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

texts?

Introduction For my media course production, we had to

create a music video, along with two ancillary texts (a website and a paper advert).

For my music video, I decided to use an acoustic version of the song ‘Prayer in C’ by Jona Selle, which, when used in my production, would be Josey Chambers’ debut single.

Across the board with my music video and ancillary texts, it was important for me to create a sense of branding across all three of my products. The sense of branding that I created was made through certain aesthetic features which included font, colour, style, colour scheme and characters.

Font Although there is no font within my music video, the sense of branding comes from the use of

similar text within my advert and my website; the white, block-shaped font seems to create a sense of simplicity and a sense of enigma as it doesn’t appear to give any clues to the subject of the music video, however, the thin block shape of the font, while being simple, could also represent the simplicity of the song and the video; the video being about a female protagonist (Josey) who appears to mourning the loss of the someone whilst comforting herself using different, seemingly conventional teenage actions (e.g. drinking and smoking), this link between the text within my advert and the nature of my video helps possibly create a sense of anchorage instead of branding, due to the fact that no font is featured within my music video.

The same text used in both ancillaries makes it easily recognisable to my audience and is unique to my marketing campaign which also means that my target audience can immediately recognise it.

Font Other music artists such as Daft Punk, despite being a completely different

genre, create a sense of branding through the font for their logo, which appears on pretty much all of their albums and uses a jagged text style that appears to, not only represent Daft Punk’s musical style, but also seems to be unique to them and appears quite recognisable to their audience.

Font

Colour With colour, there is a sense of brand reach due to the

use of white font on my website and my advert, possibly creating a minimalist look. The brand reach of colour also comes from the graveyard, autumn setting within my production, which is also shown in both my ancillaries; using the same setting within my production and both my ancillaries helps create a unique, recognisable setting for my audience which hopefully, when they see this setting within real life, they will recognise it from my production and ancillaries, even though, within my production, the parts with the graveyard setting had been edited to create a black and white effect while the images in both my ancillaries have not been edited and do not have any effect on them.

Colour

Style In terms of style, I feel like

brand reach has been created through a similar style between my production and both my ancillaries. The styling seems to present quite a reflective and sad mood, presented through the shots of the graveyard in my production and the style of my ancillary text two: an advert. In my advert I have used a shot of the graveyard as the main image within my advert to put emphasis on the graveyard setting to my demographic so then, they may possibly make the connection between my production and my ancillary and figure out that they are part of the same campaign.

Style Within my production, Josey’s styling

can be seen as casual, this type of style seems to creates a sense of realism within my production as her style makes it seem like she is dressing by her own choice instead of being dressed up by other people for a purpose, which would possibly ruin the realistic aspect of my production and narrative and could’ve distracted my audience from the narrative. Josey’s casual style is also prominent through the pictures on my website which still shows her casual style to the audience, creating a slight sense of branding through character style, although the pictures of her on my website may help my demographic connect to her as a person rather than a character, making her seem more relatable considering that she is supposed to be around the same age as my target demographic.

Style With the artists Disclosure, their

sense of branding is specifically created throughout 3 of their music videos: ‘Holding On’, ‘Omen’ and ‘Jaded’. These three specific videos pull together to create a story, which means that using the same elements in all three videos is important as it, not only creates a sense of branding, but also a sense of continuity. Disclosure appear to create a sense of branding through the styling of these specific videos, deliberately choosing to set the videos in a dystopian, technology driven society and showing similar shots in each video to create the sense of branding but to also familiarise their audience with the setting, possibly making it easier for them to understand that the three videos are connected.

Style

The three videos from Disclosure use similar elements and symbols to indicate to the audience that they are somehow connected.

Character As well as the graveyard being one main aspect throughout all three of my products, Josey is also

another main aspect within all three of my products as she is my artist and her character itself also seems to create a sense of branding as she appears in all of my products. In terms of her representation, her image is quite casual and simple, which for music seems quite unconventional as many women within music videos prefer to create their image about the idea of being sexy. However, in my music video and the pictures from my website, her image is constantly the same throughout my production and both of my ancillaries due to the fact that it would look out of place if, in my production her image is casually comfortable and then if the pictures of my website portrayed her as a type of sex symbol; something that would be unconventional to my music genre (acoustic pop) but would also look out of place and not fit with my narrative, therefore not allowing me to create a sense of branding, but a sexy image may also ruin the video for my audience as they may feel confused as the sudden contrast between Josey’s image and the narrative.

Character

There is a distinctive contrast between the who representations; also taking into account the lyrical content/nature and the subject of the two songs. The different representations are meant to be representative of the songs, possibly why there is such a huge contrast between my representation of Josey and the representation of the woman in Robin Thicke’s questionable song ‘Blurred Lines.’