How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

I feel that our ancillary texts form a link with our music video / song, and this is why they are successful. It captures the “British Rap Artist” image and well as being colourful and unique enough to attract a target audience of 14-16 year old boys.

Our song is of the British rap genre. It contains typical characteristics of rap such as : a fast pace, jumpy beat , quick conversing etc.

It has a serious underlying message of how hard works pays off and how violence is not a solution. However, it also includes comical lyrics which is not typical of this genre (e.g. I'm sittin’ here content with this cheese on toast”) .

To bring this out in the video, we used children instead of teenagers/adults as the main characters. This emphasized the comical elements within the song, whilst still relaying a serious message.

We wanted to reflect the British rap genre as well as the comical and unique element of our video in our ancillary texts too.

All of our ancillary texts are centred around the artist, not the children featured in the music video. This is because, although the children were the main characters, they were just actors participating in the video. We feel the digi-pack should reflect the artist himself as he is the one who produced the track.

Our Song & Video

Front of Digi-packI believe that the front of our CD cover reflects the British rap genre in a unique way. We used a typical “graffiti like” font which is associated with rap to portray the genre. All of the fonts were selected from dafont.com. We chose this website as it is known for its diverse range of styles for graffiti fonts.

Also, besides the font, I believe that the rap genre is portrayed through the simplicity of the cover. The text is minimal and it has a simple layout. This is typical of most rap CD covers as you can see .

However, the “unique element” is added to our digi-pack, like our video, through the use of colours and the effects on the main image. We challenged typical conventions of rap videos by adding effects to make the video visually pleasing. We brought this element into the digi-pack too, to link the two medias. The effect on the main image shows the artist putting on headphones. This portrays the artists love for music and how heavily influencing it is. The second element we challenged is the use of colour. Usually, rap CD covers etc have very dark colours but we wanted to make ours brighter and unique. We used a pink / red colour to catch the target audience’s attention and to make our CD cover stand out from the rest. The use of colour is also more likely to attract young teenage boys (our target audience) rather than dark block colours. This is how we incorporated the “rap elements” but also originality of our video into one of our ancillary texts.

Inside of Digi-packThe inside of our digi- pack also reflects the rap genre along with a unique twist.

The British rap genre is reflects through the artists facial expression and mise en scene.

British rap artists (especially the males) usually have very blank facial expression to reflect the “tough” image that is associated with rappers.This is the same reasonas to why our artist is looking away from the camera with a plain expression.

Mise en scene such as the background of the image and costume also reflect the rap genre. As I have mentioned previously, British rap videos are usually very budgeted in terms of filming in locations etc as British rap is not yet well established. This is why we shot the image in the artists bedroom. Also, the artist is wearing the typical vest and chain that “gangsters” wear, which also reflects the rap genre.

Overall, the inside links back to the cover of the digi- pack as well as the music video again, through the use of colour and effects.

Inside on the left of the Digi-pack

This is a page in the digi-pack which is dedicated to fans. British rap artists are portrayed as being “down to earth” as most of them appear to come from “troubled backgrounds”. This is why we decided to have a page like this in our digi-pack as well as it also being able to again reflect the British rap genre.

It also fits in well with the rest of the digi-pack as the colours and font have remained consistent throughout.

Inside in the middle of the Digi-pack

This is a very simple picture of a block of flats in the distance. It has been edited to match the effects and colours of the other pages of the digi-pack, so that it all fits together.

The reason that this image was chosen, was again to reflect the stereotypes British rappers are associated with – being proud of their background.

British rappers stereotypically, come from working class families and the struggles they face is usually what inspires them to create music.

The image of the flats is to show a more “grounded” side to the artist. This is also reflected in the music video as it is filmed in a school, a park and down an alleyway. This links the two forms media together.

The inspiration for this image was taken from a British rap group called The Streets & their cover of one of their albums.

Inside on the right of the Digi-pack

This is where the CD is placed inside the digi-pack.

It has the same fonts and colour scheme as the rest of the digi – pack which links it all together.

Many British rap artists print their name and / or album name on the CD too as a way promoting themselves.

Back of the Digi-packThe back of the digi-pack is where the track list is .

As you can see, once again the colour scheme is consistent as well as the fonts used.

The layout is also quite simple just like the front cover but, this is the first close – up image in which you can see the artists face. He is looking down in order to avoid attention from the people passing by.

We decided to have the artist looking away from the camera to portray that it is not fame he is concerned about, he is just passionate about hismusic. This is a statement most rappers make.

Once again, he is also dressed like a typical rapper with this hate on backwards and sunglasses etc.

The colour scheme throughout the digi-pack makes it unique and therefore ties in with the video and song nicely.

Magazine AdvertisementAs you can see, the advertisement and digi-pack create an effective combination.

One again, the same fonts and colours are used to allow the audience to create a link between both medias and relate it to the rap genre.

However, on the advertisement the artist is looking directly at the camera. This allows the audience to quickly establish who the artist is without having to read the rest of the advert. This is probably the more effective and influencing media out of the two ancillary texts. This will help to promote the artist in order for the CDs to be sold.

The originality of the artist is show on the advertisement through the layout. The image is split in half and the information is presented on one side of the page, which makes it more unique like the digi-pack and video.

Typical layout of advertisements :

I feel that the combination of our music video and ancillary texts is very effective.

They all include elements that are consistent throughout each of them and most importantly they all link. This will enable the target audience to link the video to the artist, digi-pack and magazine advertisement.

I also believe that they are effective because of how they were edited. Besides the video that was edited using Imovie, the digi-pack and advertisement were both edited using Photoshop. This allowed us to add the same effects and techniques to our ancillary texts which helped to link them together.

They all include an element of the British rap genre whether it be through mise en scene, camera shots, fonts etc as well as including the originality that was established in the music video using the children.

This is why I believe that all the media products together, created an effective combination.

How effective was the combination?