HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION

OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND

ANCILLARY TEXTS?Briony Brake

Evaluation

PRODUCTS My main product is a music video for

‘Keep Breathing’ by Ingrid Michaelson My first ancillary text is an Artist

Website The second is a digipak for the artist

ANSWERING THE QUESTION I figure that to answer this question I

need to be thinking, and discussing the links between the three

The running themes or concepts? The corporate identity? Are the links strong enough? Is there room for more? Do the three work together? Are they a ‘combination’?

HANDS Hands act as my temporary logo –

something that bands tend to have for one album/tour but change for the next one e.g. FOB (Fall Out Boy). It is used as the front cover of the digipak – the holding hands of a brother and sister (the title of the album). It is on both subsidiary products and acts as a logo/brand for the Brothers and Sisters album. It is also used as a graphic inside of the digipak and is placed in the header and thus appears on every page of the website.

PARCHMENT The cream wallpaper I used as a back

drop for the photograph on the last slide soon proved to be worth more as I cropped a square out (without hands etc in) and colourized it. I made it a pale shade of purple and resized it before using it as a background for my digipak. It’s used o all digipak sides apart from 2 and is the background for the website. The purple colour is used frequently in my video.

PURPLE AND RED This is the clear colour theme of

pale/pastel purples and reds I use throughout all three products. The titles on my music video are light purple or red fill and then a darker shade of purple or red outline. The colours are strangely very specific and are the same shades throughout. The titles on my site, the track list and all the writing anywhere on my website or digipak is red or purple and in similar shades. Also Sian where a red top and Chloe wears a purple one.

CHLOE AND SIAN Obviously with visuals of Chloe (as Ingrid) in all three

products quite heavily she is by default the main theme and acts as a representative of the album and subsidiary products and so is recognizable as the (easiest) link between all three.

Gabrielle Aplin (singer) has a few videos all very similar and I justified so much of Sian in the ancillary texts as I thought I would do similar in a real situation and use Sian as an actress in more than one video to allow her a place in the other products.

In the digipak there are photos of the camera with footage of Sian playing which is a background for two pages (colourized red and purple). Also there are multiple photos of Chloe mucking about as well as nice ones or behind the scenes ones.

I use behind the scene photos again of Chloe on the website as a kind of teaser for the new video and album

BONUS DISC Included in the digipak would be a CD and a bonus

disc with the music video on and that’s quite important I think as it’s encouraging the consumer to watch the video and to perhaps pursue her music in a new format and maybe then seek out some more.

If produced and sold in reality it would hold a sticker on the front cover stating that there was a bonus disc inside

It’s important because it is a way of incorporating the entire media product with another subsidiary product and giving it to people – ease of access, more likely to watch it

This video is also on YouTube and furthermore on the home page of the artist website I created.

GRAND PIANO The grand piano may seem minor but is heavily

incorporated into all of my products and is signifier and reminder of the kind of artist we are dealing with as well as the genre – the kind whose music revolves around guitar and/or piano.

The piano also helps a lot with the introduction to Ingrid as a returning student (the dialogue with Mr Burdett)

It is used for jokes and for fun on the website adding a personal touch to Ingrid site – something key to her style of artist and genre

Its also used for fun in the digipak but it played in all its glory in the video.

QUAINT The general theme and the colour scheme and

lights tend to lean toward the indie-pop genre in its pale colours, light video (not too dark), its narrative but playfulness and the subsidiary products fit with the vintage, old-fashioned side of indie-pop . If you examine Ingrid’s old site (she has had a new one since starting this course) her name was written in a stamp/type writer style font and so choosing cursive or smooth handwriting as a font fits in really well.

This is corporate identity at work because all three have elements of a certain quaintness or gentleness which is quintessentially indie-pop.

TO CONCLUDE? I believe my three products are a good, strong

combination I think they are clearly recognizable as linked

items that are from the same artist and genre The feedback suggested that the three worked

well together and that there were obvious links between them all

If I had more time I would perhaps incorporate more of the subsidiary products into the main product as well a the way it is now (the other way round).

If I had more time near the end I probably could have got some hands in somewhere!