A2 Media - EQ2 Amended Version

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

2. Creating a digipack and poster to go with our music video
was not only about allowing us to experiment with more media
technologies, but it also pushed us to create work that
matched what you would see in the industry.
By allowing us to make ancillary pieces I have had to
consider house style not only in regards to the poster and
digipack matching, but how to reflect the tone, theme and
mis-en-scene of the images you would see in the video.
The ancillary tasks are meant to not only reflect the music
video but to sell it. Therefore, creating pieces that are
meant to attract an audience forced us to consider in more
depth what the audience wants from products; encouraging us
to look back at all our audience feedback and consider all
of it too.

3. Initial ideas:
• When I was first planning my ancillary tasks I had wanted to create it
similar to the poster I had seen for the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign that we
had created our Music Video on (some can be seen below), although as it can
be seen these often incorporate bold colours and certain phrases over the
picture that link to it.
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• However, our Music Video is in black and white for the majority of it, and
this had become part of our house style, therefore using bright colours
didn’t fit our video.
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• Due to the song being called ‘Strong’ we wanted to focus on this word more
than anything, as it represented the women in the video too. As the
products were to advertise this song (and album) I wanted the name to stand
out, so decided against putting it on top of an image.
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• Another idea I had was to incorporate images of all the actresses in our
video, however when I tried doing this on Photoshop the images didn’t seem
to work together well as they had in the video and the message we were
trying to give wasn’t as obvious.

4. I decided to keep the house style of my
ancillary's similar to my media text and
maintain the black and white theme as I knew it
created a dramatic effect yet looked
sophisticated.
In addition this means that when the colour
changes in the Music Video it will be a surprise
to the audience and emphasises the change in
attitude that this positive view of women in
sport creates. In addition, by having everything
else be in black and white it creates a bigger
impact than if it had all been in colour.
One thing I had considered was past texts that
used black and white, and after looking into the
1940’s ‘Film Noire’ genre where women were always
seen as objects of attraction for men and all
texts fit to the ‘Male Gaze’ theory using black
and white in my contemporary piece also reflects
how these opinions are out of date and this is
how women should be viewed in the media now.

5. When people watched the first rough cut of our video we
noticed that a large amount of them commented on this shot
and the impact it made. Due to all the positive feedback I
received for it I knew it had to be used in our ancillary
tasks. As I couldn’t do my initial task of including all the
actresses in our poster and digipack I decided to pick one
image that would be repeated in all of them to create a link
– this one was identified by almost everyone that watched it
as being impressive to look at so I decided to use this one.

6. I decided on this image because it has been described as
‘striking’ yet the actress herself is unidentifiable. She
has been described as ‘majestic’ yet in the video she is
doing a sport that requires a lot of strength, determination
and commitment – making all women that watch this believe
they too can be seen as beautiful doing something they love
(including sports).

7. In order to maintain the same
theme of images on my digipack
so it didn’t become confusing
I decided to also use an image
of one of our actresses diving
in.
This is very similar to the
image that can be seen at the
very start of the video,
making the audience believe
that the whole video will be
focused on her. So, when the
video goes on to show lots of
different other women in their
respective sports it makes the
audience believe that anyone
can take part in sports – this
only emphasises our point on
empowering women even further.

8. To create a brand image for the band ‘London Grammar’ I decided to
create a logo. This meant that not only did their name get used on the
ancillary texts, but there was also something that they could be easily
identified by and could be used anywhere. To keep it sophisticated I
decided to use the colours black, white and blue. The blue I then
reflected in the bubbles on the digipack and some of the text on both
pieces, ensuring it all tied together but also that everything
regarding this music video represented the band as it is their song and
in the industry all of these pieces would be created to sell the music
and the band.

9. The font that has been repeated throughout
is called ‘Orator Std’. I decided on this
text because it is clear to read and I
believe it reflected the style of the video
well.
The repetition of this text in my music
video and ancillary pieces ensures that it
can all be read easily, and the poster and
digipack would stand out if printed and
displayed like in the industry, and ensures
the house style is continued throughout.
I have also used other texts, but unless
they are used in the logo they are all
different colours. This means that in both
the digipack and the poster the name of the
song and the band stand out as much as
possible, whereas the rest of the
information can still be read but also
looks decorative and creates a more
interesting digipack and poster to look at.

10. Overall:
The combination of both my ancillary pieces and my main task has been
very effective in helping me understand how all areas of the industry
work together to sell a product. I have had to consider not only what
the audience want to see, but also what links to the Music Video well
and gets the message across.
I have aimed to create three pieces that all maintain a sophisticated
look yet still manage to make a big impact on the people who see them.
By using black and white which are two very contrasting colours, it
ensures that the text and images are able to stand out as a striking
difference to the dark background and link in with the music video.
By creating ancillary’s that only incorporate certain parts of my music
video (black and white, same font, images similar to two shots used) it
makes the entire Music Video seem slightly ambiguous to those who
haven’t watched it yet, therefore making the message even more powerful
than if they had known what it is about. Having the ancillary texts has
allowed me to test my media knowledge on many different platforms, not
just filming and editing but using Photoshop too. It has pushed me to
think creatively and make executive decisions on what I think works
well with the product I already have.
The combination of all three texts has encouraged me to think carefully
on all the research, theory, audience feedback and media knowledge I
have collected over the last two years of my media course and put it
into practise.