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

My main production, the music video, and ancillary texts, link to each other because they are appealing to the same target audience and use the conventions of `folk genre`. The use of ancillary texts helps to reinforce the main production, because they reiterate the artist`s brand and the way this was presented in the music video.

The purpose of the main production,the music video is to sell the product and that particular song, the ancillary texts; album covers and adverts are produced to advertise the release of a new album or single. In this set of products, in order to show the branding of the artist, as well as, the artist and album name, other factors, such as the font type, colour palette and muted images are kept the same across the video and print productions such as the font, images and general style, this use of repetitive features creates a strong brand identity. These products aim to appeal to audiences who are females in the age range of around 16 to 24 years of age, and people who like the folk/acoustic genre. The production appeals largely to females, because of the narrative, of a relationship breaking down, it also appeals to female because they enjoy the romantic narrative.

The mise-en-scene, also contributes to the appeal of the music video to women because of the locations, costumes and genre. The genre of music largely determines who the target audience is, and how therefore we needed to appeal to them. It also represents them as being young. The characters in the music video, do not feature, neither does the artist, on the album cover or advertisement, because I believe a sense of mystery about the artist. This makes a point of creating ancillary texts without images of the characters or artists on them enables the audience to focus on the genre more, because this space can be filled using background images of the locations used in the music video, therefore creating a sense of familiarity brand identification without revealing the artist or any characters. Laura Marling uses this convention on her album cover, Ghosts, which can be seen within my album cover research. Her album cover consists of a yellow, beige background with a black outlined design in the centre, which surrounds the album name. I have used this convention because I believe it creates an artistic feel to the production, and creates mystery as to who the artist is. These images, would be geared towards the genre of the music and appeal to the target audience because they would be a reflection of the type of lifestyle that this group lead, this would have audience appeal because they can relate to the images that are shown.

The images included in the print productions would reflect the lifestyle that this particular group lead because, it would show the places they live or like to go, it would also reflect the type of things they enjoy doing in their spare time. In the ancillary texts, the audience are represented as creative, artistic people who have a sense of individualism; this is because of the use of muted images reflecting the narrative portrayed in the music video. The creative artistic feel in the music video, is shown by the use of the split screen technique, the appeal of the narrative that particular age group and how they can relate to the narrative.

The music video, for `bad day, by Daniel powter`, that I looked at for my initial research, reflects the feel in my own music video best, because of the use of the split screen convention, the characters and location being very ordinary and everyday, and the narrative in `bad day`, was about a boy and girl falling out of love. The sense of individualism that is portrayed is reflecting the use of everyday characters that present the production with a very ordinary and everyday feel. The ordinary and everyday locations, are also presented in the ancillary texts, because I use the beach and train as the locations for the images on my anciallary texts, which are the same as in the video.

The research that I conducted where I analysed different album covers of a similar genre to my own, which gave me ideas for how I could appeal through this genre to my target audience. I looked at the codes and conventions that had been utilised within these cd covers, and how they complied with the genre. The codes and conventions that I used within my final production were influenced by the music videos that I had researched.

The main convention that I used was the split screen technique, I also adhered to the soft lighting that was used in my research videos, and also within the print productions I applied the same type of font. I took certain aspects from the album covers I researched and was influenced by them whilst in the process of creating my print productions. I liked the font that was used on Laura Marling`s album cover for, Ghosts, therefore when designing and researching fonts I used the influence I had from, Ghosts, to allow me to create or find a similar font, which would create the same connotations. Kate Walsh’s album cover for, Tim’s House, features an image of herself on the back and front cover, with the artist and album name to accompany it, although my album cover does not include any photographs of the artist, it does use the same washed out muted colours technique, which adheres to the genre of the music. I used soft lighting , in both the music video and anciallary text, which is another factor that i kept the same, i used the soft lighting in the images on the front cover of the album.

The planning aspects to both my final production and ancillary texts, involved a variety of tasks to enable the shooting process to run smoothly. Whilst carrying out the planning for the music video especially, myself and my production team needed to discover the mood and how we would create this through a mixture of; imagery, colours, mise-en-scene, audience, costumes and location shots. These aspects are very important as they set a mood and create the feel that is needed in the video in order to appeal to the target audience and apply to the genre.

The mood of the music video is creative, soft and romantic, this mood was achieved by the use of soft lighting within the video and print productions, and the way the objects and settings around the characters are bathed in light. The costume of the artist within the video, because the colours of her clothing are light and the blue top links to the beach location, the clothing is soft and include muted colours. The mood that is created is also very reflective, because of the lighting, the emphasis of sunlight and the use of a piano in the live performance, which therefore gives the music video a creative and artistic feel. I applied the lighting effects, in the ancillary products by using adobe photoshop elements and adding shadows, and adding strobes of sunlight and moving the light around to cast light on different objects.

The creation of the storyboard is a key part in the planning process of the final production, because it gathers all the angles, shot types and movement in one area, that will be used in the video, research can help to decide shot types and angles, as we can take how we portray something because of the angle or shot type and apply this to our won video, because of the way we would like a certain aspect to be portrayed. The planning process allows us to have a record of all our initial thought out ideas and plans, which can be used to compare to the final production and the changes that have been made between planning and research process to the final cut. It also helps us to understand why these changes took place, the problems that we were faced with and how these could be avoided if this task was undertaken again. In conclusion to this question, I believe that the combination of my main production and ancillary texts work effectively as a package, because of the links in codes and conventions that have been used within them, but also the running similar themes that appear in both sets of products.