How effective is the combination of the music video and the ancillary tasks?

From looking at my advanced production, I believe that the combination of our groups music video and our individual ancillary tasks is effective. By relating the tone and the meaning of the music video to our ancillaries , we have created documents that can interlink .

By listening to and understanding the meaning and ideas that the music portrays, we have been able to create ancillaries representative of the song, the genre and in many ways the audience.

While in lessons, our group often conversed on what we thought worked on each of our ancillaries that worked to represent the mood and emotions portrayed by Passenger. Once we had chosen certain aspects that we believed worked, we took them on board and used the same if not similar aspects on our own work.

The use of house styles was very important in relating the two. Shortly after being assigned the task of creating two ancillary tasks, my group and I met up in lesson and first discussed what we wanted in terms of styles. The first thing that we decided upon was the house style for the ancillaries. By looking at the sad and romantic themes that was represented in the lyrics of Let Her Go, we realised that the correlating products would need to reflect this mood. One way that we knew this could be done was through the use of dark colours that typically resemble negative emotions. For example, we associate darkness with depression very often.

Though the song we chose does not end on a positive note, the lyrics indicate that it is important to move on. This would only be for the best and would benefit the couple in the long run. I tried to represent this in my ancillaries. I used photography with a lot of natural light on a very nice and sunny day. Though this is coupled with its binary opposite, a sad song about a breakup, it can suggests that happiness can come after the end. The bright colours are representative of happy and pleasant thoughts.

One effect I used on the photos for my ancillaries was a black fade around the image edges. I did this for several reasons, one of these was because it helped look continuous on the black background. Furthermore, the black faded effect made the idea of darkness being all around him and always near him. This can further relate to sadness, possibly brought on by the breakup of the relationship.

Especially in my ancillaries, I tried to work in some photos of the guitar. I mainly did this because the music video shows some extended shots of the guitar from several different angles. The use of the guitar in both my ancillaries and music video links to the feelings of sadness and depression. This is because in a lot of similar songs, the guitar can be used to create very sad and emotional music. In turn, this can help convey emotion to the audience of the music video. We remember the sound that the guitar makes just by looking at it, that brings that sad feelings to mind. The guitar is a very important piece of iconography for the genre.

I related the photography I used to the music video further by using a key image that was taken on one filming location the group did. This can help relate further as the background that we see on the photo is the exact background that we see from certain shots of the music video.

The feelings of isolation was a convention that I wanted to convey from the music video to my ancillaries. In the music video, we do not see our main character converse or interact with many other characters at all. This was because after his break up we wanted to represent the feelings of loneliness and isolation through semiotics.

The images I used on my ancillaries only had the singer in, no one else features apart from him playing his guitar. This relates to the music video as it shows aspects and concepts of isolation. One thing that helped me choose upon using this theme was the lyrics of Passenger’s other songs. A lot of his other songs in the album had similar meanings and themes to that expressed in Let Her Go.

The body language and frame of image helps suggests that the character is alone. The camera leaves room for the swing seat beside of him to be seen empty but still swinging. This suggests a sudden and unexpected departure.

The use of fonts on our ancillary tasks correlated with the fonts that our group used for the music video. This was in an attempt to hint quite a simple visual relation between the products to the audience. By doing this, the music video could help give a good representation of the moods and themes given off in the album.

Our group first picked up the convention of text intro to the music video when looking at a similar music video by Ben Howard called Oats in the Water. We did not think of using the same fonts in the music video our ancillary tasks at first, but once our group discussed and picked upon a certain house style, it seemed quite obvious.

In conclusion, from looking at my groups music video and my individual ancillary tasks, I believe that the two halves of my advanced production link effectively. From using certain concepts and conventions, I have been able to convey the emotion and mood captured in the music video and used them to represent the musician and genre they represent.

Important conventions that were useful in linking the two media pieces together included the overall house style. This was important in reflecting the mood and atmosphere of the music video in the ancillaries. One way I addressed this was by using dark colours as well as the style of imagery. Another convention I used was the inclusion of shots of the guitar, an iconographic instrument of the indie folk genre. This instrument can help to add the idea of the sad music that can be creating use the instrument. The use of semiotics was also important in the correlation of the two products. This was a common convention that helped to add the feelings of loneliness and isolation. I represented this by using the shots of our solitary actor as well as our singer in being alone in my ancillaries.