Question 2 : How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
02/03/2016
Our final music video coordinates with our ancillary tasks in order to incorporate the all three products as one product all together. Our magzine advert and digipak share many features with our video in order to show synergy and reflect our iconography. We made sure that most elements of the ancillary and final product was conventional to other pop genre features, this helped gain our target audience who recognise consistent features within the pop genre (Neale's repetition and difference).
Mise en scene
In order to show a proect that presented fluent continuity, we needed to feature similar features across all of our products such as our digipak, magazine advert and music video. In order to create a consistant iconography for all of the characters, we decided to keep the costumes worn the same within all media products. The reason for this is so that our target audience would recognise our style and be reminded that we are a normal group of boys whom simply wish to bond with the viewers, which presents us as ordinary (Dyer's ordinary paradox). We also chose to have a range of outfits worn between our group, which allowed us to attract a range of different classes due to the diversity (Uses & Gratifications : personal relationships). The fact that we created these individual personas proved to be quite unconventional as within many existing posters and music videos, pop artists rarely wear the same outfit. This is probably because artists are often seen as style icons and take many costume changes in order to present reinvention.
The background and settings that we used within each products are also rather similar. The main colours used as the backgrounds are grey and white, the reason for these colours is becasue they draws attention from the setting and forces viewers to focus on the group members (Dyer's Star Theory). These colours are also conventional within many pop music video because it helps focus on the star. Justin Timberlake uses black and white as a main colour within his 20/20 Experience album, whether it be his attire or his chosen setting. The colours used also show professionalism as they are used to make the photographs clean and formal, they are also non-gender specific, so they attract everyone. We shared these colours between our products in order to synergise our products, as humans offen relate things primarily by colour and we used this to our advantage in this case.
Similar to the settings, we also used a consistant high key lighting throughout our media products. High key lighting is very conventioanl within the pop genre, as seen in many of Chris Brown's music videos and even his albums. High key lighting connotes purity and 'freshness', a connotation that we'd hope for the audience to think of in so that we could be seen as a new boy group. The bright lighting also connotes heavenly inagery which cold then relate to Dyer's extraordinary paradox.
Camerawork
We utilised many different camera angles within all three products, but the predominant angles were close ups and mid shots because they are very conventional within pop videos. The close up is used regularly within pop music videos as it forces us to memorise the artist's image so that we can recognise them on other products almost as a promotional technique (Goodwin). This is why we decided to feature it on our digipak and in our music video; so that viewers can understand and recognise the artists. Mid shots are often used for the same reason, but with the exception of visible attire. Clothing plays a big part in pop because the celebrities act as role models and therefore style icons for fans, but in our case, we used the clothing as iconography. We also us mid shots to show off our artists' skills and talent which is another convention seen within pop videos such as dancing within many of Jasn Derulo's products. We use close ups and mid shots so that we can foloow pop conventions and attract our chosen target audience while also sporting our iconograhy, two aspects that are crucial, hence why we incorporated the shots across all three of our media products because it has already been proven successful by current pop artists.
Mid Shots
Close ups
Editing
When discussing how editing was incorporated within all of our media products, it is quite difficult to state specific techniques.. We wanted a unique style of editing that we could use so that our target audience could recognise different products. We also wanted a way to show all of us within the group equally so that we could share the 'fame' between us. The editing technique that we came up with was a grid view that had a different character within each set square. This allowed the audience to view each groupmember individually (Uses & Gratifications - Surveillance). This editing technique was unique and unconventional as none of my group, including myself, had seen this in researched music videos, making us independant due to breaking conventions and reflecting Neale's 'difference' . By using this gris effect in our digipak design as well as our music video, we sowed a clear understanding of synergy for the purpose of creating a unique effect that is original. It shows a fluent continuity throughout our media products.
We also made a symbol that could be related back to our group because we featured it on all products. We used a lipstick mark in our video via a note, on our digipak on the back, and on our magazine advert in the top right corner. Jonnny applied this by using his Mac app AffinityPhoto, which came in extremely useful when making the digipak and magazine advert. The lipstick mark also brings in the fact that there is a woman within the video, which is conventional within almost every pop music video such as Justin Beiber's 'What Do You Mean?'. But we feature the woman less as we want to be focused on and therefore rebelling against Mulvey's male gaze theory.
Typography
We decided that it would be best if we were to have the same font throughout all pieces of media products so that synergy could help viewers in matching up our products. The font that we used for our ancillary tasks was 'Apple Gothic', it is sans serif, so it appears to be professional and formal. The consistant upper casing and even the boldness makes it seem very conventional, as it catches the attention of viewers whom may not notice it otherwise. It is a bold font seen on Pharrell Williams' 'Happy' music video, Sam Smiths Digipak and Olly Murs' magazine advert. It is also very easy to read because it features no fancy writing that may blur the flow if it was serif font.It helps make all three tasks one and it becomes recognisable to the audience.
