Evaluation: Question 2

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary tasks?

In order to enable the audience to easily identify my music video and print productions (digipak and poster advertisement) as related, I aimed to establish a relationship and sense of community between the two; the reoccurring theme of British patriotism shown throughout the video production aimed to be reflected in the ancillary task.

After gathering a range of images considered to be 'typically British,' I also decided to use my knowledge of British films from previous media tasks and exam theory work, to gather inspiration for panels 1 to 4 of my digipak. I also predetermined that I would use the strongest image from the digipak for the poster advertisement also (or one strongly similar), after conducting research on the Arctic Monkey's famous album Whatever People Say I am which uses this technique to create a strong link between advertisement and product; the audience is able to easily distinguish the album after taking note of the poster.

Arctic Monkeys' album cover

Arctic Monkeys' poster advertisement

Considering the persistent idea of 'reckless youth' presented in my video, I decided to look into films such as This Is England, Fish Tank and Made In Britain which also present the idea of a 'broken youth' for inspiration; British films such as these appear to focus around the idea of surroundings and the effect they have, most commonly featuring urban, city settings. 

Urban setting in This Is England

Urban setting in Fish Tank

I took this idea and decided to use a classic, red brick wall as a foundation for the digipak panels and used it on panels 1 and 4, adding layers during the editing process to develop these. Panels 2 and 3 were made by splitting an image I took whilst filming in the back streets of Norwich; this image, with the dark colours, generic brick wall and scattered graffiti works extremely well with the theme of Britishness, appearing similar to the surroundings that can be seen on the existing productions mentioned. This image was also used for the poster, therefore allowing the audience to effortlessly associate the digipak with the poster.

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As highlighted previously, it was important to me that the print productions fully relate and appear similar to the video, hence why my idea of following a theme of urban Britishness was successful; throughout the video the actors are seen on normal, ordinary looking street locations. In fact, the first street location to be seen on the video is in the exact location of the image used for panels 2 and 3 and for the advertisement also. 

The use of the street locations, most predominantly the iconic small city lanes, are seen to be distinctly British therefore supporting the reoccurring theme of 'broken Britain' throughout both video and print productions.

'Broken Britain' in This Is England

Another link between the video and ancillary task was the drastic contrast in gender; the video is seen to be entirely male-dominated throughout, whereas the front cover (digipak panel 1, both option 1 and 2) features an unknown female face. This was done in order to create ambiguity and interest in the audience; the audience is left wondering who the character is and what her significance is. By challenging the gender stereotype that is so heavily supported and elevated throughout the video, the allegorical message behind the track and perhaps the entire album is left open to interpretation. Being one of my most favourable albums, this idea, again, came from the Arctic Monkeys album Whatever People Say I Am which features a simplistic 'mug shot' of a random male as the front cover. I decided to use this idea to evoke interest from the audience by using a face unknown to fans, although decided to alter the gender of the model in order to raise suspicions of an underlying misrepresentation or oppression of gender in every day life and, more specifically, the indie-rock genre as a whole.

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