Evaluation Question 2

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

 The main aim for the music video and ancillary texts at the beginning of the project was to be effective in the way that it promotes the band.

In the planning stages of production there were a few issues and questions on how we were going to link the music video to the ancillary texts, we didn’t know how we would make it clear that they were part of the same ‘brand’. Once we had made the rough cut of the music video we showed it to some people in our target audience to get an idea on how good they thought it was and therefore how effective it was in reaching our aim.

We got some feedback and here is what was said:

· Good singing

· Good lip synching

· Good mise-en-scene

· Good editing between performances

· Good lighting

· Quick  cuts

· Good close ups of lead singer

· Nice close ups of the guitars

· Variety of shots/frames

As we got so many good comments about the rough cut and no bad comments we knew that we were on the right track to making an effective music video, we then had to get the video finished and ready to start making the ancillary tasks (digipak).

Once the final cut had been finished and uploaded onto YouTube we then went onto thinking about ideas for the digipak, we started by coming up with a colour scheme, we wanted it to represent the band by being dangerous and yet show that they are serious about the music, this is how the band would want to come across. So we went through ideas and blues and greens seemed to be too masculine, the target audience was all along males and females so by using masculine colours we would be isolating the females, so we didn’t want to make it one sided towards one gender to the other, so red and oranges seemed a good in between, so once we came up with that we had to decide on how the colours would look on the screen, we instantly realised we didn’t want a boring block background, so a gradient background seemed like the perfect way to integrate red with orange and yellow.

I did some research into digipaks and album covers that already existed(existing products).

This Kings of Leon album cover uses the same colours as I am using in my album cover, it is not a block colour background because otherwise it would be too bright and wouldn’t match the distressed look that they were obviously going for. The name of the album and the band name are the same size and font, this can mean that they cares just as much about promoting themselves as the songs themselves.

This album cover for Colbie Caillat is girly yet sophisticated, it fits the look she is trying to go for. The flowers fit in with the girly look. She is wearing white which connotes purity and innocence.  The yellow is again a girly colour and her smile makes her look innocent and excited. Colbie has been placed in front of a tree and nature to make her look like she is at one with nature, this would make her likeable.

 This oasis digipak is made of cardboard instead of plastic, this could be because it is an acoustic album and they wanted to make it look more rustic and original by using cardboard, it suits the wooden look of the cover. The colours used are all natural and neutral, this could show that they are laid back and because the image is of a guitar and not them as a band this could mean that they just care about the music and not so much about promotion of themselves.

This Katy Perry digipak suits her pop side and represents her to be girly, childish but also flirty, this is seen by the album cover, the image of her with no clothes on being covered in just clouds/candy floss. The use of sweets and candy floss shows her childish side and would show that the songs on the album are all light hearted and not too serious. The text on the front cover looks like strawberry laces and the cd itself looks like a candy swirl sweet, this also would show her almost wanting to go back in time to when she was little, but the front cover with no clothes on would show that she is in fact not a child but she can still act childish.

This advert is a large print one that has been put up in a tube station in London. It advertises Madonna’s album and the colours used show originality and her hair and makeup suggest bravery, as people don’t tend to go out with that type of hair or makeup unless they want to be noticed and talked about. The distressed look of the poster suggests that she is old but she’s putting that out there and showing it off, she doesn’t really care.

This magazine advert for The Killers is set in the woods, this could suggest that they enjoy nature or that their songs on their album are natural and the significance of the wooden arm could mean that they are removing the arm of control that society pushes onto everyone, and the fact that the arm is wooden could mean that they are trying to get back to their inner roots. The colours are all natural and neutral, this suggests that they want to keep everything natural.











There were some ideas that i took from existing products that influenced our ideas when we were thinking about what we were going to do. Examples of this was the colour scheme, we mainly got this from our own ideas and what we thought would look best but there was also influences from other places, like the Oasis album cover and also the Kings of Leon album covers, their colours schemes are mainly orange, this made us feel better about our decision to use orange as we knew it would do well in the market.  

This is my digipak that I created for my advanced portfolio media project.

The front cover for the digipak (top left) was made by Jackie and he made each of the silhouettes separately in photoshop, he had to draw the outlines individually and then fill them in with black infill. The font text is the same throughout, it’s just switched from black to white, and this makes sense because on the front cover there is black and white, so it alternates nicely throughout the digipak. We have decided not to show the band members faces on the front cover because this way it matches with the video where you don't see one of the faces of the band members, it is kind of a mystery, but we decided to do this so that it matches the video.
The left inside pane for the digipak (top right) was made by Kyle and he decided to do this brick kind of design because that way the black and orange could be introduced together in a different way to the front cover, the band’s name is also once again used on this pane, this is because we wanted to once again remind people. It is on a tag because at this point Orson could almost be a brand in itself, so by putting it on a tag it means that we are almost branding it.
The pane that I made was the inside right pane(bottom left) , it is for the cd to sit on, this way i had to design the cd and the pane for it to sit on, i decided to use a similar colour on the cd as the background so when it sits in the case it should blend in with the background, and the light bulb is there so that there is almost a logo for the band, the colours are consistent throughout the digipak, and this just means that it is consistent, and that we designed it well together and that we all knew what we were meant to be doing.For the back pane for the digipak(bottom right) we decided to use a proper image on the back cover as we hadn't used any throughout the rest, so we used an image of an amp and then edited it and added filters to make it look like the rest of the digipak panes, the song track names are positioned so that it is noticeable but not the first thing that you see, the logo in the bottom corner was also made by Jackie, he made it on Photoshop and the rest of this pane was made by Danny, the small print in the bottom left corner was changed a few times, we deliberated a few times together on what size we all thought it should be, this is the decided size because it is small enough to read but not too big so that it is particularly noticeable. Danny also made the barcode in Photoshop, he copied one that he found on Google and changed a few of the numbers to make it unique. The orange background that he used is the same as the rest of the digipak and this promotes consistency once again.

The magazine advert was made in photoshop and we all decided that the main aim was to make it look near enough identical to the rest of the digipak panes, so orange would be the primary colour. Kyle decided to be the person in charge of making it mostly but he would constantly come back to the group and ask whether it was ok and suitable. The colour font that we all decided on was an off white and the rest would be black to contrast against the orange background. The black figures are the ones from the digipak that Jackie made. This is because normally the front cover of an album is duplicated almost for magazine adverts.

The ITunes logo was found off of Google, we decided to add this because it would mean that it was available online and these days digital audio is taken advantage of more than ever and this is using this fact very well as people buy music online more than in cd format.

We decided to put a website url on the magazine advert because then the people that enjoy going online will get the advantages and perks from going onto the online pages and finding out more about the album or band.

The small print is once again located in the same place as the small print on the back cover of the album, this is good product placement as it is something that needs to be there but not many people actually read, this way it is still there but just not very noticeable and doesn't take anything away from the advert itself.

For the different reviews noted on the advert first we had to do research into the kind of people that normally review the type of music that our band it. (Rock) and the first one that came to mind was NME as it is included in alot of magazine adverts, so I went onto the website and looked at the kind of artists on their playlists and it was people like Frank Ocean and The Maccabees, so i knew that after this i could use their name on the magazine advert.

Next i looked at Q magazine's website to see the type of music they promote and again i thought that our band fitted in nicely with their other promotions and decided to use their magazine as a review for our magazine advert.












Lastly i looked at the Mojo website, for the same reasons as above.
Their music promotions weren't exactly the same as our band's music but i thought that it could be a good idea to include them in the reviews as then people that normally get Mojo magazine might be inclined to listen to Orson's music because Mojo were a review on it.