Question 2

1. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE
COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN
PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

2. THEMES
The theme of the music video is to do with courage. The track is about Rihanna moving forward in her life, but she first
needs to get rid off the person who is stopping her from moving on. In the lyrics she says, “Things just ain't the same
and I'm ready for change…I opened up my eyes, and I finally realized today, today, it's too late, you're fading away” this
represents how she has realised what she needs in her life and it’s not who she thought she was in love with. She gets
the courage to tell him that he is ‘fading’ away from her life. We represented this courage by showing her waiting for
him to call/message, waiting for him to arrive and then she finally realises what is wrong- this part is portrayed when she
is packing her bags ready to leave. We wanted the actress to give off a positive energy through her attitude in the music
video. We could’ve made her exert a sad attitude as this would go with the lyrics, because she could be sad that she has
to leave him, but as we interpreted the song as her gaining courage to leave, so we told the actress to show a positive
attitude throughout the music video. We made her do this by dancing in some scenes and having a face of confidence. In
most of Rihanna’s music videos, she likes to show her confidence through dancing, directly looking at the camera and
through her body language. A theory that can be linked here is feminism and post feminism as ‘fading’ is about a woman
plucking up the courage to move on with her life without a man- this shows how she is independent.
Waiting for a message Packing up her bags Confidence: body language Rihanna’s body language

3. THEMES
The whole independence theme is continued into my print products. The front cover has an image of the actress posing
with her holding her jacket out, I call the pose ‘come at me’. She also looks directly into the camera to portray her power,
it makes it look intimidating. Also, leather jackets carry some connotations of power and confidence and I wanted her to
specifically wear one for this purpose. It could further be said that her pose almost looks seductive to attract the male
gaze- showing her power in attracting people. Rihanna poses quite seductively for her album covers to gain attention
from her audience. This seductive look does also show confidence and independence. My cover uses an image where
she is directly looking at the camera, Rihanna also does this on her album cover. However, in my case studies I used
covers where the artist was not looking at the camera or there wasn’t the artist’s face. I first wanted to follow this
convention, but after analysing the song ‘Fading’, I realised that I needed my cover to show her courage and confidence.
I needed the model to look into the camera to represent this theme

4. HOUSE STYLE/ COLOURS/FONTS
When we had to create a pitch presentation for the print products, our group decided on using pink, white or black as a
house style. I consistently used pink and black in the my print products as I felt it suited well with each other and that
the colours went with my genre; Pop/R&B. Also, as mentioned before, Rihanna used pink on her ‘LOUD’ album- this is
where the track ‘fading’ came from. Furthermore, one of my case studies for the print products was Beyoncé. Her album
is structured very simply and she uses the colours black and pink consistently. I think black and pink compliment each
other well in appearance wise, but using connotations, I think they are like rivals. The black connotes darkness and
power, whereas the pink connotes femininity and fake innocence. The artist is a bit of both, powerful but portrays this
innocent presence too. The fonts I used on my print products are similar to the ones I said I would use when planning
them. I used a bold font for the artists name to make sure it was clear and would catch the audiences eyes. I also used a
handwritten font style for the title of the album to make it look like it was the artists personal touch. You can see below
how on Beyoncé's album, she used a bold font too and on Alessia Cara’s album she used handwritten fonts. I got the
font inspirations from those two albums.
• Fading
• Fading
• Fading
• Fading

5. LOCATIONS
We used a range of different types of locations for our music video and print products. In our music video, we mainly
filmed in the Olympic park as it was big, spacious and looked nice with the lakes, trees etc. We also filmed many parts of
the video in a friends house- the bedroom, bathroom, dining room and outside the house. The clip where the actress is
seen walking around near shops and looking into a wedding dress shop was filmed in Westfield. The studio footage was
in the college and some outside scenes were taken near the college. All of the locations we used were convenient as
they were close by to all of us and they were easy to get to, they weren’t far away from each other as well. The Olympic
park provided the ‘lake metaphor’ that was mentioned in our pitch for the video- we made sure that the actress was
near the lake to get that shot. The locations represent how she is moving from different places- leading her to the last
scene where she is seen walking away from the house with her bags. This represents the whole meaning of the music
track- moving on with life. In all of my case studies, the main locations were all indoors and not many were outside. I did
follow this convention a little, but most of our clips were shot outside.

6. DISTRIBUTION
The distribution methods for this music video and print products would be very effective as the artist has a massive fan
base of over 60 million people. This would increase the recognition of this single. On the advert, the artists social media
sites are displayed, this will increase the amount of recognition and distribution as social media sites are used by nearly
everyone today and it is easy to share things around on these sites- facebook, Instagram, twitter etc. The artists social
media sites are followed by many of her fans and she can promote her single in her own style- however she wants to.
This would link in with David Gauntlett’s theory (2.0) as he mentions how social media allows us to produce products
and promote them however we want. The advert could be featured in well known music magazines such as Rolling
Stones or VIBE. This would further help with distribution as these magazines are read by many and it would be
unmissable.