Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

When looking back at our final products,  I believe that the combination of our music video and ancillary texts are very fluent and successful. Whilst creating both the video and our digipak we had a clear vision of what we wanted them to look like and what techniques we wanted to use to represent Nova's image. Nova is an alternative artist and this is something we focused heavily on and worked around whilst creating our project.
Within our video we focused on a few things in particular to help present Nova's alternative style and artistic eye. One of the first things we took into consideration when creating our music video was the mise en scene. I am going to discuss our use of mise en scene and the ways in which I feel we have shown them both in our music video and digipak, applying them to the style that we were aiming for:

Within mise en scene, we particularly felt as if our settings were one of the most effective aspects of our video. In order for our video to be easily memorable to the audience, we ensured that we visited a wide variety of locations that we felt were visually interesting- this would then intrigue the viewer to want to watch it. One of my favourite locations in our final product would have to be the 'Turner Contemporary Gallery, Margate'. This is because it is a very quirky, different environment which fits in perfect with our more alternative genre. As well as this, it appears to be very unique location- especially as the exhibit we attended was only temporary. This means that our location would not be seen in any other music video and would therefore be very easily identifiable to our target audience.

Another successful location that stood out to be effective was our visit to Whitstable. This is because it was more of a 'natural' location and therefore added some variety to our music video. It also fit in well with our theme of nature which was clearly prominent throughout the entire video. Although our ancillary texts did not feature any outdoorsy type of images, I believe it is understandable to the audience because we wanted to represent our artist as more slick and professional therefore it made complete sense for our digipak and tour poster images to be taken in the studio. Using a location such as Whitstable as well as multiple locations also presents the fact that our artists likes to travel a lot- therefore by the audience watching the music video, they have already built up an image or brand of Nova which they will then be able to apply to our ancillary texts.

Multiple locations gave us the opportunity to toy around with different aspects of both our video and ancillary products so that we had the option and opportunity to choose what we included from our video in the auxiliary texts. I feel that our locations helped to express Nova as an indie/alternative artist whilst also expressing our group enthusiasm for our work as we were willing to go out of our way and film in these locations for the best quality video we could possibly create.

Next, we put deep consideration into how we wanted our artist to be represented in terms of hair, clothing and make-up. We made sure that we presented her in a range of different outfits, changing with each location. This was not only to entice the audience into watching more (as it may have become boring or repetitive if the same outfit was used throughout) but so that the artist could show off different areas of her style. Her outfits were especially in conjunction with the alternative genre of music to not only ensure continuity, but also to show a different side to her. An example of this would be the outfit (pictured left) that she wore during the Whitstable filming day. Her 'look' still appears edgy but also has a rather innocent and feminine touch to it- this means that her broad image can appeal to a mass of different people who may not necessarily be a fan of this type of music and would therefore  reel in a larger audience/new potential fan base. Nova's hair and makeup was always kept very simplistic- we wanted her voice to speak for itself in terms of her image, with hair and make-up complimenting this. Her 'natural' glam often matched the type of location that she was in (such as the beach)- this adds more consistency to the video. As we are inspired by Lana Del Rey, we noticed that even though she is a massive star in herself, she still dressed relatively subtle yet still glamorous- this is a look that we think is extremely effective and were definitely inspired by her dress sense during the creation of our own video. This is because we made Nova's style relatively bold and very unique- this therefore became very identifiable and made a very strong link between her dress sense in both the ancillary texts and music video. 

As well as this, lighting and colour schemes is an element we focused heavily on to make our video as effective as possible. We all agreed that continuity was extremely important in our final product- not just due to our personal preference but because we wanted to conform to the typical forms and conventions of music videos as they are all known to run so smoothly which gives them their professional appearance. To achieve continuity, we decided to choose a colour scheme which would be evident throughout the entirety of our video.
We chose to have blue and pink as our colour scheme- many of these colours we naturally found during our filming days such as a blue sky when filming in Whitstable and bold red colours in the Margate contemporary gallery. When these colours were not naturally available to us, we were able to digitally impose or enhance them during the editing process- allowing us to manipulate reality to suit our best needs. I feel that our colour scheme of pink and blue is effective in our video visually as well as in terms of representing our alternative genre. Blue is very traditionally associated with sadness and sorrow whilst pink holds strong connotations with love which is what both our song and genre is represented by.

Another element of our video that was particularly effective was how the artist was positioned in the frame. We ensured that throughout, Nova was situated on either the far left or right hand side of the shot- we felt that this changed up the dynamics of the video and made it slightly more interested so that we didn't risk the target audience becoming bored.

To ensure that both our ancillary products and music video linked well together,  we ensured that we carried over some of the mise en scene used in our final product to the main album cover/tour poster.

Digipak: We decided to incorporate a range of different colours into our digipak front cover- this way it added more of a visual variety in contrast to the black and white image of the artist. We chose to include our same theme of pink and blue colours into the tessellation in order to maintain consistency. The audience are also very familiar with this range of colours as the theme of pink and blue is tied in within our music video- our target audience would then be able to quickly associate the colours with the artist. Examples of where these colours appear in our main product is: 
The sunset panning establishing shot: This shot naturally provided us with the colours within our theme without the need of any manipulation during the editing process which was especially convenient to us.

The studio lighting: we purposely manipulated the studio lights to ensure that they were tinted blue and pink- this then created a large sheen around artist's figure, the glow symbolising the fact that she is the star of the show.

sunset projection: We wanted to be more experimental during the filming process in order to show each of our creative flares. As a result of this, we projected a sunset image from acetate onto Nova's back as the camera filmed this while tilting up. These colours included our theme of blue and pink and also a more diverse range on the same spectrum which were subtle purples and yellows- this pushed our own colour theme and complimented what we already had elsewhere in the music video.

Not only this, but we felt that by using the same hair, make-up and clothing throughout both our digipak and music video was an effective decision as it meant that the artist's look appears very fluent to the audience and therefore consistent all the way through. We branded our artist as very stylish however keeping her style still subtle to an extent to show that Nova's talent is more valuable than her physical appearance. 
As well as this, our use of colourful geometric shapes (tessellation) in the background of the digipak creates a strong link with the genre of the music in the music video. Triangles are very stereotypically associated with an 'indie' style which matches our genre of alternative music. This reinforces that our chosen imagery on our ancillary products is appropriate for our artist's song choice. 

Another way that the combination of our products are effective is the fact that we used relevant and conventional digipak images. The artist's style has been kept the same which means that, most importantly, consistency remains. The artist is staring directly into the camera in the album picture which links well with our music video because Nova is seen to have direct eye contact with the camera throughout the entirety of the video- creating an intimate bond between her and her fans.

A way in which the combination of our products differs is the fact that we did not feature the artist's logo anywhere in the video however we did on the digipak. A very conventional place to feature this is in the beginning of the video on a blank slate before it starts in order to introduce the audience to the artist. We did not want to conform to this because we felt that it was important for the viewer to discover who the artist is themselves through her visual appearance- rather than having the initial impression of the artist simply based from some text. I think this was a good idea not to include the logo in our video as although it would make sense for it to be more fluent, we felt that it would be just as effective simply featuring on the other ancillary products (such as the tour poster). This way it acts more as additional information rather than something essential that needs to be featured on anything based around Nova.  

We didn't choose to use the same image from the album front cover on our tour poster as it was not relevant to the style of ancillary product. It didn't fit- not only because of the size of the picture (it was square and we wanted a wide rectangular landscape image) but also because the photograph didn't have much negative space. We wanted the background space in order to place the writing beside it whilst the image still remains continuous (no harsh lines). This way, it would look like a whole complete poster rather than clearly a picture on one side and writing on the other- making it appear like more of a booklet/album insert. 

We subconsciously linked the artist's dress which has geometric shapes on it with the tessellation in the background of the album cover. This way there was a very subtle combination between the designs of both products. Although, visually, they do look quite different- it was still important that we had these very slight design links between the two to make them more continuous. We also placed Nova's logo and record label logo onto all products as these were very important features in terms of promotion for the up and coming artist. We used the same type of font throughout all products- the font is associated with Nova and how she is represented (in a very mature and professional nature).

We used black and white on tour poster (background colour and white font)- this links with the black and white image main photograph on the album cover- again adding to its consistency. 

We wanted to create something new to keep the audience entertained which is why we took new pictures for the tour poster and not from the video. Saying this, we used images from the video in our inserts to guarantee a strong link between both products, this means that the audience do not become confused in any way and that all products make complete sense as an entire package.