The author created ancillary texts including a digipak and magazine advert to accompany a music video for the song "17" by Milburn. They established a retro, pop art theme across the materials by coloring in parts of black and white images. This created coherence and links between the products. For example, the same location from the digipak and advert appeared in the music video. Maintaining a consistent theme and brand identity across the ancillary texts and music video was important to promote the artist and engage audiences. Some ways the theme and identity could have been strengthened include using consistent imagery and bold, capitalized text throughout.

1. By Ciaran Emmett
QUESTION 2: HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE
COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT
AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

2. My main product is the music video which I produced for ‘17’ by Milburn. My ancillary texts are
a digipak and magazine advert. I tried to create a retro brand identity in my ancillary texts. I
did this through colouring in certain parts of the images to make it appear more retro and
represent that Milburn are a retro band. As well as appearing retro, the use of these colours
also created a pop art theme amongst my ancillary texts. This was because it made the
people on the media products appear to be drawn on and coloured/painted in.

3. I instantly maintained a theme through my ancillary texts and music video. For example, the
artist performing the song throughout this music video is the same person included on the
inside of the digipak. This instantly helps to create a link between the digipak and music
video. The person on the front cover of the digipak is not the artist and is facing away from the
camera but it is not clear who it is. This engages the audience as they are questioning who
this person is and helps me to create a mysterious identity (IMAGE 1). Furthermore, the
image on the digipak and magazine advert is a shot of a person stood in the middle of an
isolated field. In order to create a theme here, I filmed the majority of my music video on this
field (IMAGE 2). This is engaging for the audience because it is an unusual location for an
album cover and makes them question why this location appears so frequently and try to
interpret the meaning behind it. I have tried to create a positive theme throughout the music
video by using bright lighting all the way through the video. The bright lighting in the music
video contrasts the theme of my digipak has a black and white filter applied to them. However,
in the black and white images, an unknown person’s jacket is coloured in light blue this is to
create the idea that there is some positivity.

4. It is important to maintain a constant theme throughout all three products. This is so that my
products and represents a brand whilst appearing professional. Building a brand is important
because it allows you to develop and build a fan base/audience, creating more success for
the album and artist. Having a well-known brand means that the products will be easier to
recognise and make the products more likely to sell through the popularity. This links to my
music video as the video I produced could be perceived as positive as the lead is simply
performing the song and there is no negative story line to follow this music video.

5. I created themes in my ancillary texts through colour and text. Firstly, I created a colour theme
as all images were in black and white however, the people in the images clothing was
coloured in so that they stood out and created a pop art theme. I took influence from Oasis as
they have a retro style in a lot of their albums so I have attempted to create a retro styled
digipak and magazine advert. I used text in order to try and create a coherent theme in my
ancillary texts. Milburn’s logo is a cursive lowercase font. I took influence off of this and made
all of the text in my magazine advert lowercase to match the band’s logo and create a
simplified theme. The only exception from this was that I made the name of the album ‘Notion’
bold and capitalised. This was to make it clear which was the album name on the magazine
advert. In order to create a clearer theme and link between my ancillary texts and music
video, I would either have the unknown person upon the ancillary texts in the music video as
part of the band. This would allow me to represent the artist clearer through the ancillary texts
and create a more popular identity for the audience.

6. In my digipak, I included a picture of the artist on the inside cover. This allowed me to follow
the purpose of the digipak as one of the main aims of it is to promote the artist and I feel that I
achieved this by including a close-up of the artist. Including this image allowed me to create a
link between the digipak and my music video because my music video features lots of close
ups of the artist as does my digipak so this highlights the link between the two products.

7. Furthermore, there is also a link between the digipak and the magazine advert. This link is
created as the image on the front of the digipak and magazine advert is the exact same and
this helps create a link between the products.

8. I believe that it is important to have an effective combination across my three media products
because it allowed me to create and represent a brand identity. Having a brand identity is
important because it can help produce a reputation for the artist if they are linked to a well-
known theme. This will increase the publicity of the band and make all three media products
appear more professional.

9. Across the work I have produced, I have created a pop art theme. I believe I achieved this
theme as I coloured in the people in the images in bright colours and this helped the images
look retro with a pop art element. I also tried to create a mysterious theme in my digipak and
magazine advert. I tried to create this theme by including an image of an unknown person
facing away from the camera. This person is not associated with the artist and this helped me
create a mysterious element to my ancillary texts. I took inspiration from the digipak of the
Arctic Monkeys album “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” when trying to create
this mysterious theme (Image 3). This is because throughout this digipak there is an image of
a person smoking a cigarette who has no association with the band. This was effective
because it engaged their fan base as they were questioning who this person was and this
created publicity for the band.

10. I believe that I created a strong brand identity. However, it could have been stronger/clearer if
I had used bold capitalised text all the way throughout the ancillary texts with all pieces of
text. Another way in which I could have developed by brand identity is to use pop colours for
my text in order to reiterate and emphasise the pop art theme. Another example of how I could
improve my brand identity across the three ancillary texts is if the image upon the front covers
of my digipak and magazine advert of the person stood in the middle field, there was a slight
bit of inconsistency across these images. There was inconsistency because the colour of the
jacket was slightly different shades of blue in each image. This made my ancillary texts
appear slightly unprofessional. I would have tried to make my brand identity clearer by using
the exact same image next time so that my ancillary texts appear more professional. I tried to
create a bold simplistic house style of my work. I believe that I created a simplistic house style
with my colours by only using plain colours such as black and white text. A key factor in this
decision was to ensure that the main attention went into the pop art theme as this played a
key part in representing my brand identity. I also used bold capitalised text so that the artist
and album name stood out to the audience.