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

As part of my A2 coursework I had to create two ancillaries, one of which was CD Digipack and the other being an album poster. The digipack design displays how the album would look if it were to actually be released onto the shelves. The album poster that I have created using Adobe Photoshop is to advertise the album and hopefully appeal to my target audience. I have purposely added the same image on the cover of the Digipack, creating synergy between them and the album poster to make my product more recognisable, I also feel that this image represents my music video very well so people who are interested in the album will be aware of the genre before they buy it.

Again to create my ancillaries I used Google to research other media products to gain a greater understanding of what makes a successful piece of work. When creating my Digipack I decided to make the colour scheme black and white to go with my music video. It also adds to the representations which are present in my music video. My music video is about looking over memories that a couple have had together which means that a lot of my footage is in the past. All of the footage with the young male

and female characters in represents the past, for example:

On the other hand, all of the footage of the older couple represents the present tense, for example:

The black and white effect that I have incorporated on the video helps highlight the fact that the footage is in the past, also I feel that it adds more emotion to the music video. Ed Sheeran’s music video for The A Team has inspired me to have a monochrome style to my own as I feel that the reason why they decided to do that was to create emotion which helped with the overall narrative.

I

decided to use an image of a male and female hugging which I feel is extremely stereotypical of the love genre for the cover of the CD as well as the image on the poster.

I also feel that it will highlight the overall style of my music video to audiences. For the CD I have decided to use a zoomed in image of someone playing the guitar. I have done this as I feel that it fits well with the overall style of my digipack, it also highlights the stereotypical conventions of the pop/folk genre. The back cover of my digipack includes the full album track list, I have purposely made up these kinds of names as they fit well with my genre and again highlight the theme of love, relationships and heartbreak. I have also included a barcode on the back cover, similar to other media product, along with the record label logo that I created.

To create part of the background for the back of my CD digipack I took a piece of lined paper and laid out flat on a table, I then took a photograph of this and uploaded it to the computer before editing it onto my digipack. I feel that this gives my CD Digipack a nice effect and an interesting backing for my track list. On my album poster I used the same image as I did on the cover of my CD Digipack.

I also included a list of tour dates at the bottom of my poster for promotion; I did this to make the poster look much more realistic. I also included the artist’s website which is stereotypical of other promotional music posters.

To make my music video much more interesting I decided to create a narrative that people may be able to relate to. I have also made the story quite emotional which will hopefully make audiences much more drawn into my music video and be intrigued to watch it all the way through. I have decided to use the same location of the park throughout my music video as I feel that the nature adds to the overall love theme created in the narrative.

I have included a range of different shots including close ups, long shots, point of view shots and establishing shots when shooting the footage for my video. I have mostly used these shots to establish character and location. I have also used many fades throughout my video as I feel that it adds to the emotional atmosphere that I am trying to portray. The editing technique of a fade also represents the passing of time which is important to my video as a vast majority of it is in the past.

I have also included a slow motion effect on various shots throughout my video to sit with the slow pace of the song and emotional lyrics. I feel that when I compare my ancillaries and my music video to one another they clearly go together well and look successful as a group of work. The images that I have used on my ancillaries are connect very well to my music video as I have shot many of the photographs in the same location as my music video.