Evaluation 2

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

I created my video before my ancillary task, so the both can have the same running themes, meanings and purposes for the shared audience to decode. Encoding and Decoding theory created by Stuart Hall allows me to place messages within all of my media products for the audience and public to ever encode or decode. As the band have a fan base, all their products should symbolise the bands identity so fans and the public can distinguish certain signifiers within either the video or the look of the EP so it will separate the products from any other band. The effectiveness of this is it allows the two products to correlate therefore if one product gets exposure the other will to because their similar in style, this is only effective if the audience decode applied meanings and themes. It is also effective because as many of us judge a book by cover media texts get judged based on the look of it as well therefore choosing the right (dark) colours I was able to showcase that the product is indie, this was further expressed by the use of Holoart effect (via BeFunky.com) on the cover. Identifying the genre allows people who like that genre to give the product a chance because will be of that genre, a genre they feel comfortable in. But in order to great the effect of being an indie representative band I had to make my two pieces correlate in style, which was mostly vintage. In the EP I used only a type writer text so it became the bands identity as a chosen font to represent the band but also because typewriters are vintage for being appealing due to their unconventional method of typing out words, they’re outdated and this relates to my video in which I used old footage, to show the change between modern and old. In which a simpler life is what we seek. Another theme that links my media products and ancillary tasks together is ‘coming of age’ the fact we see a boy grow from a young boy in the old footage to a fully grown man retracting his steps and now finding himself from hopeful when he was younger to a lonely man now he is older. I translated that meaning into my ancillary tasks by having a boy with a dog (some company) on the EP cover and cloning the boy three times to show the hope society has for the young boy he could become any person or go into several jobs, it is up to the boy however what is not up to the boy is the things happening around him and other people and when the audience open up the digi pack they will see a man doing his job of throwing rubbish out with no dog or person near him on a similar background to the one of the boy. I did this to show what became of the boy and how, just like the video, he is left lonely and hasn’t become all that he could have. Likewise to the front cover the inside uses the same font and effect this happens on the back cover too. The back cover again uses holoart and the same font. However this time the picture has a different meaning, it only shows several pair of legs acting like drones and being the same as no matter what venture you go into, what job you gain or how many people are you, you have, it doesn’t truly matter because we are all the same with the only differences being our decisions and faces, that is why I excluded faces or a body. This is different to the video because the video concentrates on one males actors face, because it is important the music has a face so people can relate to the feelings shown on the face of a man that knows how much the lyrics mean. This was to add further effect as although the ancillary tasks hide the faces I believe it would steer audiences of that ancillary tasks and the music to search for the video to finally have a face to match the voice.

Moving on to the poster, the poster is very different, it uses a different colour scheme (black and white to stick with the indie and rock connotations) and layout it emerges the font cover image of the EP into a distorted puzzle of an image because I believe people should be questioned by the poster instead of your average advertisement in which just states what it is, I want there to be a mysterious appeal of an advert for those who appreciate more complex music. It gives them an added incentive to the music a mysterious appeal that they have yet to hear before, something new for them to enjoy. It does however stick with a typewriter font and does keep the images used on the EP front cover so it can relate to all my media texts as it is advertising the EP and gives valuable information of where to buy it and its name and the EP cover image so audiences would be able to find it in a shop.

The audience will be able to find the music video because of how similar it is to its EP and poster, no matter where they are in the country they will be able to find the EP in a store because they have either seen the poster or the video. Referring to uses and gratifications theory I believe the audience of the band will be motivated to seek the album because of the music video finally displaying the face to the voice but they will always have an incentive to buy the album in a shop or by poster as both represent a specific genre in music and will only appeal to listeners of that certain genre. The audience do not have to be a fan of the band but if they are a fan of the genre the marketing of all the media products will make sure they have the desire to try something they know they will like.

I have placed a lot of stereotype conventions within my music video in which it is for an indie rock band therefore the male actor has long hair, wears clothes such as skinny jeans to signify the genre. But also there is a smoking scene in which over many years smoking has been a constant stereotype of rock music, because rock stands for a rebellious attitude therefore smoking and alcohol fits into that stereotype.

My music video does however follow Todorov’s narrative theory of Equilibrium, disequilibrium and then back to the original equilibrium. My music video opens to old footage and is disturbed by modern footage until the footage rewinds to its natural state towards the end in which the video ends where it begins in the equilibrium. The disequilibrium was in fact the modern days in which is gloomy and we seek for the good old days of the past where happiness was a given. The music video somewhat creates a musical culture in which sometimes rock music is symbolic of rebellion but also loneliness through the use of either drugs, smoke and alcohol that are all bad for are system but the dark colours are codes of symbolism to show like the present is bad for us and the symbolism of good is the past. In which time flies by as shown by the end of the music video symbolising in a speed up time lap of old footage that life can pasty you by as quickly as the quicker video. Barthe showed that it is up to the audience to find all the codes and the semic codes which are the most important to understand the symbolisms of applied meanings of scenes and ancillary tasks.