When completing research into other artists of a similar genre to that of my chosen song, I found that there was a pattern that artists released a package including their album, digipak and advert. Examples of this are other alternative rock bands such as ‘The Killers’, ‘The Red Hot Chilli Peppers’, ‘Foo Fighters’ and ‘Coldplay’.
For the digipak and magazine adverts, the main trend for similar artists consisted of images mainly of the lead singer but sometimes also with the rest of the band in the picture as well. This was to give the ‘star image’ appeal that the theorist Richard Dyer believed in. His theory suggested that making one person the main focal point on a digipak or magazine advert increased their reputation as they grow to become the face of a band. It can also be seen in my main product, the music video itself, that there is a particular focus on the lead singer.
Dyer’s theory was foremost in my thinking when creating my own magazine advert as part of the package. I made the lead singer the biggest aspect of the advert as I wanted him to be the focal point of it and what fans associate with the band. Therefore the camerawork was vital. I decided to use a mid-shot of the main singer appearing in a natural surrounding environment. However, I made sure that the majority of the screen was taken up by the singer and specifically his face. Rural settings run through all of the products - both ancillary tasks and my music video. My filming in a local nature reserve is a central setting. The top two panels in my digipak are a wide shot of a landscape scene at the same nature reserve. Rural settings are often used by Indie bands. Examples include The Killers in the album ’Here with me’ and ‘The Strokes’ with the music video for their song ‘One Way Trigger’.
When it came to the editing stages for my advert, I made some critical changes in order to emphasise the star image impact of the lead singer. First of all, I decided to crop the image to make the lead singer appear bigger and give more of a close up of his face.This links closely with my final video where I used close-ups on the main singer at key moments. I then decided to add a cross dissolve effect to the image so that the lead singer’s face was not affected but the surroundings appeared blurry. The tool I used for blurring the background on the advert was ‘fast blur’. I felt this effect worked well as by blurring the surround it made the lead singer stand out in the image.
Next, I toned down the colours on specific aspects of the image to give a black and white affect to the surround. I then decided to add a red secondary colour tone to the whole image to match the band’s style. I chose the colour ‘red’ for its symbolic connotations of love and the fact that love is often represented through this colour. For example, love hearts and the red roses seen in my final production.
Another successful method used was the striking font and text on the magazine advert. When deciding on a font I wanted something bold and clear for the viewer. I decided the font colour should be black so that it stands out on the advert to give a clear message of the band’s name alongside the artist. I decided to place the title of the advert at the top of the page as I feel it will be therefore be one of the first aspects the viewer sees when viewing the advert. Another reason for its placement here was as a result of my research. I noticed a similarity in magazine adverts for similar artists and that was they were placed at the top of the page and did not cover up any of the artist’s face.
I also decided to add a rating image, 4*, from a music magazines, the NME, and a national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph to give it status. This then matched the convention of a music advert and give it a more professional look. I avoided covering the face of the singer to make sure I wasn’t going to hinder the ‘star image’ appeal I was trying to create. The final point I would like to make regarding my magazine advert was the addition I made of the social media images and a URL for the band’s website. This was effective as I noticed during the research stage that a lot of bands promote their website and social media accounts and therefore to make mine more professional and naturalistic I decided to include one as well. I felt it did work well but I could have maybe smoothened up the edges of the icons to give a sharper final finish.
As well as this, I tried to match the style of my products and so therefore when creating my digipak, I again decided to tone down the images I used. I took the pictures at a nature reserve as I knew that I would be able to get high quality photos with a high level of cinematography. The reason I chose to use natural imagery was to link the image with the lyrics of the main song ‘With Or Without You’. When analysing the lyrics during the research phase I noticed that there were multiple references to the weather and natural imagery. In addition to this the most obvious factor I noticed from the lyrics was the impact of loneliness. Therefore in the photos I took, I tried to emphasise these factors. However for contrast purposes I still wanted to apply Richard Dyer’s theory of a ‘Star image’ and so In some of the photos I have applied this with an image of the lead singer to promote the artists to their fans. Similar to the magazine advert, the same font was used throughout both the ancillary tasks. This was again another method of linking the visuals seen on the screen.
The final point I would make was that during the research phase I analysed multiple digipaks from artists in the same genre as U2. The common theme was to have the logo for their record company, a barcode for when it was purchased and various copyright details. I included all these aspects in my digipak to give a professional look to the product and give it an image that you could see on the shop shelves. The icon for Island Records is used on both ancillary tasks.
Overall I feel that my ancillary tasks did link well with my final media product as when I was designing them I wanted to develop a certain style across them all and through various forms. For example the colour tone of the images and the colour of the text seen on the ancillary products, In the final analysis I believe I have achieved this.
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