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

2. Magazine Advert
For my first point I am going to be talking about my magazine cover. The first thing
that it shows is our use of modern culture as our chosen layout for a satirical take on
Heat Magazine by using a medium shot of our artist as the 'headline' picture and this
portrays our artist as a normal person and not as a sexualised celebrity, which is what
most people would expect to see in this kind of magazine. This links in with the main
theme of our music video, this being the idea of the artist wanting to make it into the
industry but being pressured from a record label to change everything about herself
in order to sell records, we used this when we were making our advert as we felt it
was an important message to carry through to the other elements of our project. The
medium close up of the artist is also relevant to the music video as again, we tried to
portray the artist as someone who is quite innocent and naïve and as such could be
considered easy to corrupt, again linking back to this idea that she will be pressured
to sell her body as that is how the majority of female artists are seen in today's
society. This links back to the representation of our artist as we wanted to put them
down to a human level so that then the audience would find it easier to relate to her,
the majority of our media advert is linked back to Laura Mullvey's 'Male Gaze' theory
that women just appear for their bodies and men are the ones who are actually in
charge, this is mostly seen through the pushy attitude of the record label manager in
our video. We found this to be effective as we felt we are targeting the way that
society treats female artists and it links back to the morals of the original artist. We
could have done this better by perhaps following the layout of 'Heat' more closely, or
perhaps giving it a more professional feel.

4. Point Two
My next point is linked in with the previous statement, this being that our advert goes
against the male gaze as mentioned earlier in the way that the artist's body is not on
show. This links back to our music video as again, the attitude and the warning of the
record label manager told her that unless she changes her style she will not make it
in the industry and yet the artist has proved him wrong, and is more than capable of
being an artist and still being a female that is being taken seriously by people. This
links back to the genre of our piece (our music video being pop) as we felt that it
would be important to show this idea that in today's society women are not taken
seriously, unless they are showing parts of their body that have been deemed
attractive by men. This links back to Stuart Hall's theory of encoding as this is
something that the audience will need to figure out by themselves and hopefully take
something away from it. This was again, effective as, it showed our artist as being a
human being and showing how quickly celebrity news would spread. We could have
done this better perhaps by making more of the focus on our artist to represent that
she is the main focus, however it may have been difficult to do this without
accidentally sexualising her, which would have never been our intent.

5. Point Three
My third point, is all about the crowded layout of our magazine advert. We did to show that no matter
how trivial the matter is, people are always obsessing over what celebrities are doing, and the
crowded layout supports the never ending stream that is celebrity gossip, and that magazines like
'Heat' would always be the first to get the scoop, if you will allow me to use a more colloquial term.
This could be linked back to our music video from the editing that we used, in particular slow motion,
as we had a scene where another artist entered the office in slow motion, this could also be a
representation of the artists slow build to fame, as it is not something that happens overnight. This
links back to the audience or our music video as the song itself is aimed at, I assume, young
teenagers and as such they would be the kind of people would be interested in reading celebrity
news. The theory that I will be linking this back to is Levi Strauss' theory of 'Binary Opposites' as our
video is all about the artist trying to shake free of the stereotypes that women are faced with, and in
our video and magazine advert, the industry is painted to be quite dark and uncaring about the
wellbeing of their artist, their only concern being that of making a profit.

6. Front Cover
The first thing I am going to be talking about which concerns the front cover of our CD is
our split screen of the artist having one side of her face all glamourous and the other plain,
as though she is still a bit of a nobody. Our idea was one of the artist almost leading a
double life and this links back to the music video, in particular the narrative as her trying to
make it as an artist and that she is also trying to retain her individual style and not be
turned into something that she is not, and in particular something that she does not wish
to become. As mentioned earlier this falls into our narrative as the front cover explores the
issues that we raised in our music video and further reiterates the confusion that the artist
is feeling as perhaps the industry was not at all what she was expecting and as such she
may be considering whether or not she wishes to work in a place like that. The theory that
this is relevant to is again Strauss' Binary Opposites in the idea that there will always be
some kind of internal struggle between artists who want to be individual and how the
industry might want to suppress them. Our front cover was effective as it really portrayed
the needs and wants of the artist as she feels as though she has been teleported almost
into 'another world'.

7. Inside Cover
In the inside front cover we wanted to show the uncertainty that the artist would be feeling
throughout the video and just about putting her music into the world in general. The first
aspect I am going to be talking about is the mise en scene, in particular the road upon
which the artist is walking down which is a representation of ‘her road to fame’ and in a
metaphorical sense of the choice that she has to make. This links back to our music video
as in the beginning we have a shot of the artist mouthing ‘wow’ and this same idea is
carried forward through this cover design as it shows the sense of accomplishment that
she feels. In terms of theories it could be linked back to Barthe’s theory of Semiotics. This
was effective because of the way that we showed the journey that she would need to take
in the music industry and perhaps even the difficulties that she may face (this being
represented by the single lamp). If we were to make it better perhaps we would use more
than one streetlamp and have it fade out the further along the road she goes, to show how
she would become more and more uncertain about what it is she is actually doing.