Task 2
- 1. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- 2. It is said, that a star has an intense role in the selling of TV, film and the music. The definition of ‘star’ refers to the set of meanings constructed around media and its performers to be consumed to a large and audience of different ages. As a star has an intense role in the selling of TV, film and the music it is important they are recognizable. It is through Dyer’s theory of star image, that we understand that stars are simply a commodity that are produced and consumed. They are constructed out of a range of materials on the strength of their meanings. They depend on a range of media such as magazines, TV, radio and the internet to market themselves and/or their band to their target audience.
- 3. An example of how a star image is used to promote an artist through the real world of media with artists such as Tinie Tempah. Each of his album’s have a unique design, but includes re-occurring themes such as the use of Black and Purple colors which recognizes him as an artist. This helps to give him a universal appeal, even to the younger teenage audience. The reason why I feel this is a successful album cover is due to the both the colourful design, the urban style and also the promotion of him – all of these elements are appealing to both male and female audience of all ages. (album cover on next page)
- 4. The same qualities of Tinie’s album cover are evident in his video of….This combination emphasizes the key elements and qualities of the artist that are trying to be promoted such as the style, his originality and his sexual magnetism, also the use of deep colors. The same elements that are promoted with our star image.
- 5. I believe that our product promotes a star, in the way that highlights common values such as youthfulness, sexual magnetism, creativity and originality. These factors can be seen through both the performance narrative and the key narrative itself with the creation of the video.
- 6. In order to create a sure star image we had to think of the target audience that we would be marketing the band to; both demographically and psycho- graphically We chose our target audience to be aged between 17-24, and predominantly male, but try to touch on the female audience. The reason for this is due to, not only the genre and the theme of the song but to relate to the references of social networking and electronic technology, which therefore made us utilize the teenage, male audience would, as it would be appropriate as they are the main consumers of the new technology. We didn’t want the audience to be solely male, so by adding an attractive lead singer, this would appeal to a female audience through the originality and creativity of his star image and also the inclusion of female dancers, the video would be appealing to a male audience as well. The singer that has been successful to both male and females is Kanye West and his video ‘Love Lockdown’ was part of our inspiration to use female dancers, covered in the key UV body paint.
- 7. This is our final digipak idea for the CD album cover. We have incorporated the reoccuring elements used throughout of music video of the lasers and the idea of the heartbeat pulse across the album to show technology . In terms of promoting the band we have added a band performance shot. We felt this photo would help to promote the overall feel of the band as being unique and cool. We have also used a ‘dulled’ photo of a UV dancer on the back page to keep the idea of the dancers involved.
- 8. Our digipak poster presents the key themes of the electro rock genre that we have been reoccurring in our album cover and the pop video itself. Elements such as the lasers and the picture of the UV Dancers. We have included some reviews from magazines that would attract our target audience, as it shows how good it was and would review the genre of music that our band is.
- 9. In order to appeal to both a male and female audience, we had to add elements that would be attractive to both males and females. We believe that the lead singer’s image is something that men would be inspired by, and women would be attracted to. But we needed an element to balance this out, so through the element of dance, with female dancers we felt that men would be attracted to, and women would look up to.
- 10. Another element shown in our video is youthfulness. This is mainly shown through the lead singer in the main narrative. This plays thought the video. This slide shown, comes at the end of the video, after the narrative of the creation of the video has taken place . We, for the first sign, see the lead singer smiling. I feel this adds a light touch to a video that has had a strong and controlled feeling and shows that we and the singer feel that they did it right and it works for them.
- 11. The value of sexual magnetism is key to any selling of any music video, for both male and female audiences. Of course the sexual magnetism of the lead singer is directly addressing the female audience, but if it was a female singer then the sexual magnetism would be aimed at males. The male audience have the element of dance shots in particular that present our lead singer in a way that is sexual, through the intense looks and close-up shots.
- 12. The element of originality is key in any video, the more original it is made then the better it will appeal to the audience. I feel this is shown through the developing mix of resources together in our video, you can see in this screen shot, we have the DJ booth, the command boxes and the ‘Sims’ icons all working together creating a unique visual for the video.
- 13. Throughout our video there is a strong element of creativity projected through the main narrative and the fill elements thought the use of the UV dancers and lasers. There are many shots within the video that show this. As you can see in this one, the lead singer is controlling and shaping a hologram image of the laser room. The creativity is shown through the developing artistic control of the lead singer.