Task 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?

• A Star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed out of a range of materials. We chose a music video, an album cover and a poster to construct a star image.

• Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strngth of their meanings.

• Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media- magazines, TV, radio, the internet- in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences.

Youthfulness - Our target audience is young people, mainly between 16 and 24, therefore we constructed our

band with young members.

• We created a sense of youthfulness by their clothing. Our lead female singer, is wearing a fur coat that is currently very fashionable for young woman. She is also wearing hot pants illuminating her sexuality. Some older audience might see them as inappropriate but young girls will look at her and admire her confidence to show off her body like that, especially on a roof.

• The rest of the band, are made up of three young men. We created their look to be causal, cool, young, relaxed and all items were specifically chosen from what was the popular ‘look’ at that time ie, chequered shirt the drummer is wearing, Jacket with fur the basest is wearing. He is alos wearing these ‘Specs’ which are very popular with teenage boys, as it gives a slightly quirky edge to his look.

• The make- up The lead female singer is wearing is heavy, black coming up high above her eyes. This look was taken from a recent image found of Kate Moss, so it presents her to be young, feminine however tough seen through the way she moves and escapes from prison.

Rebellion• As our target audience is younger people, we wanted to appeal to them through our band

rebelling.

• We constructed a concept of our main female singer, becoming arrested, then escaping, to join her band on the top of the roof. Which conveys her to be a girl, who breaks the law then refuses to conform to the prisons rules. She's strong enough to escape the cell and celebrates on the roof with her band

• Having her escape from prison cell, its symbolic because she's escaping the ‘male’ dominated environment.

• This is also linked to success against odds. As shes gone from the bottom (jail) to the top (band)

Sexual magnetism• To be honest, we didn’t want our lead female singer to be conveyed as a typical, sexual object as

other pop acts present them selves such as Britney Spears. We wanted her to be slightly more edgy, masculine but still at the same time pretty. We wanted to show she was feisty, and not your typical girl who would be dominated by men, instead she can escape prison by herself. She is more a ‘rock, indie chick’.

• However the Prison Cell in our video, contradicts what we were trying to do, as she is wearing an outfit made of duffer tape and ‘hot pants’. She looks a little like a prostitute which isn't helped by the fact that she's in a cage. We mislead our audience to think she's a sexual object- abit how Shakira publicised herself for her latest album cover.

• However we didn’t want to hid the fact that she was a sexual woman so we did have shots of just her legs.

Anti- authoritarian • As our band are a ‘rock band’ this was important for our star image.

• The way she was in prison shows she does not stick to the law which is a major offence to many people, however she doesn’t care.

• Also her clothes, ripped tights show she doesn’t conform to the ‘tidy’ ‘pretty’ dresses woman are traditional supposed to wear. She doesn’t care what people think. Also even though her tights look like a hookers tights, we don’t make that connection because we accept that she is rebelling and that she is being a presented as a ‘rock chick’ – just like new pop artists Ke$ha- who is presented in a similar way though her dress sense and also stories of her outrageous, naught behaviour.

Originality We wanted the band’s image to mirror the alternative sound of their song, ‘Les Artistes’. We didn’t

want to be like every stereotypical organic band, we wanted something more exciting and fresh which would appeal to a wide variety of teenagers in to different types of music.

We thought the lead female singer, should convey a powerful attitude and not be presented as an ‘angel’ like some pop artist are. We wanted their clothes to be urban, yet not what is in fashion at the moment. Ruby’s fur coat, is feminine. However she is a contradiction, because although she wears sexy, revealing clothing ie. The tape in the prison cell; her attitude is so strong that she does not seem like a ‘whore’ but a girl who can pull off wearing what she wants because she just doesn’t care what people think about her,

A good example of this is the Rock artist Pink-

Creativity/ talentWe wanted to create an organic band, who write their own music and actually have a genuine love for

music. Rather than pop music these days which is all manufactured, not written by the singer and badly sung with the vocals being manipulated to sound better

This meant it was important to establish our band a as group, in a ‘jam’ session. We chose the roof as it mirrors there ‘high’ talent and greatness as well as shows how they turn to the city of San Fran as inspiration for their music.

Another organic band I feel is very similar to ‘the Escape’ is Florence and The Machine. Because although they write many of their own songs, they still are very popular and are always in the top 10 charts. In their videos, the focus is on the lad female singer, Florence, however at times they show shots of the rest of her band, ‘The Machine’. Just like our video.