Meghan Kelly A2 Media Blog

Vlog:

https://youtu.be/BGrhhkcEWfw

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

Both our main products and ancillary texts have clear links, starting with the glitch theme. In both the main video and the digipak, the glitch theme is clear throughout both. Starting with the main product, the glitches continue to get worse throughout the video. It starts with small glitches such a mirroring and pixel distortion, but they soon get worse in time with the beat later in the video. Similarly with the ancillary, the images are distorted using Photoshop, either by the hues or pixel manipulation, seen more in the inside pocket. Arguably this isn't seen as a popular choice throughout conventions, but we feel we conformed and went against stereotypes when choosing an artistic theme.

Featured on our digipak is our main characters, all facing away on the front cover, and then looking towards the camera. We felt this was appropriate for the cover as it links to our main video, and gives a recognisable connection between the two products. This goes against conventions as most artists (including Mikky Ekko himself) use themselves on the front covers, selling themselves as a promotional element for there products. Clearly we don't have the singer on the front cover (also because our video is purely narrative, no 'band shots') so we felt it was appropriate to have our actors instead, to make the connection clear between the two products.

Adding to this, 'Smile' itself fits with both products, and helps them both in combination. The genre is Alternative, and the lyrics of 'smile the worst is yet to come' fits perfectly with our dystopian theme, once the group are reunited the worst is hinted to come, as the guards chase towards them during the cliff hanger. With this we feel we went against conforms as most videos don't fit with the set lyrics, and also the intended meaning behind them. Again with the digipak, the apocalyptic theme is clear throughout, with both the settings used in the original video and the characters.

Linking to the settings, it's clear there is an intended link between the two. The settings used in the original video are also part of the digipak. We wanted to do this because it gave a clear link between the two, and also gave a good background for the track list on the digipak.

Regarding our poster, it uses the main image from our digipak, along with the titles and reviews from online music review sites. We felt this was appropriate to link between the digipak and the actual video, still remaining with the theme of glitches and the trio as the centre point. We conformed to conventions as we used the same image as the album art, which most artists use for continuity, but also once again went against by using our actors instead of a lead singer/band.

Finally looking at our digipak, we decided to go down a more atheistic look than promotional. We valued our images and theme more than text about promotion (e.g. 'featuring the hit single') and only included the copyright details and barcode on the back with the track list. This goes against conventions as most digipaks include these promotional messages, in aid to sell more if a single is featured on the album.

In conclusion we feel that both our products work in combination to each other, and compliment each other on the theme of our narrative along with the song choice and digipak art. If anything we could of improved on the inside cover of our ancillary, adding a blurb about the narrative of the video to make it clearer, but overall they compliment each other well and have clear links between them both.

Whilst the use of a linear narrative was previously much more of a convention than other structures of narrative, we now more commonly see non-linear narratives in media, with inspiration from films such as Rashamon (which we ourselves were influenced by) and a need for more originality in a time where unused storylines are few and far between. We used the non-linear structure to give more depth to our characters and plot as, by allowing us to skip to different periods of time in their story, we were able to cover all aspects we wanted to cover within the timeframe of the song. We were also able to fit the different elements of the narrative to the different sections of the song.

Dystopias are defined as futuristic, imagined universes in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. We decided to develop on the conventions of the dystopian genre by taking the commonly broken down and advanced nature of dystopian societies and conveying it literally in the glitches we used. The glitches get increasingly noticeable as the story deteriorates, acting demonstratively of their degenerating situation. They provide a building of tension and make the pauses in such much more poignant and impactful. This develops on the dystopian convention of the general population being powerless against whatever the oppressing force may be, as it highlights a time in our characters' lives that shows them as being quite innocent and naïve, therefore implying their vulnerability.

A convention of media we challenged in our music video was that of gender stereotypes, and we did so through our casting and characterisation. It is all too common in media for there to be a gender divide whereby men play the stronger and higher status characters, whereas women play the less influential or independent characters. We decided very early on we wanted to challenge this. We decided there should be three characters: a leader, an intelligent character, and a strong willed character. We wanted the intelligent character to be a male role, as we wanted to construct a character valued for something other than hierarchy, which greatly influenced our casting of Charlie as we wanted to demonstrate that having physical strength does not correlate with lacking a multi-faceted personality, an unrealistic character type that we unfortunately see regularly in the media. We then wanted the leader and strong willed characters to be female roles as we wanted to show women in a position of power, and have the roles so well adopted it would be unquestioned and unthought of.