How effective is the combination of your main product and

ancillary tasks?

My productFor my main product I was asked to make a

whole music video.I chose the song ‘Complicated’ originally sung by Rihanna, immediately this means that my

music video would be portraying love and despair. Throughout the process of planning,

designing and creating my ancillary tasks I always knew that I had to try and portray love

and/or despair through photographs, font, colours and design work.

Photo shoot for ancillaries

Here is a contact sheet of the photos that Bryony and I took for our ancillary tasks. As you can see we used different locations in the hope of showing ‘Elle’ in

different lights. We used heavier make-up in our shoot than in our music video because we wanted to show the audience that she suits different looks and that

she is versatile.

The ancillary tasks

Digipak

Magazine advert

Research into Digipaks

Album covers are the key into portraying the artist through still images. The images that are selected have to show the artist in a way that they would like to be shown (usually relating to their songs on their album or the current

emotions).

Here are two examples of digipak covers that I looked into when designing my final cover. Both of these covers interested me. Rihanna’s album cover (left) drew me in because of the emotion on her face (sultry, serious, sexy),

this straight away gives the audience an insight into what the album will be like. Listening to the album as an example of the audience, I felt that this album cover does coincide with the emotions and expressions within the

songs used. This album cover gave me the inspiration in using this method of portraying different emotions on the album to match up with the emotions in the songs.

When looking at Beyonce’s album cover (left) I felt that the use of black and white was striking and parallel to the genre of music (R’n’B/hip-hop/soul). Also the use of bold capital letters gives the digipak cover more power. With the album cover looking powerful, this shows the audience that the artist is powerful and strong. Again, this gave

me inspiration when creating my final album cover.

DigipakOn my digipak I really wanted to portray to my audience the different emotions that ‘Elle’ shows within the songs on her album. By doing this I hoped that with the audience would be intrigued by the pictures selected. These pictures I also selected coincide with the emotions that are shown in my main product (music video). Within the video she goes through despair, happiness and sadness.

I decided to use black and white throughout the whole of the digipak and the magazine advert. This is because I really wanted the ancillary products to look sophisticated and similar, I feel that if the digipak and album cover were of different colour it would look tacky and unprofessional. The sophistication is apparent right the way through all my tasks. For example, with the video, we ensured that we dressed ‘Elle’ smart and sophisticated, we wanted the location to be of high-quality and class and her attitude being dignified and respectful. I believe that we achieved all of this, and again I believe that I carried this right the way through to my ancillaries.

The font is continuous through this product. By doing extensive research on what font I should use I found that using a continuous font and a bold font gives the product more class and a professional element. Ensuring that my ancillary product looks professional is key into making sure that it links in with my main product because of the professionalism I desired to incorporate within the whole of my project. With the use (in my main task) of a 200 year old manor house I feel that this makes the

Research into Magazine advertsWhen looking at previous made magazine adverts I found it quite hard to find an advert of my genre. One of the only magazine adverts I found was this (advertising ‘4’ by Beyonce). I believe that this is a very powerful and self-explanatory advert. The simplistic font, images and colour all compliment each other and give this advert a lot of class, this relates to my music video because I incorporated all of these factors to sure that my final product would look professional. I also really liked the continuity used throughout the album cover and the magazine advert (e.g. The photos have similar colours, same emotion, similar attitudes). Again, I felt that this makes the advert look professional. With using a continuous technique throughout the advertising process of an album ensures that the audience will be able to recognise immediately what is trying to be sold.

Magazine advert

As a reader of this magazine advert, the audience would be able to see straight away that the star persona that I have portrayed. With ‘Elle’ being mainly a artist that uses love in her songs I have tried to capture this in the photography. From the photography you can see here, ‘Elle’ looks memorised and ‘in-love’. In my music video I tried to capture these elements through her acting skills, for example, she would smile at the camera or show despair about her current love.

I chose this picture because I felt that it was the most powerful. The fact that ‘Elle’ is looking upwards towards the sky represents hope and happiness. Although her music video is based around despair and confusion, this contradicts her emotions in a good light and shows the audience that she is a positive and happy individual.

I kept the magazine advert simplistic and self-explanatory because I found that in my research that all powerful and individual women of my genre had quite plain yet bold magazine adverts. This straight away caught my eye and intrigued me into wanting to know more about this artist. I wanted to show this through my magazine and I believe I have. The simplicity of this, again, relates into my video because I did not use any fancy editing techniques, use any extravagant props or dressed ‘Elle’ with any overstated clothes. I tried to keep everything simple and sophisticated.

Comparing the two ancillary products

Black and white

Continuity through both tasks (same location,

poses, costumes)

Used digipak cover within the magazine advert to promote the

digipak