Final Cut

What will I do for my ancillary product?

After analysing a number of artist's CD covers/magazine adverts, I have found that the Metal genre focuses on artwork and the Folk genre focuses on picture image and/or the artist.
With this information I have an idea to mix the two conventions, on my CD cover I plan to not have the artists but also not have artwork, whilst retaining conventions of both genres. I will have a picture from the last moment of the music video as the front cover of the CD, as it links to the song and keeps with the conventions of both the genres. 

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Joe Bugg)

The artist is the main focus in the shot, a convention in the folk genre. The background shows a row of old terrace houses and a narrow empty road, 

In the top right corner is the artists name, it is a very simple design - common with folk musicians as they rarely have extravagant artwork and prefer simpler designs.
On the poster is the album cover, this shows what the album looks like so people can clearly recognise it.

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Metallica)

The advert shows the set list of the album on either side of the main artwork, this means that if anyone had heard a song at a live performance then they would be able to see that it is on the album.
The advert uses the artwork of the album, which will make it easier for the audience to find the CD when it is released, as well as being visually striking.
The bands name is shown in green to contrast to the background of the advert, this makes it stand out and easy to see.
The advert is entirely artwork and has no picture image or band members on it, this is a convention of the genre to focus more on artwork than picture image.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Seth Lakeman)

The artist is the focus of the CD cover, this is a common theme with a lot of folk music to have the artist or band on the cover. Another convention of the genre is to have countryside landscapes in the background or sometimes to be the main focus, this is shown in the cover above. The artists name and the title of the CD are in a simple font and in the corner, this contrasts with other genres which often have bold titles that take up a large amount of space and have more focus on them.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Metallica)

The dark colours used are a convention of the heavy metal genre. This is supported by the focus on the crosses, which have a strong connotation of death: another convention of heavy metal genre.

The common theme of white between the crosses and the band name suggest that they have religious themes in their music, as well as themes of death. These are both conventions of heavy metal.

The background could either be a sunrise or sunset, a beginning or an end. This could have a link to the lyrics in the title song, and would be aimed at the target audience (the fans of the band) who would pick up on this detail.

Ancillary Product Research - Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a rule which states that an off-centre point of interest is more pleasing to the eye than if it was in the middle of the field of view. This is done by placing two horizontal lines and two vertical lines across the frame, creating nine equal size boxes. The rule states that if a point of interest is on one of the lines then it is more pleasing to the eye than if it was elsewhere, for example:

In the picture above the statue of liberty is lined up over the right side vertical line and the horizon is lined up over the lower horizontal line.

Positioning of information on a poster advert or magazine page can be aided by the Rule of Thirds. The place where the lines cross is called hotspots. Hotspots are areas where the audience looks more than most other areas, so these are the areas to put the most important information or images.

A good example of a poster using the rule of thirds is shown below.

It has positioned the main focus (in this case the firing target) over all of the four hotspots, with the centre of the main focus being in the middle of all of the hotspots. The red line indicates the general path of view of the audience. This can be important when placing important information such as titles, names, or in the case of my ancillary products, the title song.

Ancillary Product Plan

Before I start to create my ancillary products I am going to research what real artists have done for their album covers and their magazine adverts to find conventions of the genre and to get a general idea of what I will be aiming for.

Because my chosen song is a heavy metal cover of a traditional folk song I will look at examples from each genre for each ancillary product. This will hopefully allow me to create a hybrid album cover and a magazine advert that have conventions of both genres. 

First cut

Because of issues with exporting my first cut I will post my final cut and mention areas that where not completed or that I changed in my first cut.

• The shot of the guitar right at the end of the video was added after because I was not able to use the footage I had already filmed and I had to fill in the 5 second gap.
• The first cut was 5:05 and there was large gaps between shots, to make a better video with the footage and time I had at my disposal I chose to cut the video down to 3:23 instead.
• The solo section was incomplete because the guitarist who I was filming could not learn it in time so I used footage of the main character hitting Molly.
• I changed the effect from black and white on top of cool steel, to just cold steel, because on the scene at the start where the main character is walking up the hill the scene behind him in the shot was bright white and it was not possible to see the hills or the houses.