Evaluation Task 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Notes for Task 2: Creating a Multimedia Film

Star Image

What is Dyer’s main point about ‘star images’?

Richard Dyer’s star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. He believes that whilst stars are constructed to be realistic, they serve a purpose: the make money out of their audience (who respond to various elements of the star’s personality).

1. The star as a construction

The images of the artists that we are shown through advertising, television, magazines, etc, have been created by their management.

2. The star as a commodity

The star has been constructed by their record label to appeal to their target audiences. Certain music magazines feature bands or artists on the front cover as their image becomes the commodity that will attract the target audience to buy the music magazine. Artists such as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have refused many record deals as they don’t want their image to be controlled. Therefore all their success is theirs.

3. The star as an ideology

This is what the band or artist represents and believe in, they could make this fit the target audience to gain a larger audience. The spice girls represent girl power and friendship.

Identify some real stars with similar images to that which you have attempted to construct.

MØ and Bishop Briggs

We have attempted to recreate Bishop Briggs’ alternative star image, retaining her fashion sense (which has become a large aspect of her general image) and cool persona. Similarly, we have likened our artist to that of MØ given her role as an empowering young woman, whose rebellious and anti-authoritarian attitude has greatly resonated with our target audience. She is highly individual and has a very eccentric and unconventional style which has been reflected in our own artists’ star image.

What are the key meanings of your star image?

Youthfulness and Rebellious

These two aspects are important values of our artists’ star image as they greatly appeal to our target audience and help to market our artist. Among female solo artists, the values of youthfulness and and rebellion are highly popular, and in representing these meanings in our artists’ star image we helping to identify her as a personality.

How does your video construct these star meanings?

Our video presents our artist as youthful and rebellious through a number of different means.

For instance, her association with a group of both youthful males and females makes the distinction that she is a young artist who involves herself with likeminded individuals. This helps our target audience to relate with our artist as it effectively portrays her to be like any ordinary young girl, having fun with her friends. The inclusion of male friends alongside female friends possibly also denotes a further idea of promiscuity which is often seen hand-in-hand with being young, supporting sexuality among youths. Through her actions with her friends, we see her appreciation of what it is to be young, and the celebration of the energy and excitement that young people possess. The costumes worn by this group are individual, alternative and appealing to our target audience. They are contemporary and thus relevant to the youth of today, and are considered to be highly fashionable. Equally, they serve to reflect the unique genre of music that is indie-pop. The quick paced and energetic editing of our video serves to reflect such qualities in what it is to be young and creates a fun-loving, restless atmosphere to the video, supporting such a value within our artist. 

Her role as a rebel and anti-authoritarian attitude is shown through aspects of the video such as spray painting the abandoned house and skate boarding through its corridors. In both of these cases, the actions are often considered to be recalcitrant and reckless, and are regularly associated with youthful delinquency. By showing other members of her group to also be partaking in such activities, it supports the notion that these actions are widespread among the youth of today. They are acts of rebellious considering the fact that, especially in the case of spray painting, they deface property and undermine the respect of ownership and correct behaviour. It’s potential to be called ‘graffiti’ stresses the illicit nature of the act, and thus highlights our artist’s role as an anarchic young lady. Alike with how the costumes portray our star image as youthful, certain accessories also support her role as a rebel, such as the use of a choker, ripped tights, and large golden hooped earrings as these generally have connotations of the wearer having high amounts of attitude and being generally disrespectful towards people in positions of authority and their property. Our use of camera as being square-on can be seen as confrontational and direct, which emphasis our artist as being a rebel given its support in establishing her aggressive and strong attitude nature. By including a number of effects within the editing of our video, we subliminally support the quality of our artist being rebellious by going against traditional conventions, and creating visually striking images in which the world is distorted. This attracts target audiences as it is an interesting spectacle to observe.

How does your digipak construct these star meanings?

Our digipak presents our artist as youthful and rebellious through a number of different means.

The digipak’s colourful marble background successfully constructs our artist’s image as youthful given its vibrant and bright nature — which are qualities of what it is to be young. Similarly, by having our artist’s image upon the front cover of our digipak, we are showcasing her youthful appearance which attracts audiences given her beauty and reliability. By having her in black and white in contrast to the colourful background, it creates an aspect of photo-montage and associates the cover with collages which is a fun and youthful way of presenting artwork. The emphasis on the colour green used in our digipak is a direct relation to its relevance in our video, which thus offers a coherency between the two products. The colour green is often associated with freshness and fertility, thus serving to further support our artist’s youthful star image.

The pose, positioning and facial expression of our artist as square-on, with her chin-up and head held high, creates the impression that she is empowered and unafraid. This constructs her image as a rebel given the departure from traditional conventions of solo female artists in which they are sexualised and objectified. It resonates with our contemporary target audience given the role of feminism in modern day society. The appearance of a choker and hooped earrings once more support her role as a rebel given its connotations of being worn by those with attitude, and the fact that the image is in black and white aids in lessening her naive nature and instead further supports her role as a cool and courageous rebel.

How does your homepage construct these star meanings?

Our website presents our artist as youthful and rebellious through a number of different means.

Similar to our use of colour in the digipak, the colour green and vivacious marble background also make an appearance on the website, thus reaffirming our artist’s youth in a similar way. We used a simplistic design as its simple-to-use navigation serves to encourage use from a youthful target audience and the inclusion of a moving image (the gif) makes use of technology and is visually striking, which also attracts a youthful target audience given their enjoyment of such technology and originality. Equally, considering the gif shows our artist being sassy and confident, it aids in constructing her star image as a rebel. The different backgrounds, although of a similar colour scheme, used on each subpage keep the website fresh and original, which also helps in constructing our star image as youthful. The popups make the website easy to use and also interactive which once more helps create a star image of youthfulness as it means our audience are able to participate more and are thus more interested.

Audience

Who is the target audience for your promo?

From researching similar artists to our own, we discovered that the target audience for our promo is 18-25 year olds of both genders.

How do each of the three products communicate with / appeal to this audience segment?

The three products communicate and appeal with our target audience through a number of different ways, predominantly through our artist’s youthful star image as they are able to relate with them. For example, in the video, the cluster of young people, youthful activities (such as spray painting and skate boarding), stylish costumes and cool music all serve to be the epitome of what it is to be young, and as such create a benchmark for consumers to aspire to. Similarly, the rebellious undertones of the video resonate as popular with such an audience as people regularly connect with “the bad girl/boy”. In terms of the digipak and website, the vibrant and bright colours are youthful and appreciated by such a target audience, and the simple to use features and interactive potential means it it simple yet stylish for our target audience to use. Across all the products, the inclusion of our artist who is young and beautiful is attractive to such a target audience.

Cross Promotion

Explain about how your 3 products are part of one promotional, marketing campaign — what are the aims of the campaign?

The aims of the campaign are quite simply to market and promote a new female solo artist. Through the video, digipak and website it aims to advertise the release of her first studio album and establish her star image as youthful and rebellious. The video showcases her image, performance and a bit of her personality, the digipak advertises her new album and reaffirms the image established in the video, and the website provides a concise location on which information regarding the new artist can be found. On all three products, our artist’s style comes across very clearly as being very indie and unique whilst still fashionable (seen to be wearing chokers and hooped earrings in all). Equally, our use of colour is consistent across the three products, regularly using dark shades of green, red and pink due to the connotations such colours have (such as green relating to youthfulness, red relating to attitude, and pink to having fun). In each product, we also include our artist’s name of SIOUX as we figured it is important to drill such a name into potential consumers so that they will more easily recognise it in the future, and given SIOUX’s translation to ‘little snakes’ we also regularly include a snake image across our products as this will aid in promoting merchandise in the future. We also use the same font across the products, ‘Futura’, as to create a sense of synergy.

How do your 3 products promote the products and services that the record label are selling?

The video advertises our artist’s performance quality and encourages viewers to see her live on the basis that they will want to experience her vocal quality and see the attitude and personality of our artist that the video has suggested to. Similarly, the rhythmic editing of the video brings awareness to the music and gives audiences a great appreciation of it which will encourage them to buy the song and album. By including SIOUX’s name in the video, and images of snakes, it familiarises audiences with such a name and image and thus encourages them to buy her merchandise and recognise her more easily in the future (such as when her tickets go on sale). The website is an effective product of the record label to promote what other products and services they are selling, as it regularly encourages viewers to buy our artist’s new album, as well as watch her videos and attend her shows. The inclusion of being able to buy tickets right there off the website makes the process easy and effective, and shows exactly when and where she will be performing. Equally, by having links to her social networking sites, fans are encouraged to learn more about the artist’s personal life and thus become more familiar with her, which, by extension, will encourage them to buy yet more of her products (whether concert tickets, albums, or merchandise) in the future. The ability to sign up for a newsletter means that her audience will be able to stay up to date with all SIOUX related news, and as such this would successfully encourage them to buy her latest releases and performances given how they are the first to hear about such news. The digipak encourages audiences to obviously buy the album and the tracks included on it, but also encourages them to watch future videos and further familiarise themselves with the music which in turn would inspire them to see the artist live and attend her concerts.

Does your promo attempt to construct a branding for your artist, for example through the use of a logo?

Just through her distinct name of SIOUX as this encourages immediate recognition from audiences, and a rapid distinction amongst the masses of solo female artists.