1. Q2 - How effective is the
combination of your main product
and ancillary texts?
Anand Subramaniam

2. Costume

3. Costume
The clothing worn by all the actors and our artist were very modern and fashionable. We had to
personally hand pick the clothes they were going to wear for each scene and this was difficult as
we did not film the music video in chronological video. This would ensure that the visuals would
not confuse the audience’s track of the narrative due to mistake in costume design. We had used
a wide range of bottom wear including chinos, jeans and leggings. Shoes ranged from
trainers, canvases and heels. Tops ranged from jackets , t-
shirts, scarves, jumpers, shirts, cardigans, blazers and hoodies. This ensured that we could
identify our target audience based on the clothes alone which were a mix between
casual, casual/formal and formal. The costume did vary a little but not enough to mislead the
audience into thinking that the music video and ancillary texts were not constructed for the main
person. When going through costume planning, we had to think about the actors and our artist
wearing a wide variety of clothes as the clothes were one of the main clues to identifying the
complex structure of our narrative. It is usually conventional to have R’n’B/Pop artists wear the
latest trends but we felt that our audience should be able to relate to the clothes that the actors
and our artist was wearing. The clothes that all characters wore were at the latest fashion in the
past few years as their wardrobe was quite limited. The costume that we used in the music video
and the ancillary texts were quite similar in terms of style. I feel that this may have helped the
music video and ancillary texts to compliment each other.

4. Location

5. Location
We used a wide variety of locations. All locations can be found in London. There are some clues
that indicate that the backgrounds of the ancillary texts were all in London. These include the red
London buses, the red telephone boxes and the old fashioned buildings. We have used a wide
range of both interior and exterior locations. We had to ‘create Sandhya’s house’ from the
interior of 3 houses and a music room that existed in our school. This was due to the specific
needs that we had. For example one of the needs we had was that we needed to have a large
mirror for the second to last scene when our artist was getting ready. A fireplace was not
available at that particular location so we had to use other locations. The exterior locations of the
music video included locations that were within the area of Wembley and Harrow. We had
originally planned to film more scenes in Central London but due to budget and time constraints
we were not able to do so. We had to make do with the area around us. Filming at public places
became a big problem for us as we had to continuously ask for permission to film. Many of the
places had rejected the idea of having the local area recorded and we were also asked to delete
footage on a number of occasions. We decided that since we could not film near famous
monuments in central London we had to film near popular places in the area we lived in. This
included Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena, Wembley Park Station and Harrow Leisure Centre. I
feel that the locations featured in our music video did not make a strong enough link with the
locations featured in our ancillary texts. The reasons of this has already been described above.

6. Font

7. Font
Apart from the font in the CCTV portion of the music video, the same font was used throughout
both the music video and the ancillary texts. The reason for using a different font for the CCTV
effect was that we had to keep this bit as realistically looking as possible. If we were to use the
same font for the CCTV effect then it would not look as realistic, which is what we intended to do.
We wanted our audience to believe that we had asked the leisure centre to provide us with the
CCTV footage, that was the level of finish we were looking for when we were creating the effect
in Adobe After Effects. The same font was used for the song title and artist name in the
introduction of our music video. We had different types of texts in the ancillary texts but we felt
by keeping the same font colour and style, we would maintain the consistency and
professionalism that we were looking for. I personally feel that the font was one of the strongest
links between the music video and the ancillary texts.

8. Modes of Address

9. Modes of Address
We used a mixture of both direct and indirect address. For the music video we mainly had
indirect modes of address where the core moments in the narrative required for our artist to be
oblivious to the fact that the audience were watching the video. This is known as the ‘forth wall’
where the world around a character is surrounded by 4 walls, naming the audience as the forth
wall. However we have broken this forth wall by using direct address. We have done similarly
with the ancillary texts. Some may see it as inconsistency however I see it as a way of directing
and capturing the audience’s attention. When there is direct address the character is pouring
their emotions and feelings into the minds of the audience. On the other hand when there is
indirect address the character has to be oblivious towards the audience, allowing the audience to
assess the situation and absorb the emotions according to their view point. For example when
there is indirect address during the argument scene we can feel two conflicting sides – Zein
whom we feel sorry for, despite the amount of begging he does towards our artist makes us feel
sympathetic towards him. We would also feel sorry for Sandhya , for the state she is in. On the
other hand when there is direct address when our artist is singing lyrics, we can feel what she is
feeling as the direct address has a direct impact on us. I feel that the ancillary texts and the music
video work worked well together here despite the fact that we had a mixture of modes of
address.

10. Colour/Lighting

11. Colour/Lighting
We used an array of different colours. We did not really control the use of colours apart from the
font colours for both the music video and the ancillary texts. However it did work well together
even though the colour range was so vast. It is quite hard to control the colours of R’n’B/Pop
products since there are a number of emotions that can be conveyed from these genres. We
could compare it to Hip Hop media products where the colours used would be quite limited – it is
conventional to use darker colours . However we did have to control the colours for the CCTV
portion of our music video where we had to keep the colours black and white to maintain its
authenticity. Furthermore we made the background of the front and back CD covers black and
white to back up the image of our artist and the text so that the audience’s attention would not
be diverted too much. We only used high-key, natural lighting for all the ancillary texts to give it
the realism that we were looking for. On the other hand the lighting for the music video had to
vary to achieve the effect that we were looking for. For example during the letter burning
scene, we had to keep the lighting to a bare minimum (low-key) and use the fire place as the only
source of light. However due to the camera quality we were unable to capture the light that
emitted from the fire place so it did degrade the quality of the video slightly. Therefore I feel that
the link between the music video and the ancillary texts have been strong in most aspects of
colour and lighting but weak in some other.

12. Themes, Emotions and Attitude
The emotions that we tried to convey with the music video were varied. The emotions and
attitudes we tried to incorporate were happiness, sadness, anger, neglect and forgetting. We
wanted to make our music video unique by not going for the cliché of using ‘forgive and forget’
theme in our video. We also felt that love had to be the main emotion that we had to work on to
ensure that we got the right message across to our audience. Our music video was about a story
that needed to be told. Love is a theme that is seen across a wide variety of mediums like
books, films and music . In addition we had to base our story on the lyrics. On the other hand the
attitude that the ancillary texts had to have were not so specific since it did not have to be based
on a selection of words. However we did have to use an overall attitude that did not focus on the
emotions shown in the music video as they are a different media text compared to the music
video. The emotions shown in our ancillary texts were not as serious and accompanied with facial
expressions should inform the audience that the artist, Sandhya, was moving on from what ever
situations she had faced and was not looking back in the past. We feel that this message should
be noticed by the names of the tracks that we had brainstormed. Based on the names, you can
tell how the emotions have flowed from each track to the music video and then back to the
tracks. The last track ‘Something New’ is the final clue we left for our audience in terms of the
emotions and attitudes that we expected to be portrayed. Rather than producing ancillary work
based on the emotions conveyed in the music video, we felt that it would be better to let the
audience see a different approach to our artist, rather than seeing her riding an emotional
rollercoaster ride.