Evaluation

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

My promotional package is an example of synergy. My advert and music video promote my digipak as my advert has a comment by "INDIE" magazine which praises my digipak with five stars and gives a sophisticated statement that attracts the audience.

The music video's theme is a love story while the band sings to the song. This is portrayed through the red matching colours of the girl and boys clothes and this matches the red on the heading of the digipak and the red box in the middle of the digipak. The hidden metaphor for love promotes the digipak through the music video.

The image on the advert is exactly the same as the front cover of the digipak. This promotes the digipak as people will know what the band and their album looks like. It could easily be linked to the music video as the band are shown in the music video. If the poeple liked the music video they could easily identify the digipak as the band photos are in black and white as are the band scenes so they could easily link them both together.

The writing on the album is also simplistic as we used Kravitz thermal for both our advert and digipak. As the writing is simple it reflects the indie theme and attracts the indie audience. The audience could link the simplistic writing which is very effective as it has a continuity with both the advert and digipak.

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Indie digipak's are normally dull colours with a splash of brightness added to them to catch a person's eyes. The front cover of my digipak's colours are black and white, which are colours that don't initially attract a person's attention but it has a couple of red letters which captivate my target audience and give it a simple look instead of a dull and boring one. This is very conventional within the indie genre and indie digipaks such as Coldplay and Snow Patrol.


The writing on the front cover is simplistic and quite plain. This is something that is constantly portrayed in both the inde music videos and digipaks. Snow Patrol have used a simplistic writing style in their new album 'Final Straw' which sits very well on the front cover. The simplistic writing on our front cover is quite bold which is unusual for indie digipaks and this develops conventional indie themes.

Snow Patrol Digipak front cover

The middle of the digipak has a black and white image which gives the digipak an old fashioned look giving the digipak a calm and cool look. This attracts my target audience as a key emotion of the indie genre is a calm emotion. But the red box at the bottom of the page contrasts greatly against the black and white image and this contrast in colour is quite conventional as Coldplay do it on their album X&Y where they put a navy blue and put an array of colours over the top of it.


However the second half of the inside of my digipak has no colour to it. It's in black and white which again gives an old fashioned look to it. The simplistic tone then appeals to my indie audience. Although there is no colour on this side of the middle the digipak the simplistic tone and colour is very conventional and makes good use of traditional indie conventions.

Writing in the middle of an indie digipak is not long and it doesn't bore people. It is left to a minimum to portray a simplistic and calm tone because if it had too much writing in it the it would seem boring and too desperate to grab the audiences attention. My digipak uses this convention and therefore appeals to my target audience.

A normal indie back cover is normally plain and has no images to it. There is normally just a coloured background with black or white simplistic writing on the front of it. However our back cover to our digipak challenges the conventional indie back cover. Our back cover uses an indie image which consists of two chairs with guitars stood against them but it does use a bit of the conventional indie conventions by using simplisitic writing.

The advert is a traditional and conventional indie advert and uses every aspect of an indie convention. The image used for the advert is the same image as the digipak which is very conventional as it's simple and shows the audience "what you see is what you get". The comment underneath the heading is sophisticated and praises the digipak which is very conventional on an advert.

When an indie band produces a sad song they often use matching colours. We use this mise-en-scene in our music video to show the audience the theme of love. We use the colour red as this is the colour of love. This is very similar to Snow Patrol's 'Set the Fire To The Third Bar' as this uses black to represent sadness. We used this as a template as it has a hidden metaphor for love that attracts the indie audience.

The narrative structure challenges normal indie conventions as the band members are different to the people in the story which gives the narrative a bit of a twist whereas in the Kaiser Chiefs 'Everyday I Love You Less And Less' it's different. The lead singer is the main character in the story. It's very conventional in the indie genre and our music video challenges that convention.

The band scenes are a completely different colour than the story scenes. The black and white scenes are completely simple whereas the story scenes are colourful and bright. In conventional indie music videos the story scenes are in colour and so are the band scenes. We developed conventions to add more indie conventions to our music video.

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The photos for the front cover are compellingly simple. The open space gives the whole indie genre a calm look which intoxicates audiences and would add a wonderful and captivating look to my front cover. The band's melancholy faces scream out to audiences as they powerfully express emotion and the target audience are attracted to the band's album. The darkness of the photos gives a serious tone to the album and the audience recognise the indie genre and feel a familiarity within the music and therefore relate to the artist and the album. The mistiness of the bike photo gives the photo a horror look and it doesn't attract my target audience. The image itself would be useful if it had colour as the lone biker looks sad and therefore relates to my indie audience.

The photos for the inside, however, are a captivating combination of band members and instruments which is an iconic image of the indie genre. Guitars are mainly shown which scream acoustic and attract an audience who enjoy slow and soft songs. I am particularly attracted to the sepia colour which gives the coldplay photo an old fashioned look. The photo's old fashioned look attracts an indie audience as this look is simplisitic which gives the album a calm and relaxing tone and image. The relaxed expressions on the band's faces are more realistic and attractive than the serious facial expressions which I am hoping my team and I can do in our digipak and advert. The black border gives the album an edginess which is leading more away from the indie genre and more into the rock genre. This could be good to give my album a difference but it wouldn't go with the conventions of the indie genre and therefore wouldn't attract my target audience.

A digipak back cover should be extremely attractive as it seals the deal when people are buying an album. The natural and real life images relate to the audience and the real life location gives the audience a sense of relation with the band and therefore the audience like the band more. The waves crashing at the band's feet and the sad expressions in the first photo express loneliness which is a key indie theme and therefore relates to my target audience. The colorful photos are quite eye catching although the bright colours don't relate to the indie genre as the colours are normally simple and a dark colour. Therefore this wouldn't appeal to my target audience.

My Music Video