Once being given my briefs, I understood that I had to create a sense of synergy through all three tasks. In order to do so, I decided to create a unifying theme that audience’s would be able to recognise and identify with either the artist or the genre. Due to the nature of my narrative being set in the 1950s, this instantly gave me a theme of nostalgia which I coupled with love. Both of which first of all are universal themes that the majority of people would be able to relate to instantly giving audience’s a connection without even having to watch the music video. This narrative allowed me to clearly portray the themes throughout all tasks; for example, I created an ongoing pattern that my DigiPak and Magazine Advertisement would be based around Polaroid images. Obviously, this are limited in use of today’s society therefore highlighting the idea of memories and looking back on the past which is reflected in my music video. I believe all three of my products were extremely successful in relation to highlighting the themes however, they may be classed as being somewhat ambiguous and that it poses an enigma. The music video would be ambiguous in the sense that it would be interpreted differently by different people that watch it based upon their own cultural reference points. Similarly to the advertisement and Digipak, a younger audience that would be a fan of Kodaline, may see these and not make links between the idea of Polaroid images and nostalgia due to the technologically influenced society we live in today.
Setting my music video in the 1950s has allowed me to create a media text that could be described as timeless. Because it has already been given an era that it conforms to, it cannot get any older and therefore will still look as effective in ten years’ time as it would in two months’ time. The music video simply will not date compared to artists such as ‘The Spice Girls’. Their music was clearly of its time and music and music videos have increasingly progressed from this era. Moreover, the mise-en-scene elements support this idea as their fashions would not be worn in today’s society as it simply looks outdated. However, it could be argued that soon enough, magazine posters and digipaks will be rarely used due to the proliferation of technology and online music purchases and downloads.
Another recurring theme throughout all three products is the fact that ‘Kodaline’ have not been included within any visuals; this is one convention of Kodaline videos as they tend to follow a structure. This would take away any focus from their appearance, being 4 average males, so all of the focus is on the music and lyrics which is the most important aspect for them. This contrasts to artists such as Lady Gaga who mainly focus upon their appearance and it could be said that more time is spent on creating an overall performance and a ‘show’ rather than the music itself. Artists, typically pop artists, create the idea that you must be huge within the public eye in order to be successful. However, Kodaline and fans of Kodaline would not agree due to their huge success without being photographed on the front page of every magazine. I decided to stick to this idea throughout all three texts of purposely not including the artist’s faces purely due to the message and themes I am trying to convey to an audience.
I primarily demonstrated the unifying themes of nostalgia and love through the narrative and the mise-en-scene of my music video. The narrative consisted of an older lady watching an old performance back of her and her late partner who was now no longer with her. This is shown through effective shots towards the end of the music video as the audience are exposed to the television playing the music video and then a shot of the older lady on her own looking at a photoframe with an image of both the male and female in it. This would enable audience’s to create an emotional connection with the video and therefore keep them engaged.
The DigiPak’s are then just as important as the music video itself as it was a way of promoting the album in a more creative, personalised way for fans. More importantly, the proliferation of digital downloads may stray audience’s away from buying a hard copy so therefore a Digipak would be an effective way to persuade and capture the attention of audiences to buy them as a collectible. As with my other products, I wanted to create the idea of the band having a personal relationship with their fans. In order to do, I created a short-poetic paragraph describing the making of the album and also a thank-you note. This will influence audiences, in particular fans described as purists, to purchase a hard copy rather than a digital as it is aimed at them.
I have created an extremely minimalistic magazine poster due to the nature of the band. Kodaline simply do not need extravagant eye-catching posters and their main aim is to appeal to their initial fans and ensure they are up to date with their latest album. Strong fans would recognise the font and typography used and therefore notice it is advertising that particular band rather than from a huge image of the artist. I had to create a hierarchy of importance with regards to the information required on a poster such as the band name, album name, release date and different forms of the album. To ensure I clearly different each section, I used a wide variety of fonts and font sizes; the most important information would be in the biggest font and the most eye-catching compared to the least important which would subsequently be the smallest. The first thing to catch an audience’s eye would be the band name and the release date which in theory are the most vital aspects of an advertisement poster. Overall, I believe that the poster is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and suits all of its purposes and aims. The polarised layout creates a sense of symmetry and therefore all looks quite perfectly laid out. The visuals are clearly separated to the information so an audience would be able to choose where to look first and can easily locate information. The easily locatable information would also be essential due to the placement of the poster; it would be placed in certain locations of which the target audience would be ‘waiting around’ such as at a bus station, train station or billboard on a road. Therefore, a huge chunk of text would defer people from reading it meaning they would not gain any information about the band and therefore the poster could be pointless as it’s not fulfilling the purpose of promoting them.
In order to ensure the combination of my three products clearly suggested the 1950s time era, I edited all colours using either Photoshop for the print-based work or Adjustment layers on Premiere for the moving-image work. On all three, I desaturated the master colours in order to give the image a more authentic, vintage-style look to fit with the time period. This is the main element that tied all three products together as it was clear to see that they were all representing a theme and deeper meaning.
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