Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question Two: 
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

From similar product research, I was able to note that all musicians – particularly in the indie genre which I am occupying with my products, have a collective house theme throughout their album artwork, merchandising and visual pieces. For example, British indie band Mystery Jets’ latest album entitled ‘Radlands’ holds a very Austin/Texas based theme due to the recording of the album there. This theme was then extended into their album artwork and merchandise which frequently depicts the band’s members in a dusty, Southern US environment, clad in the appropriate spurred boots and vintage cowboy shirts. This theme is continued in their visual pieces – such as the music video for the titular single which shows off the wild, hinterland environment of the West. Thus, in order to keep to convention, I aimed to maintain a house theme throughout my main and ancillary tasks.

The song in my music video ‘Up All Night’ is a track from Alex Clare’s debut record; I decided I did not want to go with the theme of first, introductive album. This is due to the fact that most debut albums will need to feature the artist(s) throughout their music videos and print-based pieces. The aim of my products was to portray the album as more of a concept album, with a running theme that the audience could relate to. This concept interested me, more than the purpose of a music video from a debut project to introduce, thus I portrayed the artist as more of a well-established artist and did not feature the actual artist at all in the music video but instead the use of actors. For this idea I was inspired by the work of the Arctic Monkeys in their video “When the Sun Goes Down” where successful British actors are used rather than the artists. I believe that this is essential in the indie genre as the artists consider their music to be more important than their individual star image. Music videos tend to be the visual representation of an artist’s musical angle and as a result of this, I made sure that my video was reflective of the name of the album –The Lateness of the Hour- and made sure that the key theme of time was kept consistent throughout my video and this therefore reinforced the idea that this video is simply an episode of a whole series. Another theme that I kept fluent through the production of my projects was the sense of escapism. However, whilst planning this I decided to keep the ideas constant throughout the digipak and magazine advert too, and made sure that these all had the same look and purposes so that they could all be linked and related back to the image of the artist. The digipak that I created highlighted the clash between modern society and regionalism. This then further reinforces the escapist themes of the album as this image can be interpreted as a chance to give the audience a release from their everyday struggles simply by listening to the music on the album which includes music and ideas that they will want to hear. I applied a few filters to the original image in order to add a grainy, artistic feel to the digipak and make it eye-catching and engaging. The filter then brightened the image, and made the choice of a bold, black and plain text easy. The bold letters at the top establish the words ‘The Lateness of the Hour’ to fulfil the informative purpose of identifying the band involved. Finally, the cover includes the name of the artist at the bottom in a font that keeps the artistic theme constant as it looks as if the artist has just signed the digipak in a similar way to when an artist signs his masterpiece.

The back album cover also continues the theme of escapism which is emanated from the music video as it portrays an scenic view of trees with a shallow focus, with the same filters being placed on the cover as the front cover in order to maintain the look of the digipak. This fulfils the back cover’s purpose of adding a sense of finality to the album as the dark setting of the shot symbolises the end, whilst also keeping the artistic themes constant. Its other purpose is for providing information and production credits which was executed, using the same font – Myriad Pro used in all writing on the digipak and magazine advert – to continue the house style. All covers in the digipak help to establish the escapist notion of the music video – all portraying scenes which occur outdoors, rather than the beginning scenes which begin in the protagonist’s house. Finally, the right hand inside cover is reflective of a clock so that the theme of time is further amplified to the audience. I created the effect of the hands appearing to be spinning around very quickly whilst the background of the clock had a hypnotic style about it. I believe that this reflects how the boundaries of time are being flattened and how in the modern world, the concepts of time are being warped by the increase and development of technology.

The magazine advert is a still from the music video and the audience will then denote that there is a continuous house theme, and this is what I want to create so that the viewers become immersed in my project. Thus Denis McQuail’s uses and gratifications theory is applicable to the music video – its chief purpose being that of escapism. The music video and the album artwork encourage the audience to do something out of the ordinary and that doing something that they usually do bares many risks, but could also have rew