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

Overall I really think I have created a style which continues over all my products - I took direct inspiration from my music video to decide how i wanted my ancillary texts to look. There is clear connections between the products that you can see.

*FONTS*

I wanted the main fonts on my ancillary texts to be cohesive with my product so chose a font style from 'dafont.com' and used it throughout on both my ancillary texts. 

The same font is used for the mast head magazine advert and therefore reinforces ideology of my artist. I also used the font on my digipak, this allowed me to use a 'house style' of fonts and I feel it compliments nicely to the overall look of my texts and how they work together. I think that these fonts i chose reflected the indie/alternative genre because they are not overly busy and in a black colour. This is seen throughout my products to keep them all looking similar, whilst also showing subtle changes. As they don't all want to be exactly the same otherwise it would be boring. 

The same style throughout all products creates the start of a brand for my artist. This is a very common feature of artsits these days, they are no longer just singers or performers - but branch out creating an iconic style that can be transferred onto different merchandise (T-shirts,posters and so on)

*COLOUR SCHEME*

The colours I have used projected onto my actors in the music video also feature in on my magazine advert to create the continuity between the products and create an over all style. The colours are really bold and bright,but I have used a plain white background in consideration of the bright colours, I didn't want to over do it. My CD case is conventional because its following the same colour scheme, although I have chosen to do the blue as the main colour, instead of a white background to make it more eye catching to people who would be buying the CD. It was also important to me to include album art on it, because thats a convention of the indie/alternative. With bands like Cage the Elephant who don't have pictures of them selves on the albums, but drawings or pictures that suit there theme. The album art of a CD can be really iconic as well sometimes and makes the albums more memorable and different to each other - compared to other genres like pop were the album covers are usually quite similar and feature the pop artist with make up on and their hair done, to look nice for the fans.

The colours are really important in my video, because I want the colours been projected onto my artists to represent different emotions that are in your head, especially because they are a couple in the video the feelings are amplified with each other. They asking each other to come home and you see them singing this whilst the colours are all going on the screen, its what they are thinking and trying to ask each other. Its like what is going on in there head, the bright pinks and reds to represent the love that they feel for each other, the pale blues are too show the sadness that they are apart from each other, because over all the song is wanting somebody to travel to be able to see them and if they are willing to. 'If you wanna try, you could come out and see me'  

HOW does my media product relate to media theory I have learnt throughout my advanced portfolio? (the different areas)

*Representation* 

I believe my product does not accept Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze' theory.  My video is of the indie gnere, and this isn't one that is conventionally one that is very sexualised. Existing products show that abstract and performance are popular and woman are not the main focus of the video. My video is not meant to appeal to people because of the sexualisation of one of the main artists (Kate) but they are both equal and just expressing their feelings throughout the video, I think an achievment of the video along side my ancillary texts is that both the male and the female are seen as equal throughout (no high angles on the women - no low angle shots on the men) but just medium close ups throughout the perfomances, with equal parts throughout the video .Although i do agree that Laura mulvey's male gaze theory may be relative to certain genres, i don't think it applies overly to the indie and alternative genre. If I was to sexualise and objectify women in my video, I dont think it would fit with the romantic and 'real love' theme I was going for. For example my video doesn't include and women's bodies, bottoms and so on so it doesnt follow her ideas. I tried to represent modern attitudes towards genders by creating an equalibrilum between the two main artisits. They are both trying to express themselves and by the end they do come together, by both expressing how they feel. I think this is also represented in my album case, because there is no artist photo on this ancillary text - I am not using a female to encourage a male gaze as a way of getting popularity. I am following a convention of the indie/alternative genre by using album art. 

Richard Dyer states about the 'Star theory' - "stars represent and embody certain ideologies" 
I think my artists do represent the indie/alternative genre. They do follow their own way, by having a non conventional 'house theme' colour style, using 4 main colours instead of 3. But the products all combine to show off what the record label requires of them- in the end to record label Rough Trade, will want the artists to be successful and make money for them, do this they need to create an overall look that is going to appeal to the audience. By following conventions I have represented the indie genre in a way that I think is quite realistic to other artists in the genre - such as Grimes.

*NARRATIVE*

Tim O'Sullivan argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story. My video incorporates abstract with a performance element, but i think it does show an over all story of love between the couple - at the start it is trying to show that they want to see each other and are asking the other person to come and see them - developing to the end were they eventually do get to see each other and go off into the distance at the end. It is showing a successful love story. O'Sullivan also stated that narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions or conventions. With the conventions that I have followed including the close up miming to show emotion, over the shoulder shots, when the couple are singing to each other and different colouring effects it allows for the viewer of my video to makes sense of what they are watching and what my music video is about - viewers might make sense of the video and relate to the way it doesn't follow a perfect narrative, because real life never does!