An evaluation of my media products to evaluate effectiveness when combined.

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

2. Overview
In the ancillary texts, Ant wears similar clothing so he
is able to put across his personality and the genre of
the music more clearly. This is important to an
audience, as he shows him varied and allows them to
differentiate the album cover from the music video.

3. Links: Main Product and Ancillary Texts
 The cinematography that shows many centred shots,
in both the music video and ancillary texts. This is an
example of continuity.
 The simple yet effective colour scheme that is
reflective of the genre and doesn’t take too much
attention from the narrative. The ancillary texts
match with the use of black, white and additional
red.
 The puppet is used in all products and references the
colour red to a larger extent.
 The name of the album ‘Puppet Show’.

4. Audience Response to Links
 Female, aged 18: The simplicity is really nice and I
agree that the muted colours link to the genre. I like
that you used the puppet in all aspects, as he plays a
big part.
 Male, aged 18: I really like the unique narrative and
use of the puppet. The cinematography all clearly
links, which looks really good.
 Male, aged 17: I like the use of continuity throughout
everything, as it all links really well together.
 Female, aged 18: It’s clearly a deep narrative, which I
think is really unique and nice.

5. Colour Scheme
Before creating the ancillary texts, I created various
colour schemes that I thought would suit/match the
music video. The use of black and white creates the
simplicity aspect and creates the muted affect that I
wanted. The red brightens the whole idea up as it
reflects the hope of the puppeteer within the
narrative.

6. Effects
A specific colour scheme is very effective when used through digipaks and
magazine adverts. It helps reflect the emotions throughout and in my case, does
this to a huge extent. The use of dark colours reflects the hopelessness through the
music video, when the puppeteer isn’t successful in performing and shows reflects
how he feels. It also links to performance and how the artist may have personally
felt when growing into his profile. The black and grey reflect the sadness and the
red reinforces the passion of the artist and how he strives for success. The white is
a pure colour, that lightens the mood of both music video and ancillary texts. The
colours are very muted and create a simplicity effect throughout all products,
which are appealing to an audience and keep the main focus on artist and
narrative. Colour schemes not only reflect the artists emotions throughout
products, but also bring out emotions in an audience, which plays a big part when
helping an audience connect. They make links to the colour scheme and what they
see and become emotionally involved with the song and narrative through this.

7. Digipak And The Video
 The puppet is used heavily throughout the video and on the digipak to
reinforce the narrative and create continuity throughout all products.
 The costumes are very similar, which create links to the genre of the
artist and also show a mix of style.
 Similar colour schemes are used.

8. Magazine Advert And The Music Video
 The magazine advert is quite minimal and simplistic, as I didn’t
want it to seem too extravagant, as I didn’t feel my intended
target audience would enjoy that.
 I felt the colour scheme matched quite well to the performance
ending of my music video, and made it look really professional.

9. Overview
I think the use of continuity compliments all three products and brings them together to
create professional looking products. By continuity, I mean the repetitive use of the colour
scheme, narrative aspects (like the puppet) and themes (such as happiness and friendship).
The matching of the products allows an audience to connect and understand the relevance of
not only the narrative, but the artist himself. Jason Mittel’s theory of genre sorting media
texts into categories reinforces the necessity of continuity throughout all three products as it
helps an audience decide on what they want to consume and how they want to do it.
An audience is more likely to feel comfortable with products that link and match in certain
ways and it helps them to recognise and consume something they know and enjoy. If the
products didn’t link and have large similarities then an audience wouldn’t recognise of
understand that they belong together and therefore aren’t likely to consume the product.
Sales are hugely important throughout the music industry and therefore following typical
conventions that are knowingly loved and enjoyed by an audience plays a massive part in
earning a profit. By looking at what a consumer wants and creating something through their
perspective creates a huge chance of making something successful towards an audience. I
feel the links I have made, such as combining themes and colour together to create emotion,
and making the narrative present through all three texts, are what make the main product
and the ancillary texts effective when combined.

10. Overview
The idea of the three products were to make them minimalistic yet effective. I feel this was
successful due to various features, such as the colour scheme and narrative.
The simple tones of the images and colours reinforces the genre of the texts and doesn’t
overshadow the deeper meaning that we intended to put across through the narrative.
The sharp borders and dark colours create an emotive feeling and help keep more attention on the
products, as they look quite clean cut. They also keep all of the attention on the main artists and
ideas within the texts, which is important when connecting with an audience.
The quirky nature of the artist is reinforced through both the music video and the ancillary texts as
an audience is able to clearly see the styles and themes that are present throughout.
The digipak consists of the same colour scheme as the magazine advert, which as mentioned
before, creates a sense of continuity and comfort. I have taken a photo from the actual music
video and added lyrics to the chosen song beneath, as looking through some albums I saw that
was a common feature.
Simplicity is a heavy aspects throughout the digipak and the main focus is clearly on the artist, as
the black font against the white shows minimalism. The front cover is opposite and has a black
background with white writing, which still creates a simple effect, but makes it a little different.
The puppet is used on one of the disks, which makes huge links and references to the music video
and the magazine advert.

11. Other
Small aspects contributed to creating successful products, that kept a sense of continuity and
familiarity within the texts. Creating mock ups and doing research on other digipaks and
magazine adverts helped when creating my own personal product. Deciding on font and
colour schemes added to the creation of my own products and making various blog posts
about these small aspects added to the bigger picture. I used various websites to find
different fonts, such as DaFont.com and found this really helpful when finding something
quirky, that compliments my chosen genre. Using these fonts on both the digipak and
magazine advert creates a decent and cohesive product.
Taking various photos was helpful and gave me different ideas of how I could make my
products look.
Using different locations was helpful as well, as it meant I could reflect them in all texts.

12. Existing Digipak & Magazine Ad
Looking through existing digipaks and magazine ads made it a lot easier to create
my own products.
 Both the digipak and the magazine ad have the same colour scheme and fonts,
which I did to my own products.
 Although the music video is taken from this album, this digipak and magazine
ad are a reflection of the album as a whole and that’s why it doesn’t completely
match the video.
 I think the fact the images and themes are all very similar creates a successful
product and makes it more appealing to an audience.

13. I personally feel my products are effective when combined, as they are
conventional and the idea of intertextuality has been used. The ancillary
texts allow an audience to recognise the video and vice versa. The
similarities allow an audience to connect and understand, which is crucial
in creating a successful product.
Media theory helped me create effective products as they helped me to
understand the needs of audiences, within narrative, genre and
representation.