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

Jordan Ronan

As part of a group I created a full length music video for a song called Never (which I wrote myself). The song encompasses a range of genres, starting as a pop-type ballad with the use of synthesisers and gradually moving into a heavy rock song with the use of distorted guitars and fast drum beats. The video itself follows a narrative which is laid out by the lyrics of the song; the overall theme is fantasy Vs. reality which is why we decided to make both the video and the song in a postmodern style with the emphasis being on blurring reality in the video and blurring genres in the song.

Main Product

To create the digipak for the album on which “Never” would feature we had to research digipaks by bands of a similar genre to use as style models and to see how they were generally laid out. Having been influenced by two bands in particular when writing the song I decided it would be a good idea to use their albums as style models, these bands were Billy Talent and Rise Against. This gave us a clear idea of how our digipak should look and we decided that we should make a 4-panel digipak (front, back and two inside panels).

We found out from our research that in most cases the cover featured one main piece of artwork, the band name and the name of the album. In the case of the Billy Talent album we looked at, a picture of the band was incorporated into the artwork by using a silhouette effect, we felt this feature would work well with our theme of blurring reality as it leaves an element of mystery as to the identity of the band.

We entitled the album flashbacks as it links in with the video which contains several scenes of memories although it is not made clear whether these memories are real or just imagined. To further link the cover to the video the artwork was designed to look like the fade to white transition we used throughout the video to signal a memory, we did this by starting with a black background and creating a white swirl which stems from the middle of the cover gradually becoming darker as it gets to the edge of the cover.

Digipak

When creating the advert I needed to find not only appropriate style models on which to base it but also a magazine which promotes music of a similar style. Since all of the influences I had used throughout the creation of the video and digipak (Slipknot, 30stm, Billy Talent and Rise Against) had featured in Kerrang magazine I decided this would be the best magazine for my advert. I therefore used examples of adverts in Kerrang as inspiration and guidance for my own advert. To link it to the video and the digipak I used a similar style to the digipak as well as the same colour scheme and I also used the same font featured in both the video and the digipak. The song ‘Never’ is promoted on the advert as it is on the front of the digipak and it is the same song featured in the video.

Advert

Having created and/or helped to create all three products I think that the music video is the strongest product because it tells the story of the song through the use of lyrics and music as well as advertising the album whereas the poster and digipak only promote the album and the song; they don’t have a message to get across other than promotion.

Strongest Product

The function of the music video was to tell the story of the fine line between fantasy and reality by using ‘memories’ and ‘flashbacks’ which may or may not be real. It was designed to have a thought-provoking effect on the viewer with them being able to decide for themselves what they thought had happened and what they thought the message behind it was. A secondary function of the video was to promote the album with the song in the video being the main single from the album. A short preview of the album cover is shown at the end of the video to make a clear link.

Functions – Main Product

The digipak I created was designed to be focused more on the band than the song featured in the video itself however it still acts as a promotion of the song. The digipak also shows the other songs featured on the album as well as what the band members look like – something which does not appear in the video. The digipak also contains a website for the band on the back cover.

Functions- Digipak

The advert was created to promote both the video and the album and acted as a link between the two products. It features the release date of the album and also informs the audience that the single is out now. A secondary function of the advert is to promote the band by including a website and details of an up and coming UK tour.

Functions- Advert

Although I challenged many conventions of normal rock/metal songs in the song I wrote I did make sure that overall it was still recognisable as a rock or metal song. I also helped to make sure the video was similar to those of the same genre.

I achieved this in the music by including heavily distorted guitars, rock style vocals and fast paced drumbeats. Often in the rock genre the lyrics help to tell the story in the video rather than relying on dialogue and this was a feature I made sure was included in the main task.

Genre