Evaluation Question 2: Package Combo

E V A L U A T I O N  Q U E S T I O N 2

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

INTRO (1): DISCUSS/CRITIQUE THE QUESTION

WOULD THIS BE A 'PACKAGE' IN THE REAL WORLD?

In the real world most of the different products would be made by different companies. The music video would be given usually to an aspiring film director or a specialist in music videos. Many music videos are given a very big budget, some in the millions. Whereas our production didn’t even have a budget.

The advertising via mag ads would also be given to a specialist and not the artist itself, many companies specialise in just making these advertisements. The artist gives these companies their general ideas and then its up to the companies to cater their needs and produce an inspired magazine ad.

The digipack would then either be made by another different specialized company or made by the same company that did the mag ad, as generally like our mag ad and digipack they are both very similar as they are both linked to one and other.

THE ART v AD QUESTION

The other question is ‘is a music video art or an advert?’. As the videos  now are very much to advertise the artist as videos can go viral very easily; take Psy – Gangnam style for example. PSY was not a famous artist in the west before this yet a good video along with a catchy song created a great hit. Therefore a music video is very much to create views for their music, it’s a way of attracting your audience. However the counter argument is that it is just a form of art and part of the music. I believe it is abit of both as artists want to give people an idea into what theyre about with their music videos, showing people their unique style. However they are definitely used as an advertising to so more people are listening to their music.

2: detailing your target audience

All three of our texts were linked massively to our target audience. We were sure of our target audience through our initial and on going research we did through out our production. This was our primary audience, which was aged between 15-24 and our secondary audience aged between 25-40. When we were making decisions we always had our target audience in mind due to the web 2.0 theory the audience is also the producer of a text which our product is in some ways as we always reflected our audience.

3: (this links back to audience) where might each text be distributed/exhibited

We would aim to get all 3 of our products distributed to our target audience. Therefore we did research into where all of our products would be distributed. Our mag ad would be in magazines that appeal to the male adult market. We decided that our ideal magazines would be magazines such as MixMag GQ and many others. Our CD would be distributed in places like supermarkets and mainly online websites. There is online music marketplaces such as the iTunes store and Amazon where digitization has allowed consumers to digitally download singles and albums as well as music videos. There are recent examples such as Beyonce’s newly released visual album ‘Beyonce’ which is only available for consumers to download and only includes music videos on the album. In terms of the music video itself our video would be on Youtube. Youtube would act as both an exhibitor and distributor for our music video as the display the work of artists.

4: break down (denotation of) key elements of each of the 3 texts in turn

Digipak:

·      Artist Title

·      Album Title

·      Artist Image

·      Bar Code

·      Lyric booklet

·      Track listing

·      Record Label

·      Orange Filter

Magazine Ad:

·      Artist Image

·      Artist Title

·      Tour Dates

·      Orange Filter

·      Brief information on the artist

·      Tour Locations

Music Video:

·      The black and white effect we used

·      The nightmare character

·      The chair

·      The grafitti wall

·      The song

·      Costume which reflects our target audience

5: in what ways are the 3 products linked

All three texts were linked together in all products. A key example would be our final drafts for our digipak and Mag ad the images we used were both from our music video. These images were of the little girl – the secondary character in our music video and our primary character standing on the moors. The moors image we took from a scene in our music video. We tried this out on the cover of both the digigpak and the mag ad and it worked well. When filters were applied to both this enhanced the image and we were able to use this for both media products.

For the digipak we used images of our character sitting on our chair in front of the graffiti wall location. We had created sample sequence which included a time lapse of our character switching positions in the chair, we took screen shots of each different position and incorporated them into a grid for our digipak this worked well as we didn’t just use the bland image. Changing the saturation and temperature of the image on Photoshop made the image stand out and it worked well for the inside covers of our digipak.

6: in what ways are they differentiated

The products were differentiated in the fact that the music video followed an almost social realist theme and this was reflected in the music video through the use of locations in run down settings, also the use of editing reflected this as there is a black and white filter through out the music video. Compared to both the digipak and the Mag ad much brighter colours were used in order for the texts to stand out. The way that the digipak and the mag ad differentiated, were the conventions mainly as both of these had different conventions. For example there isn’t tour dates on the digipak – this is one of the main conventions when it comes to Mag Ads.

However some of these texts are stand alone. Such as the tube station magazine ads there is a link to our acts British heritage. But, in terms of our production there is no real link between the texts.

7: evidence + reflect on some AF on all 3 as a package

We have referred to our QR code and Viral Vid in Evaluation Question 4.