Amy Brackenridge

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

As part of my coursework, I produced TWO ANCILLARY PRODUCTS to accompany my final music video. The first ancillary product was a 6-SIDED DIGIPAK that would contain the artist’s album and the second was a POSTER that would appear in a music magazine, promoting the artists new album. It was important when developing these ancillary products to create a SYNERGY between them and my final product, in order to make the overall product easily recognisable to consumers. To ensure an effective synergy was created I used a consistent house style in all products and used similar imagery and iconography, particularly shown in my final music video. Below are images of my final ancillary projects.

Similarly to my final product, I RESEARCHED in detail existing digipak’s and album posters to help me gain an in depth understanding of their conventions and how these could be translated into my ancillary products. As part of my research I analysed the album poster of Tom Odell’s single ‘Another Love’, which proved to be highly useful, especially in terms of the content which should be included in album posters and the layout. It was clear that the information included should be MINIMAL AND SIMPLISTIC with the most important details bolder than the rest, such as the album name and release date. Furthermore, Tom Odell’s poster included STAR RATING’S from leading music magazines, to add CREDIBILITY to the album; therefore I choose to do a similar thing when producing my ancillary task. When researching digipaks for my first ancillary task I focused in particularly on the types of IMAGERY used. It was clear that bold, striking images were the most effective in attracting audience’s attention (Beyoncé’s ‘4’). These images tended to be close up and mid shot images, where the rule of thirds had been applied; therefore this is something we considered when shooting the images for our digipak. The imagery produced for both digipaks also had to relate in some way to the music video we had produced, in order to create a synergy. To do this, we took images which were of a very similar style to the music video’s present day shots. The images were taken at the SAME LOCATION as the shots within the music video and were edited to have

Amy Brackenridge

a DARKER TONE, in order to reflect the overall theme of the song. This also helps to reflect the indie/alternative genre effectively.

In terms of the LAYOUT for our ancillary tasks, we generally followed conventions in order to make the product appear as realistic as possible. For the album poster, the positioning of the text was fairly BASIC in order to make the text easy to read and stand out on the page. All the text was CENTERED, with the most important information (Album name and band name) being positioned at the top and other less significant information positioned towards the bottom of the page. We felt like this was the MOST EFFECTIVE way of positioning the text, as it was similar to that of other album posters we analysed and it meant the text stood out on the page and was easy to read. It was important that the overall layout of our digipaks was similar to our album poster to create a synergy between the products. For our digipak we replicated the heading which had been used for the album poster to maintain a consistent house style. The TYPOGRAPHY AND STYLE of the text was exactly the same, as well as it’s positioning at the top of the product. This is effective as it means the text is instantly related to the band and their new album, so they when they see both products along with the music video the audience will know that they are all related.

Also in relation to the digipak, the features were similar to that of existing media products which we analysed. Similarly to the album poster, this was done in order to create a PROFESSIONAL LOOKING, realistic product. Like most digipaks we researched, we positioned the TRACK LISTING for the album on the back page of the digipak in a vertical column, as we felt this was the most effective way of positioning the text. Also we made sure that imagery was used on every side of the digipak to ensure

that it was visually interesting for the audience, this again is a typical feature of existing digipak’s.

To conclude, our combination of ancillary products and final product is HIGHLY EFFECTIVE. We have maintained a consistent house style throughout all products, as reflected by the imagery used and the positioning of text in the two ancillary products. By doing so, we have been able to create a SYNERGY between the three products. Furthermore, we generally FOLLOWED CONVENTIONS when

developing our ancillary products, especially in relation to the imagery and positioning of text, we felt this was the most effective way of creating professional-looking, high quality products.