Evaluation Question 2-How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Whilst I was researching the conventions of media texts within my selected music genre, I noticed that all

aspects of the marketing campaign for that album and/or single were linked in one way or another. The music video would have elements of what the digi-pak had in it and the same with any advertising campaigns they may publish, including magazine advertisements. Since this was a common convention within professional media texts I realised it would be a good idea for me to do this myself within my main and ancillary texts.

The first job that needed beginning was the main product (the music video) as that would ultimately take the most time and would arguably require the most preparation. I completed a day's filming and was very happy with the footage that I took away from it. It soon became clear that I would need to make it more obvious to the viewer that there is a split personality within the character in the music video. I decided to use an editing technique in which I would use a greyscale/black and white filter on the footage in the video which shows the 'inner self' side of the character. This would then show there is an opposition between the girl with the coloured footage and the girl that isn't. When it came to producing my digi-pak, I experimented in my early drafts with using a greyscale effect within this, however colour worked much better for it, also colour is a popularly used technique in digi-paks within this genre. So I decided to incorporate black and white into the magazine advert for my album release/digi-pak. This would then link the magazine advertisement with the music video that I had filmed as they both had colour (the front cover on the magazine advertisement and happy footage within the video) and black and white (the main image in the magazine advertisement and the sad footage within the music video) with in them.

A way in which all three of my texts combine together are through the colouring and font style of the text. All three different texts include red, black and white colouring in and/or around the text. On the music video, it opens with the text 'I LOVE IT' written in a narrow font style with red and white colouring in it. This is mounted on top of the footage behind it which has a greyscale filter (following the colour scheme of red, black and white.) Within the digi-pak, the front cover includes red, black and white text with the font 'Agency FB' which is a very narrow and bold font (similar to the font used in the opening of the music video.) For the back cover the track listing is written in red and black text in the same font that is used on the front cover and all of the magazine advertisement. For the bottom of the back cover, there is a white strip on which the record label, barcode and artist/record label websites are written on in black. The magazine advertisement also does this, it included red colouring on the song title forms the background to the details of the UK tour dates. White is used to give the social media information, the logo of the record label and for part of the parental advisory logo, it also provides half of the text for the UK tour date information. Black is used at the bottom of the poster behind the social media information, record label logo and the parental advisory logo. It is also used a lot in the text on the advertisement on the UK tour date information and the main album release information.

A running theme within all three texts is also location. Within the magazine advertisement, the main background image that I use is an image of my artist stood up against a tree in a forest wearing a short dress with her chest exposed with a hole, her arms and neck on display. Within the digi-pak the artist is in the same location and wearing the same dress as she is within the magazine advertisement. In the music video the artist spends a lot of the video in a field surrounded by trees (similar to the images used in the digi-pak and magazine advertisement.) The running theme within this the three texts are the trees that are shown in or around the main focus of the frame of the texts.

I decided to conduct a focus group in order to see if people within my target market understood and recognised the links between all three texts. I was rather pleased with the response I received from this focus group. When I asked 'How do you think the texts link together?' they responded postively saying that they think they link together well through the images and the themes that are displayed across all texts. Jacob, a member of the focus group mentioned that perhaps to improve it I could make the main background image in the magazine advertisement not greyscale and replace it with the colour version of the photograph in order to make it link more directly to the digi-pak, the other members of the focus groups then agreed with this suggestion. I think this is a fair comment, and he is making a good point when he suggests it. However, I do feel that the existence of the greyscale filter on the image makes a direct link with the music video, so I feel the image being in black and white is justified. Another mentioned that she thought that the presence of the CD front cover was good and it brought all of the links together. She said that she would say that it makes the links complete between all three texts. I would agree with her point that adding the image of the front cover does link together the magazine advertisement and the digi-pak.

Overall, I think that I have successfully combined all three texts together. I think in all three products there are clear elements of the other texts within it. I think they're rather obvious also, especially in the font style and colours used in them. I do think however that it could be made even clearer. This could be done by using the 'Agency FB' font that is used in the magazine advertisement and digi-pak for the text at the beginning of the music video. I could also have used the locations that are used within the music video for the magazine advertisement and digi-pak so there is a clear link between all three products.