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

Main Product

Ancillary Texts

To create both of my ancillary texts I first of all took a variety of different images of the character that featured in my music video whilst out on location for filming. I did this to ensure continuity of my character and locations that I used for both my music video footage and my ancillary texts. I uploaded them all onto my computer using an SD card and card reader and experimented with the different images to decide which ones I wanted to use. I tried numerous different styles with the images relating to my research that I did into existing promotional posters and digipack that promote the artist Beyoncé. I took images in all of the locations that i filmed in including: Inside Leah's house, Outside of Leah's house, at the beach, Outside at my house, around the lakes at my house and around the ponds at my house. I used the program Adobe Photoshop to create both of my ancillary texts for my advanced portfolio on a Dell computer. I found creating my ancillary texts challenging and at times slightly difficult. Trying to ensure that all of my images linked together to make them effective and powerful proved to be harder than i thought it would be. I thought it was important that my digipack and poster linked together as well as knowing that both ancillary texts relate to my music video like existing media products. The main ways in which I did this was by using the purple gradient continuously, the same fonts and font sizes and the black and white background grey scale.

Promotional Poster (Advert)

I created my poster before I produced my digipack for my two chosen ancillary texts. First of all I decided out of all the images that I had taken which picture I wanted to use for my advert. I felt that the image below looked the most effective for my promotional poster because it linked with video footage I created for my music video in the same location and costume constructing the same poses for an image as I did for a video. I decided to call my album 'Mirror Image' this gave me the idea to duplicate my chosen image ten times relating to the name of my album and reflecting the pop genre. I edited the image to make it black and white linking to my music video as the majority of that is in black and white. After some audience feedback I then realized that i should add some colour to my poster to bring it to life with effects and link in with the pop genre. I tried different shades of purple added to the black and white grey scale using a gradient for my advert from top to bottom so that the images in the background could still be seen. I then began experimenting with different fonts and text sizes for my poster. I also had to decide whether to use the real name of my character or make up a different performance name. I tried to establish the most effective font style that reflects the pop genre as well as relating to the personality of the artist. I didn't want my poster to look too clustered with writing drowning out the images in the background but focus more on the main elements of the advert to catch the attention of the audience and make it memorable. I stuck to conventions of promotional album posters from my research and included the name of the artist on the ancillary product. I also included some extra features on my poster such as advertising the song that I used for my advanced portfolio music video and the website name promoting my artist. Sticking to conventions means that it creates realism for the best impact on the audience as possible which is what is intended. I set about creating some sort of website information for the audience to be able to purchase the album. I added the artist’s personal website onto the promotional poster to create links and places for the audience to visit. Overall I wanted to make sure the most important thing was that my promotional poster and music video linked together in the form of the ideology I was trying to create as well as the pop genre of my music video.

Editing Process:

This was the first stage in creating my poster as I got the original image and copied it ten times then added the black and white grey scale effect to create my background.

This was the second stage in creating my poster as I added the purple gradient effect over the top of my ten background images from top been the darkest to bottom been the lightest.

This was the third stage in creating my poster as I added four white boarders around the edge of my advert creating guidelines as well as adding the artist’s website name which is: www.leahhaywood.com to promote the artist and advertise.

This was the fourth stage in creating my poster as I added the name of the artist which is: Leah Haywood on top of the background images and gradient showing the audience who the advert is about.

This was the fifth stage in creating my poster as I then added in white font the phrase: Debut Album and the name of the album which is: Mirror Image to show the main features of the advert in different text formats and colours making them stand out.

This was the sixth stage in creating my poster as I added the final bits of text which are connecting to my music video because it promotes the single that I have used as the soundtrack to create a music video and is bold and prominent to the audience.

Digipack (CD)

To create my digipack I decided to use images that I had taken whilst filming just like I did for my promotional poster making location and costume exactly the same. I also took some snap shots from my music video that looked attractive and that I thought would look just as appealing as still images as well as video footage. I experimented with many different images but finally decided to use the images below for my digipack. I got a digipack template from the internet and copy and pasted it into Adobe Photoshop so that I could use it for my final product to make it look exactly like a real digipack. I created each of the six parts of the digipack separately and then when they were finally finished I dragged and dropped them onto my template creating the product. For the front cover case of my digipack I used the same image as I did for my promotional poster I did this to create recognizable products relating them together as well as linking them to the music video. I made all of the images for my digipack black and white using the grey scale just like I did for my music video and advert. For the back case of my digipack I used another image of my artist developing the personality and entire feeling that I wanted to portray reflecting the pop genre. For my CD and DVD I used two different image son top of each other one for the actual discs and another for inside the cases when the discs aren't inside the digipack. I used two outside locations for this to create a calm and peaceful effect using trees on the CD and DVD cover and a blazing fire for the background. For the two inside covers I used the same image reflecting the name of my album again linking back to my artist. The image I chose to use is a picture I took whilst at the beach with my character filming footage for my music video. I really liked the image of the beach and think it sets the scene for my music video because the majority of my footage is filmed at a water location including the beach linking all of my three products together. The images that I used for my digipack all reflect the narrative of my music video as well as my characters personality because of the locations and costume.

Editing Process:

The stages that can be seen below from one to six are the production processes in the coming together of my digipack. I created each individual part of my digipack on a separate Photoshop file then eventually when they were all finished I opened a new Photoshop file and made a digipack template. I then dragged each one of my six parts of my CD and DVD onto the digipack file and positioned them as follows. Finally I added the finishing touches when each of my squares were in place which were: creating the spines of the digipack, flipping the three top images around to make them like a real existing product and adding text to the spines to make it look realistic and professional. When it was all complete I printed off the file and checked that it was correct after folding the piece of paper and making it like a real CD and DVD digipack allowing it to fold in and out.