Evaluation Planning Question 2

 How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

For evaluation question 2 i will be picking out all of the elements i used as well as the elements i did not use, which i feel made my music video and ancillary products effective as a combination. 


The main thing i will be talking about will be the branding throughout all of my products which was conveyed and how it all works well together.  The theme being 'Big City Prison' i will talk about how i have conveyed my artists to be trapped in their life and this is done through the filming and photos for my ancillary products. 
All of the filming for our draft video included 2 main locations which were Leicester city centre with different locations within this location and a friends house which we were using for the flashback shots.  The flashbacks, however, were taken out afterwards as they did not fit well in the video and so we kept the whole of the video in leicester city centre replacing the flashback shots.
After filming the video, i was able to pick out different elements which would look good on the digipack and poster, including the shots i used for the CD cover which was the same as the poster to show continuity between all three (the video, CD cover and poster). 
To show good branding which is the main part of this question, across all of the products, we have been able to do this effectively by having the clothing of the artists kept the same for the video which we filmed on two separate days (three if you inlude the flashback shots which we did not keep).
The elements we used in the video which best represent our artists is the use of rotational shots which we got the idea of from Devlin's music video - Runaway.  We managed to simulate this by simply following the artist as he moved on the spot which is a cheap way of doing it because in the Devlin video they put the camera on a track, making it more steady but we were unable to afford a track and having the camera moving anyway made it look good in the end which i was happy with.  We have both of the artists in the video in multiple rotating shots for good continuity througout the video.  This could be combined with the front cover of the CD as we have both of the artists leaning against the clock tower and the shot used could be looked at in a way as if the camera has been moving around the clock tower and taken a still image of the artists which i think makes a good connection between the video and digipack. 
Another element which i best feel represents the artists is the clothing which is kept the same throughout the whole of the video and fits in with the theme of the music as it shows them as being Hip-Hop artists with the trackies, trainers, T shirts and jackets.  I wanted this to be the same for the digipack so we kept the clothing the same except for one of the artists jackets, this was not intentional however in the end i thought it looked good because even though it didnt show perfect continuity, it still showed off the artists dress sense and still fit the way we wanted him to look.
The element which i feel represents the artists as a whole is their facial expressions which we have kept as serious and mellow to show to the audience that they are not entirely happy with their lives and it fits in with the theme of 'Big city prison' and the feeling of being trapped which isnt going to cause happiness.  Throughout the whole of the video the artists facial expressions do not show any signs of happiness, they show the artists to be serious and somewhat unhappy with whats going on around them, this is continued onto the digipack and poster where we have in all of the camera shots, the artists with straightforward faces which stare directly at the audience and enables the audeince to empathise the artists and get a sense of how they are feeling and could maybe relate to them if they are trapped themselves.  the two shots used for the inside of the digipack i feel best show our artists for who they are, as they are both close ups against a brick wall which shows them to be in a sub urban area in the city and the faces of the artists are again similar to the front cover facial expressions where we have Rakesh on the left with the exact same facial expression as he had on the front cover and Andy on the right, with his head held high and serious face to show him getting through all of his trials and tribulations in life and both of them trying to get on with life and keep it together.

There are some things we decided not to include in both the video and in the digipack.
One thing we decided not to include in the video which we edited out was the whole flashback idea i mentioned aerlier, this was because after we had used it, it did not at all look very good and so taking it out and replacing it with more shots of the artists themselves, made the video a whole lot better, and therefore this wouldnt have been carried over into the digipack as it would only be the artists and location in the digipack anyway.  This having a main location taken out then only left us with the city centre as our main location for the video and Digipack.  I used 3 different locations in the digipack which were all taken from different parts of the video which shows good continuity.  The fountain being the back cover of the CD which is shown in the video with Rakesh and Alex being filmed around it, makes it recognisable when looking at the CD as well as the clock tower where we have the artists singing around it is the Front cover of the CD and the Poster.