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

For my music video, CD digi-pak and poster, I used images and shots which were all relatable, using the same mise en scene and incorporating instruments and masks to show that they are all for the same song and same band. The masks, instruments and wide shots and photos of the band are all used for each product to show the quirky nature of the song and band to represent the indie genre, whilst also adding to the light hearted feel and making them seem humorous as the main character is going about his daily life with these masked people following him around to give it an abstract feel. The close ups of the instruments represent the importance of the music which is a theme carried throughout the indie genre; they are usually low budget bands who aim to make music rather than to create an image. In addition, the wide shots of the band show the saliency of the band as a whole, making the music look like a group effort and not giving credit to just the lead singer, another key aspect of other indie bands. The lighting in the music video correlates with the photos used for the digi-pak and poster; motivated light is used throughout to show the low budget aspect of this song. This is something I had to let influence me when I was editing my photos on Photoshop as I wanted them to look realisitc and similar to our video so I tried not to change the original photos too much, simply increasing the brightness on some of them. I also added the same font of text to the poster as I did to the digi-pak to create fluency; the text I used was simple gothic font which I feel related to the song title with the masks, but the simplicity of it also enhanced to the simplicity of the music video.
On my poster I decided to use a simple photo of the two masked characters mocking the lead singer to make it seem funny and light hearted; I shot it in the garage in which the performance shots were filmed in, whilst using the same costumes and masks that were in the music video to add continuity. I created a text box to put some tour dates in and another one to announce the release of the single 'My Little Haunting'. In doing this I was able to promote the band and the single but because it was in a small font it wasn't too ostentatious. Using a photo of the band showed the importance of the band and in making it the main centre piece focuses the viewers attention on the group which is the aim and adds to the indie genre.
I again used an image of the band for the front cover of my digi-pak to relate the pieces of work; taking a photo of them in the band in their costumes to represent the single and make it apparent it is an indie song by using quirky props such as the masks. The back and two inside covers are photos are close up photos of the instruments that we used in the music video with the corresponding mask/outfit which the band member wore.
By having similar themes in all of my products, I feel that they are congruent and it is apparent that they are all for the same song and band, whilst representing the 'indie' genre well. 

Comparisons with real media products

 

Another band which used a wide shot of the band is indie band Bloc Party

 Indie-Rock band Canterbury used masks in their music video 'more than you  know'

Two Door Cinema Club used lots of close ups of their music instruments in their music videos

The Arctic monkeys did a similar poster which advertised their tour whilst incorporating bright colours to represent their indie-rock genre

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge of real media products?

Prior to creating our music videos, we did a lot of research into music genres and conventions, enabling us to associate certain themes, colours and styles with a particular genre. We were then given a list of songs in which we had to choose one, create an idea for  music video and then pitch it to our teacher and class; we chose My Little Haunting by UK band 'Hot Club De Paris' with our simplistic idea of having a group of masked people chasing and 'haunting' our lead singer -which would be played by Matt- with performance shots of the band intertwined and were awarded the right to create a music video for it as a part of our A2 coursework.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGmv4c6CNjg
This is the original music video which Hot Club De Paris created for their song; we felt that though it was quirky, it wasn't a very effective product as it only consisted of one scene of a ouija board. We wanted to create a music video with the same feel but decided to do it in a different way with more movement and pace to fit the song better.
It is evident that this song as regarded as 'indie' due to the nature of the guitars, the vocals and the light hearted nature; we decided to conform to these conventions and make the genre obvious from the music video.
We managed to do this through:
*Costume: Making the characters who were gong to appear in the music video wear stereotypically indie clothes, such as browns, knitwear, denim and quirky accessories such as bow ties. This enabled the target audience (indie people) to relate to the band as they were dressed similarly and acted in a similar manner.

* Mise En Scene: using quirky props such as masks to give the video a light hearted and humorous feel to the video as they were chasing the lead singer throughout; also relating the product to the song as it's called 'My Little Haunting'.

* Lighting: Using motivated lighting to give the video a low-budget 'indie' effect such as the day light we used and the fairy lights. The lighting also made it humorous as it was apparent that it wasn't suppose to be a scary video just because it used scary masked, so we juxtaposed the day light with the props to give it this effect.

 

* Location: Using natural and normal looking settings like a kitchen, garage, the woods and the park to again add to the fact that this is a low-budget music video; also again creating a humour as it's obvious that the concept is unrealistic and how the characters are just annoying to Matt, rather than scary, both of these ideas link to the 'indie' genre.

We decided to conform to the 'indie' genre in order for our music video to be an effective product as we wanted it to be comparable to a real media product : other indie music videos, whilst also attracting a typical target audience that Hot Club De Paris would have. In using all of this mise en scene, along a variation of bright colours with wide camera shots to show the importance of the band and close ups of the instruments to show the saliency of the music, I feel we were able to create an effective final product which represented the 'indie' genre well.