How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text
1. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary
texts?
Main product – Music video Ancillary texts – Album and Magazine
advert
By Amina Begum
2. Introduction:
In terms of combining our main video and print
task, I found that it is much more challenging that I
expected. At first I didn’t think that it was going to
be hard to match the video and print task but
realised as I didn’t think I would need to focus on
facial expressions of the artist and how these small
aspects change how she is portray and realised it
was one of the difficult parts of this project because
if we didn’t get link the print tasks and the music
video successfully than it wouldn’t make any sense
as audiences would get confused in how we were
trying to portray our artist. We wanted our artist
personality to be fierce and strong as this is how we
envisioned her to be through the help of the lyrics
of ‘Sell Out’. So it was very important that the
group and I were to match the personality and
emotion from the video to the print task. This is
what we found difficult because it wasn’t as easy as
it sounds.
3. Initial print task:
In our initial print task we made did not really fit the personality of our artist that was shown
in the video.
These four panels was going to be our initial album
cover. If a person was to look at this (without
looking at the music video), they would think that
she is sweet and innocent as she is portrayed this
way from her facial expression, especially her facial
expression on the back cover where she is smiling
making her look very innocent which was not how
we wanted to portray her. Moreover, her costume
was too casual, one of the feedback we got was
that she looked like ‘a school teacher’ which our
group agreed with and it didn’t work. This costume
didn’t fit because even if she was portrayed as this
sweet and innocent girl she would still be more
stylish, as nearly all music artist’s wear stylish and
trendy clothes in their album covers. This is
because they are role models to audiences and
people/fans look to them for fashion therefore this
casual clothing for album cover didn’t make any
sense in terms of trying to make her look as a
realistic artist also how we wanted to portray her
personality.
4. Combination of Initial Print Task and
Music Video:
Shot from Music Video
Initial Print Task
Linking the print task to the music video, you can see that the combination
of the two wasn’t effective at all. The music video portrays our artist as
fierce, tough and strong also shows a little bit of her bitchy side to her. For
example, from the shot from the music video of the right, it’s a shot of her
rolling her eyes which clearly shows some bitchy side to her. Looking at her
costume and the red lipstick is evidence of her fierce and tough side to
her, it shows that she is the type of girl that can take care of herself
whereas in the print task she is wearing quite natural makeup which again
doesn’t match. However, if you look at the print task there is no links
whatsoever. In the print task she looks very innocent as sweet as said
before on the previous slide, which is the opposite of how she is seen on
the music video. The costume choice we used wasn’t good as it was too
casual making her again portrayed as too innocent, in comparison to the
clothes she is wearing in the music video where she looks fierce and tough
which is how we wanted her to be portrayed. As music video and print
task’s are about selling the artist, the print task doesn’t do this because the
costume is too casual, usually all music artist are stylish and trendy so that
the as the audiences look to the artist as fashion icons so it is important
that what they are wearing is stylish. Therefore the combination of the two
doesn’t make any sense as the artist personality doesn’t match at all.
Therefore we had to re shoot the photo’s so that we can make the music
video and the print tasks match. As we knew these images wouldn’t work,
we didn’t bother making a magazine advert with these images.
5. Improving the Print Task:
In order to make the combination of the print task and music
video more effective in order for the portrayal of our artist to
match, we needed to reshoot the pictures. When we were
planning to reshoot, one of the main things we had to change was
the artist’s costume. As said before it was too casual for our type
of artist and the costume was a part of why the combination of
the music video and print task wasn’t effective. As we had to re-
film our recording studio scene, we decided that we’d do both in
one day, so then the two products would have more links as the
recording studio scene and the print tasks would have the same
costume. After researching we thought of a costume that was
trendy but also showed our artist personality more. We told her to
wear leather jacket, white top, gold jewellery etc (recreating
Tulisa’s - Female Boss and Kelly Clarkson – All I ever wanted album
cover’s). We also asked her to wear more makeup, so for instance
winged eyeliner and red lip which would bring out her fierce and
strong side more than the neutral makeup she wore in the initial
print task. As our costume had been sorted, another important
aspect was the artist facial expressions being made, as in the initial
print task she looked too innocent, partly because of her facial
expressions. Therefore we had to rely on our actresses facial
expression and personality to shine through and match the
personality she showed in the video.
6. New Photos for Print Task:
As you can see from these images they have
improved so much in comparison to the old pictures
we had. You can see that the costume, makeup and
facial expressions made such a difference to the
portrayal of our artist.
7. Old Print Task VS New Print Task
As you can see, when you
compare the print task’s with
each other you can see a massive
difference between the two. The
old print was too casual and
didn’t fit the character and
personality of her in the music
video which is why we had to
reshoot the pictures. As you can
see in the new print task there is
a drastic change in terms of the
personality we get from her as it
is more fierce, strong and has a
sense of bitchiness to her in the
pictures like in the music video.
So it was really good that we
reshot as we obtained much
better images so that we can
successfully get her image across.
8. How effective is the combination of
your music video and new print task?
The combination of our music video and print task is much more effective now. The music video and print task has
much more links in terms of personality, matching the emotions of both products and portrayal of our artist as this is
what makes the combination more effective. Throughout the video we see our artist as a strong, dominant and
powerful woman, this is shown in many parts of the video, for example, in the video, she rips the teddy bear with her
hand portrays that she is really strong. This is then backed up by the print task as she looks really powerful, for
example, her red lipstick (which is worn in both music video and the print task) shows that she is confident and a
strong woman which is showing clear links between both products. Moreover we get a sense of bitchiness with her
personality in the many parts of the video, especially when she is looking at him in the restaurant scene. This also is
backed up and linked with the print task as in the front cover, she is doing a bitchy pose (picking her nails) portraying
her bitchy side showing audiences and potential boyfriends to never mess with her. Her overall personality in the
music video showed that she was really fierce and tough which was also shown through the print task. It was really
good that we reshot because it allowed us to create a more of an effective combination of the artist as it allowed the
products to compliment each other and for us to show her personality. Since the point of a music video, album and
magazine advert is to sell the artist it was important that we showed our artist in a certain way so that audience can
know about the artist, also its important it all linked so it doesn’t confuse our audience in how they see her.
9. Challenges we faced?
Even though the combination of both products was effective there was still
problems in terms of matching the level of emotion and personality. As we
improved the print task so much and created her personality to be brought out so
much in the print that she didn’t seem as fierce in the video but we didn’t have
time to re-film everything again, so we left it. As you can see even when we tried
to match the print task and video it was hard to find the balance in personality
that was shown which was surprising because we didn’t think the combination of
the prink task and video would be so hard to do but realised it was one of the
most challenging parts of creating these products.
