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

A vital step to take after completing the Music Video production was the creation of a Digipak and magazine advert in order advertise our media product to our target audience. The key to getting a set of images that represented the genre well was through our researc into other bands and artists of a similar genre. We first looked at musicians that had inspired the artist of our own track, the most important influence of which was Beirut.

 The majority of the artwork for Beirut's album covers uses a very bleak colour palette in order to represent a forgotten time, in the same way that the artists music is from a predated genre the album covers also reflect a sense of nostalgia. This links back to our own music video in the sense that we have developed the typical performance based style of a music video with the nostalgic structure of a silent film. Therefore to have artwork that relates to the genre as well as the music video we would need to use imagery and a colour palette that would reflect a sense of nostalgia for our target audience.

Panel 1:

The 1st panel utilises the recurring motif of the creature masks in order to link the digipak with key aspects of the music video and convey to the target audience the connection between the video and the digipak in order to promote the artists work. The colour palette of the 1st panel is equal to that utilised throughout the music video in order to confirm the 'wonderland' that the protaginist has fallen into, using the same natural imagery and colour scheme on both products helps link them together and promote the entire production in a coherent way.

Panels 2 & 3:

The 2nd and 3rd panels are one long landscape shot, that I utilised in order to confirm a strong link between the music video and the generic conventions of a silent film. The black and white colour palette uses the generic conventions of a silent film in order to continue to confirm the genre to the target audience, the hint of blue lining the background suggests the idea of reflecting on the past and nostalgia, which is a recurring theme throughout the music video.

In order to visually link an image with the music video I took a close up shot confirming the importance of the female protaginist from the music video and overlayed an image of several masked creatures in a field. This uses the recurring motif of the masked animals in order to confirm the connection to the music video in a coherent and visably appealing image.

Panel 4:

When designing the 4th panel for my digipak I considered the silent films that I'd researched, the strongest intertextual reference throughout our music video stems from the first film adaptation of Alice in wonderland, which without colour imagery meant that to represent a similar silent film link I would need to present the audience with a similiar mise-en-scene, therefore the final panel of the digipak was an extreme close up on a bottle of medicine.

This reference to 'Alice in Wonderland' will be an easy to recognise reference for our target audience and will reflect the audience with a sense of nostalgia in order to help confirm the predated genre that the album presents. The colour palette came from the curtains used in classic theatres when silent films were first presented. The rich red colour colour scheme is also a recurring motif throughout the music video in order to confirm the silent film connotations.

Magazine advert:

The magazine advert, like the digipak images, is directly linked to the music video in order to present the genre and artists work to the target audience in a successfully promotional way. The still used for the magazine cover is also used on the 2nd and 3rd panels of the digipak, this confirms the shot as the key image in the promotion for the album and is an easily recognisable image, it not only represents the genre but also links to the idea that the music video is structured as a short film rather than a peformace based video. The is made apparent because the promotional face of the artist is a recurring character rather than the artist himself. The recurring image of the girl allows the audience to recognise the recurring motifs in the promotional package thus giving the artist a coherent and marketable brand style. This allows the digipak, music video and magazine advert all link together in order to continue promoting the artists work.