In my A2 work the production of ancillary 1 demonstrates the conventions of genre, representation and the audience. I will use Lacey’s theory of ‘repertoire of elements’ that breaks a text down into 5 different areas whilst looking at genre, setting, character, narrative, iconography and style. Within Lacey’s theory I will relate to the concepts of the theorist I have studied, Chandler and Neale the genre theorists.

Ancillary 1 which includes the construction of a CD digipack uses these concepts to attract the audience’s attention as it is aimed towards a certain age group. My work surrounding the technical and audio codes relate to Chandler’s theory, the conventions of the content in my work are how the contrast of the colours have unusual effects upon my album cover. The colour scheme stays within the dark shades contrasting with the lighter shades of greys and whites. This brings the certain style of my digipack into contact with the audience and can bring a darker narrative towards the genre of my CD. Neale’s theory shows that my content stays with the colour theme, font styles, effects and the genre throughout the digipack. The fonts which are used within my digipack relate to the genre that I am aiming for, the fonts are down to the genre of the CD that you are relating to, the fonts I used were from ‘dafont.com’ which include many fonts that represent these different genres.

Neale’s mental machinery theory in my work is demonstrated by the theme of my digipack. The genre of my digipack is alternative, house, indie genre that is shown mainly through the use of the colours and layers which create a party, strobes photograph effects upon my digipack. This positions the audience into wanting to purchase the CD, as it is demonstrated into being a fun house CD that the audience of a teenager age, 16+ would enjoy thoroughly. Audiences who enjoy house music, DJ sets and alternative music would respond better towards the CD, with it being a CD that could be played on DJ sets and nights out.

Maya Jane Coles represents her genre of house music towards the audience by the composition of the artist, the contrast of the orange within the rest of the album and the black background.

Annie Mac’s ‘presents 2010’ digipack represents the house, alternative genre of a DJ by the epilepsy feel that the album presents towards the audience. The dark colours and the white contrasts show the representation of genre in the digipack.

Another use of Lacey’s theory is the Setting/Mise en Scene of my ancillary as it also uses the conventions of Chandler and Neale. My photograph that I used for the front cover of my digipack was taken of my cat, to edit my photograph I changed the contrast and brightness of the picture and blended it within the black of my front cover. The image was the manipulated into a duplication to create an epileptic feel to the image, as if someone was tripping out looking at the cover. This cover creates an uneasy unusual feeling to the audience. The setting of my image is minimal as the image is blacked out by what’s around the main focus. This enables the composition of my subject to be in focus to the audience on the digipack. Neale’s mental machinery is applied to the image by the representation of my subject on my digipack. The cover shows the genre of the album this is used then to connect with the target audience to ensure they will like the album.

Appling the theory to the characters I have included within my ancillary shows how I have used the conventions of Chandler and Neale within my work. The use of my character that my album is focused on is repetitive throughout the digipack; the character I have used is the subject of my cat. Using a unique subject of an animal for a digipack can become difficult with the unexpected movement of the subject whilst taking photographs of them. Throughout my digipack the theme is the same and the texts are similar to each other and stay the same. The subject of my cat is shown to be the centre of attention throughout the digipack; the subject is blended together and duplicated to create an effect that reflects the genre of the album.