How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary tasks?

When creating our three products our main aims were; to link them together well and to present an audience with a band identity, which they could use to familiarise with the band and recognise the band’s products. By recognising the band’s products this means it would be easier for audiences to go out and buy them, and they would also be able to associate the products, which are the digipak, advert and music video, together. I think that we linked the three products together successfully, as visually they all show the same themes.

CREATING THE IMAGE

When creating the band’s image, we needed to create one that would appeal to our target audience of indie and alternative audiences between the ages of 13 to 25. Based on my research of indie music videos, digipaks and adverts I realised that certain needs needed to bet met in order to draw this audience in. Firstly, colour and theme was important, as usually in indie adverts and digipaks there is a set colour code or motif that appears in both the advert and the digipak. We decided to use the same photograph of the boy on the beach in our advert and digipak meaning audiences could immediately associate the products together. We also used the motif of swallows on both the digipak and advert alongside the same font of the band’s name.

Secondly, the band was always shown, in the videos, digipaks and adverts. We used band performance in our video in order to meet this need, as well as showing images of the band on the inside of the digipak. However, our band were not shown on the front cover of the digipak or on the advert as we wanted to challenge this convention to show that our band, who are new and unsigned, are more mysterious and care more about their music than their image. However, by showing the band in the video we would not make audiences unsatisfied by not allowing them to identify with the band. Kings of Leon also have not often shown themselves on the front covers of their digipaks or in the adverts, and only show the album artwork, however, this still means the adverts and albums can be associated together easily, which was our main aim in making our digipak and advert look similar.

Also, indie products tend to have a handmade feel, which emphasises their artistic, individual and anti-mainstream beliefs that belong to the indie genre. This attracts our target audience as the band is then identified as artistic and thoughtful people who are relatable to by young audiences. We created this idea in our products, for example inside our digipak we had a scrapbook feel with the images of the band being jagged at the edges.

CREATING RECOGNISABLE PRODUCTS

After creating the band’s image we needed to link our three products together, we did this through the motifs and same photograph and font used in the digipak and advert. The font especially, links the products together in its own way as it stands out and is therefore instantly recognisable. It is also in a style that can be associated with a fairground, and in our video we had some shots of fairground rides, and so this subtly but effectively links the video to the digipak and advert.

We took the band’s name, ‘Pilots’ and from this were inspired to use the motif of the birds in flight. In our video there are some shots of flying birds, and the swallows are used on the advert and digipak. This means an audience can very easily associate all three products together just through the simple use of the motif of birds, making it more likely for them to recognise and purchase the products too.

We also used location to link the products together, we filmed in Brighton along the beach, for example where he stands holding the necklace in his hand, and this is also where we took the photographs for the advert and digipak. This means that the beach location shown in the video is easily linked to the ancillary products, again making it easier for audiences to identify the products together and also with the band.

I think that the combination of the video and the ancillary tasks has been very successful and we found that audiences easily linked them together in the ways we planned them to, meaning we had successfully created a band identity and carried it through all three products through the use of locations, font, motifs, colours and themes.

How did you use new media technologies?

MUSIC VIDEO

DIGIPAK

Typically, indie digipaks show images of the band either on the front cover, inside or both. An example is the Kooks' digipak for their album 'Inside In Inside Out' which features the band on the front cover, inside and back cover.

However, we did not want to feature our band on the front cover of our digipak as we wanted to give them a sense of mystery and also show that they are more about the music than their image. However, in order to meet audience expectations we featured the band on the inside of our digipak in a similar way to in the Kooks' digipak, as the images had a rough cut effect as found in a scrapbook, which continues the indie image as anti-mainstream and D.I.Y. Other bands have also not featured on the front cover of their digipaks, an example is Kings of Leon, who even on their early album covers did not show an image of themselves, and this is a similar effect we wanted for our digipak.

Most bands digipaks also include a track list on the back cover to show the variety of songs on their album, this is something we incorporated into our own digipak. As well as this, there is usually an ongoing theme running throughout the digipak, for example in The Kooks' digipak there is a theme of the colour scheme red,black and white. In our digipak we used an ongoing theme of the swallows, which are shown all the way through the digipak. This ongoing theme meets audience expectations as it allows them to identify further with the band and their image and recognise these themes in the advert also.

Our digipak showing the ongoing theme of swallows throughout, the track list on the back cover, images of the band on the inside and an image not containing the band on the front cover, similar to Kings of Leon.

MAGAZINE ADVERT

Adverts for indie albums are typically very identifiable with the album itself. For example, they often have the same ongoing theme running through, in terms of use of colour or image. This meets audience expectations as it means the audience can identify the advert with the album and then easily go out and buy the album as they will already know what it looks like. As well as meeting audience expectations it also helps to market the product and sell the artist for this same reason. Marketing the product is also helped by giving the release date of the album, which we did on our digipak, and also showing where audiences can buy the album, which we did by putting 'amazon.com' on the advert, and putting the band's website up also.

We used the ongoing theme that featured in the digipak in the advert also, by putting the same image that is on the front cover of the digipak as the image in the advert, also featuring the swallows and the same recognisable font. This helps the audience to identify the band and what their album will look like, as well as making them want to know more about the band as they are not yet featured on the advert. Although typically indie bands feature on their adverts, we broke this convention as we wanted to give audiences something new and exciting, and not reveal everything about the band until they have downloaded the video and bought the music. We believe this is a good way of marketing the product and selling the artist, because although we needed to meet audience expectations of the indie genre, indie is also about being anti-mainstream and so we used an anti-mainstream idea in the selling of our artist by not featuring them on the advert or front of digipak.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is some audience feedback we gained when we asked some teenagers between the ages of 16 and 17 to watch our music video and then answer some questions about it. We asked teenagers of this age to watch our video as they are within the age of our target audience and will therefore have a good understanding of the concepts explored in the video, such as a relationship between a young man and woman, and they will also have expectations of an indie music video as they have probably seen many of these before.

From the feedback we can see that most of the audience were able to identify the genre of the video as indie with a few people suggesting rock/pop, and so we know that our video must have connoted our chosen genre well.

When asked in what ways did the video meet their expectations of the indie genre we found that some mentioned the location. specifically saying that the location of the band performance was 'grimey' and therefore we knew that they had understood the idea that indie bands usually have locations in their videos that seem quite low-budget rather than a high-budget location such as a studio. A few people also mentioned the 'story line' or narrative, saying that the relationship between the boy and the girl was recognisable to them as typical of the indie genre, this is what we aimed for as many indie videos show relationships between young people, and dilemmas in their relationships such as break ups. One girl also mentioned how the video cut between the narrative and the performance which is also typical of the indie genre. The feedback to this question shows how the audience understood and recognised the conventions of the indie genre within our video that we were aiming to show.

The audience seemed to enjoy the performance element in the video, one girl stating that the band didn't seem to 'care' which reminded her of indie bands, and some seemed to think the performance influenced the story-line. However, there were a couple of comments suggesting that the band were not energetic enough.

The story-line was very well understood by the audience, they all depicted the idea well and as we had planned it, showing that the way we had filmed the video meant the narrative was clearly expressed throughout, and so we were very pleased with this result. The flashbacks were also understood and the audience were able to recognise their meaning within the narrative as representative of the past that the boy was looking back on. Again we were please with this as it meant the flashbacks had been successfully constructed and placed within the video. However, one boy felt that instead of tinting the shots of the flashbacks pink we could have changed them to black and white in order to make the flashbacks clearer. Although this is valid feedback, it had been something we'd thought about, however we'd decided on the pink tint in order to suggest the idea of love and emphasize the loss of the boy's love as the present time lacked the pink tint.

Most of the audience felt that they wouldn't change anything about the video as it was good they way it is. However, one girl mentioned she would like to see the video showing the girl and her thoughts and feelings. This is a good idea, but we had chosen to deliberately restrict the girl's presence to the flashbacks in order to create more of a mystery about her and also leave the audience with an enigma at the end when the boy turns around on the bridge and looks into the camera. One girl mentioned that there was a lot going on in the video and she felt she hadn't heard the words of the song, however, we feel that there is enough going on for the video to not be boring and also we needed many cuts to keep the pace of the video going.