Evaluation Activity 2:

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

By Ellena Moore & George Lawrence

To the left is a screenshot of the first shotfrom the Ameli, If I Ain’t Got You musicvideo. Clearly, the main focus of this shot isthe large logo of our artist placed in theforeground. This logo is very relevant to ouraccompanying ancillary tasks as it appearsthroughout in the background of our theatrelocation, the front cover of our digipak andnumerous other times on different panes. Itis also a main focus on our promotionalposter, helping to establish our artistspersona. Kits simple, elegant design makes iteasily recognisable but is also very adaptablemaking it easy to seamlessly merge withinany context.

You can see as this shot progresses the push-pull focusbegins to introduce the location in the background. Theblack and white colour scheme is reflected throughout all ofour accompanying forms of media such as the poster anddigipak and helps to portray the glamorous identity ofAmeli.

To the left is the digipak design. A large feature of this designand the front cover is our artists logo. This intertextuality willmake it easy for the general public to forge a connectionbetween these three elements and identify that they all worktogether in promoting this artist and album. We havecontinued to use black and white imagery for continuitypurposes which I feel works well. The vast black curtainbackground from this establishing shot from our music video isreplicated in the black backgrounds employed throughout ourdigipak panes.

Examples of the logos

adaptability.

Her identity within the mise en scene was extremely important aswe aimed to portray her as glamorous, and for her audience toaspire to being like her, which is helped heavily by how she looks.It also helps to establish the artist’s identity, which is continuedthroughout the digipak and poster, as we felt that the connectionwith the audience and the artist could only be developed throughusing images of the artist’s face giving direct address to theaudience in order to institute an artist/audience relationship.

This screenshotrepresents thestrong link ourmusic video haswith the ancillarytexts, as theartist, Ameli,who is placed inthe foregroundand centreframe of this midshot, is in thesame costume,hair, andmakeup as she isin both the frontcover and insidepanes of thedigipack, as wellas in the imageon the poster.

The costume also links with the 1920’s theme we established within the artist’s identityand throughout the music video, with other elements of mise en scene such as props (inthe theatre location with the male’s hat, and the microphone) and in the digipak andposter (with the use of art deco gold lines around both the ancillary texts, and the fontsused).

We were fortunate enough to beshooting at a time when Harrods,located in one of our key locations inLondon, happened to be displaying acontinued 1920’s theme throughoutall of their window displays. This alsosupports our use of this art decotheme throughout all of our ancillarytasks, as it shows that it is extremelyrelevant in the fashion andcommercial industry at the moment,something that we also found infilms such as ‘The Artist’ and ‘GreatGatsby’. These window displayswere of scenes within a traincarriage, the furniture and patternsused helped us a lot in visualising thedesigns of our ancillary tasks with abig emphasis on golden metal linedborders and geometric flourishingshapes.

This mid eye-line shot tracking the artist on the left on the frame,walking towards the camera, creates an art deco mise en scene. Thisis achieved by the displays in the shop (Harrods) windows havingmannequins dressed in 1920’s style clothing, and props used whichemerge in the continuation of this tracking shot at different points inthe video.

This connects to our digipak with the overall theme we used inthe various panes, especially with the art deco font used in ourtheme and in the track listing on the reverse pane, as well asthe gold lines representative of this period of history, that wehave used throughout the Digipak and on the poster. This shotalso shows how we successfully linked the theme andentwined it into both the location, the costume, and the colourscheme of black and white – all of them encompassing a 1920’stheme and artist identity.