Question 2How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

Figure 1Ancillary texts

A brief introduction to the ancillary texts

• The products we were told to create as a part of synergy for the music video were a digipak and magazine advert. Creating these two products to reinforce the music video was quite a hard task as we had to compile all the themes we had produced in the music video to the ancillary texts. The them we originally decided on was a surreal dreamland the character witnesses whilst sleeps (after waking up in the dreamland).

• The Digipak: The Digipak created had to keep the on-going theme of surrealism we incorporated in the music video as well as looking like a proper dance music genre digipak. We used stills we took during the filming of the music video as I have already mention in question 1. Using the same theme is important as it converges themes of the music video with the products that follows.

• The Magazine Advert: The magazine advert much like the digipak had to resemble some of the music video as we kept the same theme of surrealism and dream related persona like the digipak. As I have already mentioned in the digipak we also used stills of filming the magazine for the music video.

The By-products of the video

Figure 2The Digipak and the Magazine Advert

Ancillary texts Combination of final product and ancillary texts• There are many similarities and combinations used in our

ancillary texts to promote and sell the music video. An example of one of the main similarities we decided to use was the use of the mise-en-scene in the music video. The locational element of the music vide (Knavesmire Wood) was a large influence on the success of the music video and therefore using imagery of the woodland area where we filmed seemed ideal to use on the digipak and magazine advert.

Ancillary texts Maintaining a theme• Theme:

The theme we used was probably the most influential element of creating our ancillary texts. As I have already mentioned; the theme of our whole product is dreams and surrealism. Therefore incorporating a dream and surreal similarity to our ancillary texts seemed only necessary to the right combination of music video and ancillary texts. Using the idea of keeping the same theme for both the music video and ancillary texts is often common in other products done by artists in the same music genre. For example; the song End Credits by Chase and Status displays images of the music video on the digipak they use as well (see figure 4). The connotations for keeping this theme is that it resembles the artists work within the music video and it keeps a strong house style through the synergy and products the song helps create.

• Another theme we managed to keep was the masked characters and the illusion the created in the music video. The way we portrayed this in the ancillary texts were that we maintained the same character (green coat) in the magazine advert and the digipak. In the digipak the character in the green coat is wearing a mask and in the magazine advertisement he is looking at masks. Creating this difference and theme of ‘real or not real’ between the character being in with the masked characters or not allows the theme of mystery and interest with the target demographic.

Figure 4Chase and Status song; End credits keeping an English theme of gritty suburban England through digipak and music video. The same character is on the front cover of the digipak as well as the music video.

Ancillary texts Maintaining a House Style• In my personal opinion I believe that maintaining ahouse style through ancillary

texts of a product are a large element to the success of the main product (i.e. music video). For example keeping the house style of colours through the music video and ancillary texts helps maintain the connection between the main product and by product.

• Characters: The house style in characters we decided to use in our main product and ancillary texts were the main character in the green coat and the characters in masks. We wanted to maintain these characters because they were so important to the music video so it seemed almost unfair for us to not include them in the ancillary texts, plus it created the correlation between the music video and digipak/magazine advert. An example which is similar to this is the digipak and music video for Pompeii by the band Bastille, they use an image from the music video on their digipak. However this band is a different music genre to my music video but it shows intertexualality between music genres and shows the commonness of this house style. See figure 5: Characters.

• Fonts: The house style through fonts in our ancillary texts are kept the same through both the magazine advert and the digipak. The connotations for this are very similar to the same use of characters because it shows correlation in that it’s the same through all by-products the artist has done. This is a common convention as nearly all artists have a font they represent themselves with, for example Avicii has the font he uses in all of his products and music videos that stays and adds to the urban and futuristic house style his music portrays. See figure 5: Fonts.

• Colours and Backdrop: The house style in colours portrayed through the music video and ancillary text are probably the most similar the target demographic will pick up on. For example the colours we decided to use are very similar in that they represent the mise-en-scene we set the music video in. The colours we stuck with were various shades of greens, browns and black and white in some aspects of our ancillary texts (digipak). The reason for keeping this parallelism through ancillary texts and the music video is that they are also a representative of the song and will give the target demographic the colours that they will represent the song with. See figure 5: Colours/backdrops.

Figure 5House style features

Characters

Fonts

Colours/ backdrops

Magazine Advert

Ancillary texts How Digipaks and advets compare

Sub Focus; Endorphins, Real Advertisement

Sub Focus; Endorphins, Real Digipak cover

Sub Focus; Endorphins, Group made Magazine Advertisement

Sub Focus; Endorphins, Group made Digipak

Figure 6Comparisons of ancillary texts

Band/Artist ImageSub Focus• Sub Focus is the artist in which my group chose to use as we used his song,

the song is quite an influential part of the image my group gave the artist. For example we kept the music video quite similar to the existing music video of the song. Well I feel that we went an opposite direction because the existing music video focuses on a slow pace whereas the music video we made relies on fast paced shots. The connotations for this were that my group wanted to get the music similar but add our own twist but also relate it to the fast paced surroundings we live in.

• In relation to the ancillary texts, my group aimed to get similarity in the digipak as we kept the surreal strangeness the existing digipak has. For example the existing digipak has a symbol on the front that is shown on all of the Sub-Focus digipaks. We tried to keep a vague surreal-ness on as we had the masked characters on our digipak. This gives the artist an image on surrealism and an almost science fiction vibe because it’s not normal and it’s different.

• Having the artist not shown in the music video helps represent the genre of music because in the genre of music the artist doesn’t usually sing, they stereotypically get someone to sing for them and they then mix the song. This helps with the band image because you don’t see the artist in the music video at all you only rely on the plot of the music video.

• Marketing the would be easier for the music video and the ancillary texts because they are so heavily linked. What I mean by this is that people can relate the music video and ancillary texts so well because the ancillary text features the characters from the music video.