

To do so, I researched far into the elements of R&B media products, and from this I found the appropriate costume and makeup, artist, album and song name, distinctive choreography and editing techniques. I needed to consider all of these elements seriously, and find a practical way in which I could incorporate them into all three of my products.

Across my three products, I made sure to keep in mind that I am representing a young female R&B artist. Having concerns raised during pre-production as my actress was not a black female, alike the original artist of my chosen track, I knew that I had to understand and present the correct technical elements of an R&B style music video (and also throughout my ancillary texts).

I needed to make my products as authentic as possible, so when creating my ancillary texts, I made sure that there was a strong connection with the final product for consistency, and I researched in strong detail in order to achieve the most accurate result possible.

Both my magazine advert and digipak are very similar, as I positioned Lauren in the same location, and also made sure that she was wearing the same costume. The lace dress and heels are also featured throughout the final product, I chose to do this for continuity reasons and I found that this particular style is very popular with current R&B stars, this also ensured brand recognition.

I kept the colours of both ancillary tasks very neutral to maintain continuity, I found that the majority of album covers which inspired me had very high contrast levels, therefore to make my products as accurate to the R&B genre as possible, I increased the contrast, however decreased the saturation levels to maintain the neutral effect. I also boosted up the contrast levels on my music video to uphold the continuity of my three products. This would contribute towards making it clear that the three products are promoting the same artist.

The digipak and magazine advert include the same image of Lauren posing on the white furnishing. I also incorporated this chair in other images shown on the digipak, this becomes recognisable and hopefully enhance brand recognition due to the continuity of props used between each ancillary design. Digipak:

Magazine advert:

I also found it important to portray the “Diva attitude” that the artist of my track appears to have. I directed Lauren to pull serious poses for my ancillary tasks as this would compliment her fiery attitude throughout the music video

My ancillary tasks complement one another as I used the same font on the album cover as I did on the magazine advert. The font was of a formal style, which enhanced the overall neutral appearance that I was aiming for.

The styles of my three products are modern, sleek and attractive, which, from research, I have found to be iconic elements of the R&B genre. Incorporating relevant forms of real media products throughout my tasks gives my target audience a clear idea of the genre I am promoting, and therefore, with any luck, encouraging them to purchase.

I am confident that my products perform accurately with one another, not only due to the consistency between them, but also because they portray that “Diva attitude” which is apparent throughout my chosen track.