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

The combination of our main product (the music video) and our ancillary products (the album cover and the website) is very effective at building a band identity as there are band signifiers which are present across the products. Through use of the same theme, colours, logos and costumes we have constructed synergy through all our products.

Firstly, the theme of our products is a traditional rock/grunge theme. This ties in with our band's genre of music, which is rock. As mentioned in Question 1 the music video follows the form of a rock video with it's conventional use of high contrast lighting, moving camera and instrumental close ups. The album cover follows this theme as well, as the back cover has a photo of the whole band with the song titles above them in a box, as opposed to the song titles being down the side. Finally, the website follows this theme as it has a brick wall background and a handwritten font for the buttons and adverts.

Also, the band colours are present across the three products. These band colours are black, purple and white. The individual band members also have their own colours, which are highlighted in the video. Pandora wears the colours black and purple, whereas Xen wears black and blue. Although they are not shown in the video, Johnny and AJ also have their own colours, which are silver and gold respectively. They are shown on the homepage of our website and on the bios for each band member.

The general band colours of black, purple and white are present across the products, with the main costume colour in the video being black. In the website the background is black and white with purple titles on the pages and on the album cover the band name on the front cover is purple, the bars on the inside cover between the eyes are purple and the background of the back cover is made up from white, black and purple.

Thirdly, the band logo and the record labels logo are present in the different products. The band logo itself is formed from the skull in 'theDropouts' and the 'D' in Dropouts.

In the video, although it is only seen once or twice, the band logo is stuck on the bass drum of the drum kit which Johnny plays. The band logo is also present on every page of the website in the top left corner, with a purple glow effect on it (this also shows the colours synergy). Behind the disc on the album cover we have a large picture of the band logo, with a coloured pattern behind it.

Also, the record label logo (Burning Car Records) is featured on our website and our album cover, as it is the institution behind the band. There is also a link on our website to the website of the record label.

Finally, the use of costumes in our products helps to construct synergy. In the video, the lead singer wears a couple of outfits, her band outfit and her stained white dress. The band outfit that the band members wear is also the outfit they are wearing on the back cover of the album, thus promoting the video through the album cover. They also wear their band outfits in some of the photoshoot photos, which helps to fully build their individual and group characters.