How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main product And Ancillary Texts?

Our video, magazine ad and CD cover are very alike. Not only do the compliment the same dark theme and undertone which we've tried to bring across to each of them but they also add a little something to themselves as individual products. The music video shows the performers and that stands as one of the main focal points of the video. As a result we tried to make them focal points of the magazine ad and CD cover too but didn't want to sell the performers but sell the product.

We blurred them into the background and played around with the imagery around it for the CD cover. Not only this but we also implemented the idea of being On Call with the use of the phone numbers on the CD cover to try and subliminally tell the person who sees the album what the song is about. The use of dark lettering and colors with a different amount of themes and color use helps the CD cover to sell itself with the video meaning no matter which you see first you'll kmow that the second belongs with the other.

The magazine cover was tricky as we initially took the On Call title and tried to contrast it with a hospital, like a doctor being On Call. However, we then realised that this would not make sense and be understandable when put a long side our other pieces of advertising products. Therefore we decided to keep it simple with the same tone as the CD cover and Music Video. We ended up using similar lettering and font style but bent it to make the more important information such as album name and band name stand out, the use of coloring enabled this too. We used red to connote the slitting of the wrist. However we made two ads as initially planned, one had the fight scene from the video in the background within the two performers to subliminally get across the fact there is violence involved in this product. The other has the image of an audiance to get across that we are popular despite our niche take on. We wanted to get this across to connote our rock and rebellious side as well as make a stand for what we are like on stage, like real rockers.

Overall, all three products highly compliment each other with each having the same dark tone but a different approach with some similar aspects. Although we get across the dark side and violence in each product with some subliminal messages those messages are still subliminal and not that bad or elusive. We do this by including the performers heavily in each, especially in the magazine ad and the music video. We therefore state that the performers are hardcore and out of control rather than the product, and even though the product is also the performers as well as the music, we still want that bit of rebellion in each as we are rockstars. Therefore settling on the same tone and theme was essential to get it across on each product the compliment one another.

Magazine Advert

We initially wanted to do a two page spread ad but had a few difficulties in doing so so therefore we were torn between that and a one page ad. As a compromise we made two different ads and allowed the public to vote on which one they liked the most and matched with the rock/touring theme. The following is what we created.

Two Page Ad

This is one of our final versions of the magazine advert and is created to be published as a two page magazine advert. The design has taken screen grabs of the actual video and intertwined them together with a dark theme to make them in sync with the video. The use of colors on the title is to emphasise the key aspects, in red, with the white reading "Featuring the hit new single" as is expected with most adverts to have. The popilarity of Facebook was the inspritation to add a facebook link with a the reference to a Kings of Leon page so fans can follow us. I added the stores such as HMV, Amazon and i-Tunes as these are the most popular options for purchasing music in general.

Single Page Ad

Here I got a picture from a real Kings of Leon concert and made it the background, the reason for this was because if someone who didn't know Kings of Leon saw a crowd as large and vibrant as this would realise that they must be big and would make them eager to see how good they were. I also decided to keep to the dark black and red theme which was seen in the video with the text to keep everythin consistent and therefore professional.

We have decided to use this ad because we think it will sell the album more efficiently.

Joe's Overall Project Analysis

I was in charge of the digi pack within our team. To produce good quality work i needed to first become familar with Photoshop and also research thoroughly into how professional CD covers are made and how they are so fitting with their genre of music. This was quite difficult and I had to put alot of effort into making the CD cover look genuine. Also, compared to last year we didn't need to produce any photoshop work so this was more challenging. Also, i played a brief role in the performance within the band section of our video. This meant that i would have to learn the notes for the whole song in order for it to look professional. Although all this was quite challenging i really enjoyed taking part in this process and believe that we have worked to our very best potential and the work shows this.

John's Overall Project Analysis

Playing the male protagonist in this video production was very challenging due to me having the main part I had to act up to the part to full potential. We had to do a number of takes and shot to get my scenes up to scratch and video fit it was hard because I'm not usually doing acting roles so it was hard to keep a straight face but after days of practice I finally mastered the skill of performance and maintained it too full potential. I really enjoyed being a part of this production because I got to show my full potential and acting skills even though I've not had previous experience and just great being part of a team.Overall i thought the entire production and all aspects in this process went very well from the actual video production to behind the scenes e.g feedback. Compared to last year this production was more challenging as last year consisted of a short film opening not much thinking,imagination and acting had to go in it but this year a lot of acting and thinking had to go into this in order to achieve a great satifaction and a great music video.

Koceila's Overall Project Analysis

Overall I thought the entire production and all aspects of all the processes went well. Being the director of the video I think I learned quite a lot in how difficult and fun creating something as ambitious can actually be. In comparison to last year it was a lot more difficult as the work load was even greater for such a short amount of time. There were a lot of setbacks, as anyone would expect in a production, but we managed to overcome them. I enjoyed the entire thing and I greatly enjoyed directing too and found it a lot more challenging to my role last year of playing the protagonist. Editing this year, however, was a lot harder as there are a lot more technical aspects we wanted to pull of and I believed it worked well and probably is, as a video, better then last years for me.

Our Final Music Video

This is our final version of our music video with all the changes made put in place.

How did you use media technologies in the constructions, research, planning and evaluation stages?

The 'Directors Commentary Guidline' (Written Document) can be found beneath. This is what I had typed to use within the commentary but for restrictions in time and how fast the video is paced I could not fit everything in.

We used a low angle shot to commence with to show our male leads dominance in the relationship.

The two shot that followed was to show their unity within the argument, however here we had to speed up the slap due to complaints that it was not authentic.

We adapted the shaky-cam style to film the vocal performance and give it that niche complex look.

With a lot of filters we managed to get the bass section to seem more low key compared to the high key lighting at the start, black and white is what we settled on.

The zooming in effect upon the guitars and the fact it was edited to appear dark was due to the dark nature of the riffs being played.

We gradually changed the camera shots to go close and closer towards our male leads face to finally get to the point where he cringes at the taste of the vodka, a key shot to show he is not used to drinking.

The editing of the two eyes as a pair was to connote that the relationship showed in the video wasn’t over, as they are still as one.

We made the flash back parts brown and filtered to allow the audience to see that it was obviously just a re-cap and not a mis-use of the same shot.

This was to contrast between him not hitting his girlfriend and due to alcoholism he hits the stranger.

We initially applied focus upon the knife, then we layered the vocals over it to not make it obvious as to what was actually going on before filtering it out to a very dark red to still hide the knife but imply to what is being done.

The P.O.V shot is too allow the audience to view life through the male leads eyes and reflect upon how dizzy he felt and sick, this was also done by the filters, contrast and shaky approach.

The guitar solo was done with the vocals still visible to not lose the continuity of the lead singer.

We also had to implement parts of the story into it too as it is a slightly lengthy solo so did that with layering it on the beat while gradually zooming in the image on the editing suite to make the focal point the guitar.

We added the guitar riff part in-sync with the beat to add that extra feel of our video being heavy and powerful.

The stop-frame animated section is to show the guitars, that represent their relationship, splitting up before we show them die together using the split-screen technique to also show they die as one couple.

Our overall use of technology was mainly used during the construction stages. As the video and album itself proved most useful with the likes of technologies such as Final Cut Pro or Photoshop it was essential to have them. However, planning was not very dependant on technology and the main part which would have needed it would be internet access, which in todays world isnt very hard to come across. Finally, evaluating must require technology as without the use of programmes like FCP or PS we could not achieve such standards of work that can be discussed and argued through our evaluations.