Final Evaluation - Part One

 

 

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

The first thing we considered when beginning our ancillary product production was the examples of existing products. In this case, we looked at album covers and their cases, and the promotional posters and magazine adverts that went with them to first define the typical conventions of the formats. We quickly noticed that they all had to be intrinsically linked in order for the identity of the artist and the music to be displayed to prospective listeners. In particular, took a great deal of inspiration from Indie artist Gabrielle Aplin first full length album, "English Rain", as we believed it provided as with an excellent genre based example to gives us some idea of what we could do.

When first drafting our initial ideas, everyone in the group became highly concerned with the representation of our artist and, in particular, our music video. The music video, for us as well as the industry as a general rule, is a crucial part of the representation of our artist. It accompanies the lead single from the album, the one song that is meant to give a taster for the rest of the album and present the best of what is to come. Therefore, we knew we had to tie this into the major themes of our video and specifically, it's narrative of finding inner beauty.

Main Cover
The first thing we decided to include in our front cover was the most iconic image of our entire video. The red heart held in the hands of our Amanda was the closing shoot of the video and, according to our audience research, the one shot that left the biggest impression on those watching the video. It remained one of the key images that symbolised both the video and it's ideals (inner beauty, nature)

and came to represent that to us. It was for this reason that we decided to use this as our main cover, along with it's connection to the title and theme of Amanda Rogers album. Heartwood, meaning the very core of a tree, was a metaphor in our music video for looking inside yourself and finding your own true beauty. In finding this heart, our star finds her own confidence and beauty, the "Heartwood" of herself. Another key decision we made in terms of having our ancillary products reflect our music video was the choice of clothing and setting. For the front cover, this meant that we had Amanda dressed in the same white dress featured in the music video in the heartwood tree location, so that a connection could once again be made by the audience between music video and album artwork. The white dress also provided a natural, non-distracting background for the image's focus of the red heart being held in our stars hands, something we knew was important through looking at the typical conventions of other album covers, which are often bold yet quite simple to make sure that the viewer is drawn to the central image or album title. To keep with this simpler theme, we also changed the original font we had designed, based on the red thread we used throughout the video, as it looked far to chaotic when placed with the rest of the front cover. Instead we kept to one font, which looks natural, as though carved into wood, yet still easy to read and quite bold, to keep the cover natural looking but also eye catching.

The final key feature of our cover that was a conscious decision on our part was the lack of visual representation of the artist. We chose to instead focus simply on the hands and heart with the title instead of picturing the artist Amanda, reinforcing the themes from the music video in which nature and the narrative behind our performance based video take the most important role, leaving Amanda to be the one enforcing those ideas, rather than having the location and story back her up. We thought this was a key feature of Amanda Rogers as an artist, who tends to focus solely on the music and the message it leaves and therefore felt we had to reflect this in the way we presented her in the album.


Inside Pages
Along with just creating the front and back cover, we also designed both inside covers too, one the be found underneath the CD insert and one to be on the back of what would be, especially in Amanda's case, the lyrics book. Initially we had planned to create a cd design to match the back inside cover, fitting into the rest of the design, but ultimately changed this idea. We had planned to use a close up shot of a flower, with soft subtle colours to try and match with the overall colour palette of the album and music video. This would have worked well due to its circular shape and natural connotations, however, we couldn't find a flower that would have matched well enough with the album to use. Therefore, in a slight spontaneous move, we used a shot of the headband worn by the artist in our music video as the image underneath the CD. This worked well due to the similar idea of it's circular shape being pleasing with the shape of the CD and also as it allowed for another subtle link to be made towards the music video for the audience to pick up on. The colours were also quite bright and attractive, yet fit with everything we had done so far.

 



The side of the cover was where we decided to solely feature our for the first time, as we knew we had to have a good representation of her on the album in a way that she could be recognised. To keep this as similar to the music video as possible, we once again used the same dress and headband, and tried to shoot in a place that reflected our main heartwood tree location in the video. One key difference to this location was the addition of the path in the distance. We felt this reflected the way in which our Amanda goes on a journey throughout our music video, following the red string towards true beauty. It's almost as if in standing at the beginning of this path, she's on the precipice of that journey, the perspective of the shot making the path long and winding like the string. Amanda is stood looking back as if waiting for you to join her as she embarks on this journey, in the same way that you are about the join her on a journey through the music in her album. You are at the beginning and hopefully the themes in the songs and particularly This Beauty and it's music video will lead you to a new place. The shot is also highly empowering towards our star, with it's gentle low angle, something that is common and crucial in representing artists.


Back Cover
The shot for the back cover was once again quite unplanned and based of the location we were in, something that also happened when we were filming for the music video. Nature and it's beauty constantly influenced us in our creative decisions and I think this is very evident in the ancillary tasks and the video for the lead single. The image of the bird box left a lot of space for the track list to be displayed appropriately whilst also giving of a homely feel to the whole album, inviting and natural. We also felt that it reflected not just the themes in the music video well, but also the sounds of the rest of the tracks on the album. The album opens with a track entitled I'm Awake, opening with the gentle calling of birds in the morning. In this sense, having this image really reinforced the sound of Amanda's music and her connection with nature, something very important towards prospective buyers of the album. The colours also reflect key shots in our music video, such as the panning shot on the line "And those greens and those blues" in which the sweeping blue sky is the main feature, as in this image.

Magazine Advert/Poster
As this was one of the only big marketing tools we could use for our video aside from new media technologies such as the internet, we knew it was important to really get across who Amanda Rogers was and what her music was about. Therefore, we decided to use the same artist shoot from the inside cover to be our main focus of the poster, for many of the reasons I mentioned above. It was empowering and connoted that sense of the journey you will go on through listening to her music. Along with this, we decided to use to self designed red thread font from our first designs of the album cover to bring the theme of This Beauty and the music video we created for it into the poster design and the albums promotion. It reiterates that idea of journey and also leads towards the heart in the music video, symbolising that the red thread on the poster could lead you to the red heart on the albums front cover. Hopefully, in making these small connections, both designs seamlessly come together.
We also included a small image of the album cover in order to allow that link to be more easily established. The overall colours we used for the poster took directly from the main colour themes of the album and the music video, with the dark browns of the forest locations our main background, pale creams reflecting the innocence of the two main costumes our star wears and of course, the bright red of the thread and the heart standing out over the top of it all.

Overall, I believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks is quite successful, making obvious and detailed links whilst also allowing subtle themes to shine through and create connections between video and more traditional product. Each backs up the other, reinforcing themes and ideas and all staying within the same colour palettes and style ideas. Whilst there are things I definitely believed could have been made clearer, particularly in the music video when looking at the feedback from our audience, we linked all three products well and hopefully presented our artist in a way that makes her music something that people would love to get involved with.