1. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary
texts?
QUESTION 2
2. The brief was to create a promotional
campaign for an artist, consisting of a music
video, digipak and advert. This campaign had
to be cohesive and promote the artist in a
successful way.
When we apply Dyer’s critical framework
(‘Stars’, 1998) to our three products, it is
evident that our promotional campaign
clearly conforms to his theories surrounding
stars and star image. With the brief to create a
successful campaign, we knew we had to
make a set of media texts that would
maximise the selling capability of the artist.
Dyer hypothesises that the
star is constructed
surrounding a set of semi-
mythological meanings.
These are used to sell the
artist through real- and
hyper-real ideas. In our
promotional campaign, there
is a strong link between all
three texts whereby the
realistic meaning is
conveyed through the band’s
originality and youthfulness.
Furthermore, the star image
is constructed through the
semi-mythological meaning
that they are talented. The
video is designed to illustrate
their talent through
performance video but, in
reality, the video may
exaggerate their talent.
3. To encourage the target audience to purchase the primary
product (the single and album), the subsidiary products
(video, digipak and advert) were all designed to conform to
McBusted’s meta-narrative throughout all three. While the
band in real life constructed a meta-narrative surrounding a
new, energetic artist, following a combination of two bands,
our metanarrative surrounds the reformation of a talented
group of young artists.
The video features a number of BCUs of the artists, a number of low-angle
tracking shots from the audience’s perspective, plus a number of shots
developing the relationship between the artist and consumer – for example,
the shots of the protagonist in his bedroom. This same ‘reward’ is conveyed in
the digipak. The digipak is designed to appeal to the niche/target audience of
the band, rather than to the mass audience. This is denoted in the sense of
originality surrounding the panes.
The composition of the front pane of our digipak and
McBusted’s one are similar; title at an angle above the band
lined up together in front of a background
4. As stated before, the digipak and music video are
strongly linked through visuals and colours. They
both conform to the star image of similar artists
researched. Adele’s music video for her new
single ‘Hello’ exhibits a post production filter that
corresponds to her album cover saturation.
A star image has been constructed through
encoding images, CUs and behaviour of the
band.
The colour palette for
our music video was a
mixture of reds, pinks
and blues. Adele’s
campaign for her
recent release
included greens, greys
and whites
5. The creative journey of the band is shown through visual signifiers. The lead
singer is shown with priority in both the music video and the front pane of the
digipak; the audience are positioned with him throughout the video and he is
positioned slightly in front of others in the front pane. This is used as a device to
form a social intimacy with the audience – they can put themselves ‘in his shoes’.
We made sure the band image is good to
maintain artistic integrity/merit. This is
to say that, by conforming to McBusted’s
star qualities such as youthfulness, talent
and originality in all three texts, our
band’s portrayal is positively received by
consumers who identify with all three
qualities.
6. With any promotional campaign that is borderline voyeuristic – featuring
lots of images and BCUs of the artist in the video – the audience is
encouraged to consider the artist in a sexually attractive way. Thus,
promoting the campaign with the band members wearing smart clothing in
all aspects introduces semiotics that could be interpreted in association
with youthful attractiveness.
Authenticity is important for the band. By making sure all band members were
present somewhere in every media text, the consumer is confident that all texts are
authentic.
The advert is used for immediate attention and to attract the eye, the album is a
reward and a personal gain for the consumer – youth attraction is prevalent in all
aspects of our campaign.
Our advert conforms to the
conventions of One Direction’s advert
in the presentation of the band and
the reading path, but also challenging
because the band are much further
from the camera in our advert and
also the image is more complex than
the famous boy band’s one
7. The stars in our video are constructed by star qualities. The
‘stars’ are constructed through semi-mythological values –
some are real, some are exaggerated by the media.
Our campaign conforms to Dyer’s hypothesis that the star
image is incoherent; incomplete and open – it can be argued, as
elements of the video are unclear: why did the band have an
argument and does this conform to a rebellious metanarrative?
The argument was exaggerated by the use of a fast cutting rate
and CUs of the band members.
The star is not real, it is a construction and this is evident in all aspects of the campaign as
the stars all put on an act for the purpose of filming – the music video is propaganda after
all.
8. If we apply Dyer’s first paradox to our campaign, the video is designed to
show the band as normal because they wear similar clothes, they struggle
like other young bands, they are shown in their ordinary bedrooms. But
they are shown to be much more successful in the performance; lighting in
the theatre make CUs make the artist look hyper-real.
In the pane where the lead singer is shown
out of focus in the guitar reflection, the
paradox is reinforced as he appears not to be
present in narrative sections such as in the
POV shots of the box of memories.
In the music industry, performance is the
promise of completion of the band image but
in the end it is just a video so they are not
actually with the audience. This is connoted
in our video as the performance ends with an
empty theatre – the audience is not there with
the band.
9. The lead singer seems to have a hegemony over the other band
members in the music video mainly. The band itself as a group of artists
do not present themselves in a hegemonic position over other artists in
the industry.
The texts are polysemic because they are open to interpretation from the
consumer; the band splits up for an unknown reason and both the video
and digipak do not offer any answer for why this is.
All three products reinforce the dominant ideology of youthful
ambition and talent in bands of the pop/rock genre.
The lead singer is shown in more CU
shots than the other band members
10. The three inside panes that portray
different instruments were made with the
same theme. This theme was to illustrate
the band in a similar way to Dyer’s
paradox of a band being both present
and not present, at the same time. This
was done by combining sections of each
image in colour and black and white. As
the song for the music video is
surrounded in mystery about ‘what
happened to your band?’, we thought it
would important to make a link between
this and the digipak.
The inside of the digpak…
