Evaluation Question 2How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?Dani GordonIt was crucial that when creating my digipak and advertisement that I carefully considered how they would correspond with the music video. In order to create a recognisable branding for the band Arctic Monkeys it was essential for all three products to have a similar style and aesthetic, I aspired to achieve this by translating certain aspects of my music video across the ancillary texts, creating direct links between the productsThe digipak and advertisement are almost identical as I used the same simple design across both, this was an idea that originated when creating the draft for both the digipak and the advertisement, which contained images of dead trees, which framed a simple bold font. However the draft version failed to strongly correspond with the music video, therefore would limit the recognisability I was aiming for, in order to create a strong brand. This view was confirmed by the feedback we gained after conducting both audience and teacher research, in which they both advised using a scene or character from the video would help to link all three pieces much easier. Consequently my second ancillary tasks are incredibly alike and form a style that coincides with the feel of the video, this is due to the fact the same location used for the digipak and advertisement is the same used for the 'scummy man' section of the video. I decided to keep from aspects from my draft ancillary tasks such as the simple bold font as I felt this worked best on a very busy background, as it was possible that the text could get lost in the background. The only difference between my drafts and my final piece was that I changed to a 6 panel digipak from the original design of a 4 panel, this allowed me to show off more clips from the music video, therefore making the digipak more effective as it clearly links to the music video.

Draft digipak

Draft Advertisement

Draft digipak (2)

Draft digipak (2)Final Digipak

Final Advert

In my second draft ancillary the background of my digipak and advertisements were very busy, with a simple style of font, the inspiration from which I took from an existing Arctic Monkeys album, while still making this my own, this is why I took inspiration for the Arctic Monkeys album 'whatever people say I am that's what I'm not, its minimalistic, as the album name isnt even featured on the cover and includes a mid shot of the same person on the front and back of the digipak this is something I choose to replicate. This simplistic style was replicated across my advertisement as well, as again I only included a small amount of text. Due to the bright background I only used white for the font as not to overwhelm and distract the audience. Upon discussion with my teachers I was told to include a wider variety of shots and make my digipak more creative. Therefore in my final advert and digipak I tried to use a wider range of images. Using stills from the video allows me to gain different shots, while obviously making the digipak effective as directly links to the video. I still however wanted to keep with the simplistic style of the video and the previous ancillary tasks I had done, for this reason I kept the text on on the advert to minimum as I feel its more direct and to the point as well as being aesthetically pleasing, due to the simple, clean nature. Another reason for the lack of text and the simplicity of the text that was included was that I wanted to draw the audience to the images rather than the text, I think using a bold, white text on both pieces allowed me to achieve this aim.

I believe our video itself is very simple, we kept the amount of people in it to a minimum and decided to stick with a straight narrative instead of flicking between narrative and performance. Even when it came down to editing we kept it as simple as possible as we didn't want to distract from the story being told. For this reason I don't think having a busy, heavily edited digipak and advertisement would of shown the connection between the video and the ancillary tasks. For example album covers such as Miley Cyrus Bangerz and Chris Brown F.A.M.E are heavily edited and very busy, this works for the style of music they are producing and lets the audience know what to expect. If we had taken inspiration for these I don't think we could of had any recognisability between our products at all, besides the person featured on the cover. The only editing I did on the digipak was making the image that has the lyrics placed over it more opaque, to allow the lyrics to be visible and not be lost in the background. I also make a couple of the images lighter to give it a more washed out feel. I that in both situations the editing was so minimal that it doesn't take away the connection between the video and the digipak. The same goes for the advert in which the image was made lighter, the only reason for this was to match the image on the cover of the digipak.In relation to the music video I believe there is a strong connection between it and the ancillary tasks. The main reason being we took still from he video in order to create both the digipak and the advert. We took as similar approach when creating our second draft ancillary products such a distinct background that featured in the video. I wanted to make sure the connection between the video and the ancillary products were clear so I believe taking stills from the video was the best way to reenforce the connection.Making both the digipak and the advert link was a key aspect I wanted to include as the two pieces would be working closely together. As mentioned before I used the same image ( the back of the prostitute smoking) on the digipak and the advert, this was a key convention I noticed during research and I feel it makes the pieces considerably stronger as it creates the strong branding I was ultimately aiming for.In conclusion, I feel our music video, digipak and advertisement successfully for fulfilled the aim we had set out to achieve, creating a recognisable branding for the band Arctic Monkeys. Our ancillary tasks are practically the same, with the only main difference being the fact we used six images on the digipak and only one on the advert, as this is a key convention wanted to follow in order to make our work look as professional as possible. I believed the simple to the point nature of the ancillary tasks is also relevant to the music video, we wanted to show how bad the prostitutes life was, we decided to not sugarcoat it and got straight to the point, this shown through how the combinations of products work together.