The student created a music video, digipak, and magazine advertisement to promote an album about drug abuse and emotions. To ensure cohesion between the ancillary texts and music video, the student used a black and white color scheme and themes of drugs and vulnerability. Based on feedback, the student improved the magazine advertisement to better incorporate these themes and link all three pieces. The combination of texts is effective at promoting the intended message to the target demographic of older teenagers and follows conventions of the music industry.

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

2. Along with a music video I had to create ancillary texts to promote my music video.
I chose to create a digipak and a magazine advert because I felt these were the most fitting ones
which would promote my album as well as they I felt they would be the easiest to create and
distribute.

3. When creating my main product I wanted to have the aspects of drugs and emotions. I wanted to make them clear
and noticeable to the audience to allow them to understand the emotional aspect in which my artist is going through.
I think this is a powerful aspect to use within my music video as it is addressing current affairs such as legal highs etc.
From my post on the 22/10/2014 about legal highs and the statistic of drugs I learnt a lot about the uses of drugs and those
Who are most affected being 16-24 & 25 -34. My target audience is 16+ these are those who are most influence and in
Most recent articles teenagers have died due to drugs I have therefore based my narrative around drugs and have found that its
fitting to do so, I made my narrative influential in the way that drugs are not appealing and the highs don’t last this is shown in the
shots ;
Of my actor covered and topless for this I followed certain mise-en-scene elements throughout my original music video. For example, I
made the choice for my male protagonist to wear black t-shirts and jumper throughout as well as be shirtless. The idea of the black
top is to illustrate to the audience that the male protagonist is consumed, the black t-shirt is only seen when drugs are present in shots
and when the male is under the influence of drugs, this is to act as a mask, as if this is the only way to hide the pain and cover his true
emotions. The use of my actor being shirtless and bare in shots is used in order to represent his vulnerability and to represent him being
unable to cover up and mask his pain and cover up the real him without drugs, it shows his sense of 'purity' in relation to having no
drugs in his system. The ratio as shown above represents the black/grey top shots being more dominant this is to represent the fact he
spends more time taking and under the influence of drugs rather than not. Another aspect is the way I have used a lot more vary in
shots for the t-shirt shots to represent the change in emotions and feelings these shots have more props such as drugs, bottles and
money in the shots to show a more chaotic side where as the shirtless shots are blank representing the strip back and emptiness of his
life and the feeling of being lost. It is conventional to use mise-en-scene to represent emotions or hidden meanings about the actor.
This helps to represent the drugs and there effects, to help the audience understand the complete downside to these drugs.
I wanted in corporate this into my ancillary texts by sticking to a black and white theme, as well as using smoke and happy pills to
interlink the narrative and concept into all three pieces.

4. As you can see in both of my ancillary texts I have used both black, white and grey as well as my main accent colour for my
magazine advertisement yellow. However I have used a lot more black and white. The reason for this is because after
researching existing products of the pop they have a tendency to stick with colour schemes that are interlinked with a specific
song and/or music video. I realised that the frequently used black and white and sometimes add an accent colour when there
is a set theme to the product and since my theme is loneliness and drug abuse I chose the tonal colours rather than bright
ones. Therefore I wanted to follow some conventions and also to make the genre and theme recognisable to the target
audience. I also used a lot of black and white because I believed that it fit in well within my music video as it helps me to
portray a lot of the meanings that I wished to convey to my audience.
Since my theme is loneliness and drug abuse I opted for darker and more dull effect to my video and ancillary texts. To
combine this theme into each media text I included the narrative within my video, and then added the darker tones and
smoke to my digipak as well as the black and white tones to my magazine advertisement.
The parts that are shown in the images above are some of the different parts of music video which I think combine effectively
with my digipak this help my target audience associate the two together. These highlighted parts show how I have entwined
the black and white into my music video and ancillary texts. This shows a clear image of cohesion that has been created within
my products which represent the style/theme of music and the intention of the song and narrative.

5. Creating links between my digipak and music video it is shown above I ensured to use cinematography
such as the medium close up shot to represent the aspect my artist / the protagonist within my music
video is being exposed it adds to the whole aspect of the drug Awareness. As stated previously The use
of the protagonist being shirtless and bare in shots is used in order to represent his vulnerability and to
represent him being unable to cover up and mask his pain and cover up the real him without drugs, it
shows his sense of 'purity' in relation to having no drugs in his system. I wanted to show a link within all
three piece in order to make them work as a combination. The mise-en-scene of the to shade s within
the background connotes the split personality and the central shot of the protagonist shows how hes
trapped in the middle.
Another clear link is shown to the right between my digipack and my magazine advertisement using
similar/and the same font upon my products are helpful because they allow and audience to make
a clear link between the two products. This is an effective technique as it combines the products, the
magazine advertisement it a place to promote a product usually a first place for an audience to
recognise the connection between the pieces.

6. During this evaluation I opted to change my final magazine piece as you can see
stated previously it wasn’t as fitting to creating links as I hoped it to be so I have
created this piece below
As a final piece I feel a lot more happy with this than the previous products in
the evaluation, This product now fulfills and fits with the black and white colour
scheme. As I have stated the use of my actor being shirtless and bare in shots is
used in order to represent his vulnerability and to represent him being unable to
cover up and mask his pain and cover up the real him without drugs, it shows
his sense of 'purity' in relation to having no drugs in his system. The ratio as
shown above represents the black/grey top shots being more dominant this is
to represent the fact he spends more time taking and under the influence of
drugs rather than not. This Bare shot is used upon my album cover in which
helps to again create a link with my final products and therefor I felt it was best
to use this on my magazine advertisement as well. The use of the smoke upon
my magazine advertisement helps to link the product to the digi-pak and helps
to fill conventions of ensuring all products link.
Before I decided to opt to my new advertsiment as my final piece I
decided to ask for feedback from this everyone liked my new
product over the old product and this therefore lead me to take on
board the audiences feedback and change it

7. This image was a piece of feedback in which I received prior to changing my
product and I learnt that my narrative worked well and the black and white theme
worked well to keep continuity, however when I changed my product I decided to
as the same person for more feedback will I was in class with her, She said she
prefered my new piece although the old one was good, the new edit was a lot
more powerful in helping to create a powerful combination of products which
stuck to continuity and highlighted the links.

8. How effective is the combination of products as examples of texts that could be used/sold in real life?
If I were to actually release the three texts as a promotional package, I feel they would be successful. When producing
a promotional package I think it's important to consider the target audience .In terms of age for my target audience
as stated earlier in my evaluation its older teenagers/young adults. I think 16 – 24 and upwards I think this is the perfect
target audience as I believer they will understand my narrative and have a better understanding of the underlying
message, I also think the sound of the song and the style of my texts appeals to older students most, rather than
younger teenagers or older adults.
To add to this from further research I found this is the age group that statistically is most likely to acquire music (whether
it's legally purchased or illegally downloaded) so targeting them ensures I'm appealing to the biggest market.
I don't think any of my texts target men or women especially and therefore I have used the black and white colour
scheme and tones the colours and images I've chosen are gender-neutral.
When looking at my products it could be argued that the music video appeals more so to men because it's a male
singer performing.
When looking at theorist I found Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory she discusses how media encourages the audience
to view women from a heterosexual male viewpoint, and objectifies them. I noticed this in many videos such as Nicki
Minaj - anaconda and Jason Derulo – Dirty Talk I decided to avoid this and in some respects avoid one of the biggest
stereotypical conventions.
Another aspect I ensured myself to be aware of was social class, from my demographics at the start of the
researching and planning I would say that my target audience are of the Grade D/E, because, as I've said, I'd mainly
be targeting students. As I'm aware that students won't have much, if any, disposable income, I would price my
digipak at £9.99. I feel that this is a fair price considering they would be receiving an album and a DVD of the music
video. If I was just selling the album as a download on, for example, upon various platforms like iTunes or Amazon Mp3,
I would price it at £6.99, and just the single alone at 99p. I think pricing them any higher would make them
unaffordable for my target market and therefore causing a loss in customers and not really fulfilling its purpose to sell
therefore failing to be conventional and fitting within the music industry. I think my three texts as a promotional
package reflect this price and social class because they look professional, but not so upmarket that they appear too
expensive.

9. Thinking about where my three texts would be promoted, I think social media is key this is why I
gained some feed back upon social media such as upon Facebook;
In terms of my feedback to the left you can see that
my audience can see a clear link and cohesion
between the products, Most people understood the
black and white theme that I was going for . The
distortion was something which people took note of as
this stands out and shows a connection between
products.

10. On the other hand there are some improvements that could have been made to ensure that all of the products
interlinked. I think in order to make them like a little better I think I should edited the spine yellow or added a
yellow aspect to the digipak. When creating my ancillary texts I wanted the album cover to have some mystery
in respects to the artist I ensured that he was ‘headless’ so to speak in order to create spersific means these
being; Firstly he has no control, he’s lost his mind due to drugs this there for interlinks with my main product.
Secondly this is to portray that the audience don’t really understand or know the artist.
I thought that this would stand out from other conventional album covers. This was also a frequently occurrence
within pop artists album so in order to follow the conventions it would look effective. The reason for this is because
Pop artists want to stand out as there is various competition within the pop industry as it is deemed to be one of
the most popular music genres.
I do think that my product works well , however by doing this is has made the cohesion less obvious than products
such as Katy Perry’s California Girls.
In conclusion to my first products I believe that the similarities in my media product and ancillary texts lead to
them all linking together effectively. The use of the black and white and then yellow/red colours in my video and
ancillary texts connects them all together and leads to a visible clarity between the products.
There are some ways I could have changed the three products in order to make them more coherent, such as
including more images of the artist within the magazine advertisement and adding yellow into my magazine
advertisement. However overall I believe that they all work effectively together and the differences with each of
the texts leads to a more effective coherence between them, this also t means that it will link well with the other
“songs” that would be on the album if it was going to be sold as a real product. As if it was going to be sold as a
full album the album would not just base the style on one song/ video from that album therefore I am fulfilling the
conventions of real media texts.

11. In conclusion to my new and final products I believe
that the similarities in my media product and ancillary
texts lead to them all linking together effectively. The
use of the black and white and colours in my video and
ancillary texts connects them all together and leads to
a visible clarity between the products.
There are some ways I could have changed the three
products in order to make them more coherent, such as
including more images of the artist within the magazine
advertisement. However overall I believe that they all
work effectively together and the differences with each
of the texts leads to a more effective coherence
between them, this also t means that it will link well with
the other “songs” that would be on the album if it was
going to be sold as a real product. As if it was going to
be sold as a full album the album would not just base
the style on one song/ video from that album therefore I
am fulfilling the conventions of real media texts. I feel
that as a whole, the combination of all three products
link well and would sell as a promotional package. I
think my pieces effectively link to each other and build
upon the promotion of being against drugs and drug
abuse, my products aim at the target audience I wished
for them to and highlight what I wanted to put across
this was backed up by the audience feedback.