Task 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilary texts?

Richard dyers star image-  Richard dyer studied the idea that stars area a construction created through the media via music videos as well as websites and digipaks. Dyer said that stars are often groomed by record companies to appeal to certain audiences, whether to a mass market or a niche audience. Dyer also found that stars are represented to audiences in a certain way to make them seem both ordinary and extraordinary, through different media texts such as music video. Stars can be relatable to the audience without having to be too present, yet still maintaining a connection with their audience, which allows fans to identify with them, yet also see them as superior due to their fame and talent. 

In our music video our aim is create an ambience of a 1990’s working class, student bedsit. The genre of music is indie rock, as well as Britpop. Henceforth, representing the same format of star image as artists such as Blue, Oasis and The Smiths. However, we believe our artists to be unique in that they are capable of combining the light rock music of ‘The La’s’ with the indie clothing attire. The elements which portray the working class aspect of the videos would be the modest size and interior elements of the flat. Using this image of coming from a working class background is an effective marketing regime, as it allows the majority of the audience to be able to relate to the band and it makes the band appear ‘just like a normal person’. The posters in which are presented on the set are also designed to illustrate what the target audience are also likely to be viewing. This is to increase the audience’s interest in the piece and also adds an element of realism to the piece as they would be realistic forms of media in which our band might use. Their style which is presented by their fashion, their hair and their emotions are similar to those artists in which we were attempting to emulate. We managed to maintain an authenticity with our digipak, we thought this type of artist would try to keep their Album artwork simple as they would try to give off the impression that they only care about the music and their not too commercialised. This is mirrored with the Crystal Moon website, whereby we tried to maintain a similar design in order to regenerate the same image. 

The band members are positioned traditionally when performing, as in the drummer placed at the back, the singer up front and the two guitarists (one bass, one guitar) either side. This positioning shows aspects of the bands influences; for example bands such as: The Beatles, The Smiths and the Stone Roses all of whom are four piece male bands. There proxemics also go well with their movement which mimes that of those four piece bands, Crystal Moon are a bit more enthusiastic and this brings excitement to the audience and gives the audience an idea of the bands personalities and gives the band members a warmth that the fans love and they enjoy watching the video and performance. the aspect of the band playing on their instruments in the video adds to the star image that they are an organic band and they have all taken part in creating the music.  The way in which the band are dressed in 80/90s clothing gives the audience a feeling of them being in the past which means that they are not accessible in this present year, yet because of the nature of the narrative and the band members being such normal guys, the audience feel like they are accessible but because they are from the 80s/90s they are not. The props of the telephone and television add to that star image of a retro/vintage band and give the audience an even more drifted feel. The romantic aspect of the video widens its target market to men and women.

In our music video we had some use of music stardom by the use of the set we were to present the characters as a musical band. With the bands look of a 90’s rock group we were able to replicate the feeling of the 1990’s along with the older props like the old TV with the VHS tapes.

For our Digipack we had used a very basic design for the cover, by having a singular couch it demonstrates the simplicity of the band while the inside of the album it mirrors a pizza box design with the pizza delivery menu to relate to the video and a sort of grease stain to present the album with the lead singer of the band. This is all to prove that the band is organic.

The website also reinforces the star image of our band. We’ve established them as simple, calm organic performers. The website is quite minimalistic with a simple yet effective font used throughout and not too many colours. This is similar to the front of our album cover and merchandise. The font helps people remember our band due to the unique font that we used throughout the digipak and album cover. This image is then reinforced by the black and white image of the band on the front cover of our album.

In addition to that we are selling our band as ordinary who like interact with the audience. Therefore we’ve put Facebook and twitter links on our website so that we illustrate that our band is reachable and our fans an communicate with them. Our website includes constant information on our band which includes tour dates and their everyday activity allowing our audience to connect with the band.

There are also galleries of our band from the shoot where they are wearing the same clothes that they were wearing in the actual music video. This further reinforces the star image and closes the gap between the audience and the band.

We did not make a contact form deliberately. The problem is that younger people now choose to communicate through social media sites. We therefore suggest that our audience is of 15-25 year olds.