Webpage research and drafting

-       Alicia Keys - http://www.aliciakeys.com/uk/home

Alicia Keys Official Website

             -  The background is quite abstract and not blinding  or in your face which reflects the kind of music she makes

-          - The scrolling background of the Alicia Keys heading shows a bird and a calm blue background which follows the typical conventions of calmness and serenity. This theme is also featured on the side panel of her site where we can see feathers and all sorts of designs and is continued throughout the whole site. The fonts used on Alicia Keys website are quite simple, sophisticated and flow quite well which suit the genre of her music: soul. Her hair is kept simple and sophisticated also.

-          - Listeners would be attracted to her and her music because Alicia Keys official site provides music and lyrics for all of her albums. Also, fans have the ability to be part of a community based around just Alicia Keys, message boards which allow people to leave comments for Alicia Keys to read showing their support and many other giveaways such as VIP tickets and opportunities to meet her.

-          - Alicia regularly blogs things that she believes in, which fans can comment on, on how much they have been inspired by her words, this allows the fans to feel a lot more closer to her as an artist. (Twitter and facebook)

DRAFT WEBPAGE DESIGN
NUMBERS HIGHLIGHTED IN GREEN IS WHAT I WILL BE DISCUSSING

1: This is the main CD cover to be presented on my webpage. I wanted it to be created in a way so that when you scroll over the CD album cover, a picture of Abbie appears with text saying "Purchase NOW". This will add animation to the website and therefore make it more interesting, also, it will entice the audience that it is a 'must have' album, encouraging them to buy it in the end.

2: Abbie's track will automatically play once the website is accessed and audiences have the choice of whether the want to pause/stop it. 

Also, having the music video there allows the audience to choose whether they want to listen to the track or watch the video, giving more choice, as some people may find it annoying if they are forced to play the video in order to listen to the track. It may even slow down their computer which is not what people want.

3. The photo sharing gives the audience the opportunity to feel part of a special community that only some people can have access to making them feel even more like a fan of Abbie and having personal engaging by uploading pictures that they have with Abbie with the approval of Abbie herself.

4. Latest tweets and merchandise allows audiences to keep up with AbbieSinger and follow her footsteps and get the latest news on what she is doing. This may be important to people who idolize AbbieSinger. Merchandise let people feel more involved with Abbie and supporting her by purchasing her branded items. E.G: Singles/Albums/Posters Etc. 

Latest videos can consist of her music videos, her singing acapella, interviews etc and anything audiences may want to see to keep up with her progress.

Filming process portfolio

                            

 These are some photos that I took during the filming process. This is only in one location. We filmed in several locations in order to gain as much footage as possible so that when it came to editing, we wouldn't feel like we need more footage but in fact we're spoilt for choice!

Planning for music video filming

6/12 storyboards

Taking in all the research information on music videos, it was time we planned how the music video would work, what would happen in it and the main concept. In order to make it clear what we are filming and what shots we were going to have, it was important to do these storyboards. Storyboards are a way of mapping out locations, props, type of shots and what is happening in the shots so that this reduces wastage of time when filming. Planning the music video will also help us when we do our individual edits and our videos will therefore be more successful.

We watched this video and came to the conclusion that this video was suitable due to the time period and the type of song. It was an effective video because it suited the tempo also. People may be intrigued to watch it again because of her facial expressions which allows us to have a personal engagement. If it appeals to you then this is because of personal taste. Not everyone would like it because of the age group it is targetting.

I need to take this into consideration when we plan our music video because we need to make it suitable for our target group of anyone who listens to Neo-soul and likes that sort of music in order for it to be successful and people wanting to watch the video over and over again.

This video is clearly a very intricate and unique music video. It keeps you interested the whole way through because there is something going on all the time. You would want to watch it over and over again because you can't possibly pick up every little detail of what is going on in one viewing. This is why it is a successful video. By playing the video over again, this makes us as the audience like the song, because we like the video.
The people in the video on the webcams are actually fans of the artist 'Sour', this gives them as fans to have a personal engagement in the song and appreciate his music even more.


Taking all of this into consideration, when planning my music video, my group's ideas must be as unique as possible and keep the audience interested, otherwise they won't want to watch it again, and therefore it will not be successful.

Official CD Digipak

Initial CD Digipak Design

FINAL CD Digipak Design

Why have I chosen to design my CD Digipak in this way?
The front cover is labelled AbbieSinger with the sea and sky background. I chose to have this particular background because when you think of sunrise/sunset on a beach, you think of peace and serenity and quite a calm atmosphere which relates to Abbie's music and genre.
The green theme was devised from the dress she is wearing, it is detailed in quite a bold green, but it isn't a very 'loud', 'in your face' kind of colour, therefore I thought this may be ideal to use as a theme to use throughout the Digipak. Green also symbolises calmness and it is quite an organic colour, the use of turquoise reflects the colour of pure sea which is similar to the theme colour.
Imagine waking up at sunrise as the background shows, 'The awakening' was purposely made to slightly blend in with the background making the effect gradual, whereas the 'AbbieSinger' is the main part that people need to recognise as the brand which is why it is clearer to see. Abbie's label needs to be THAT brand that people have heard of/seen before. "The awakening of..." turns Abbie into an official character and gives her status and star image making her unique in comparison to other Neo-Soul artists.
The bird silhouettes on the next fold represent what is common in the morning: birds, birds singing. - When we  think of birds chirping we usually associate it with morning time and sunrise, so I felt this linked into the front cover.
The picture of Abbie performing with her guitar was quite significant to this cover as it is one of her favourite instruments to use within her music. It also shows how she is a proactive artist and already has experience performing and music is her passion. In relation to this, the 3 tone colour images of Abbie playing the Piano and Guitar make the cover intricate and colourful. The piano and guitar are her main two instruments which are also typical instruments used within the genre of Neo-Soul. E.G: Alicia Keys. It also shows that Abbie is a multi-instrumentalist, making her multi-talented as a singer, song-writer and instrumentalist.
The top middle fold of my Digipak was inspired by Justin Timberlake's 'Justified' album. I didn't want make it too detailed as this is where the CD will go, so the CD will be covering it half the time, So the initials of AbbieSinger I felt was appropriate for this part of the Digipak.
The top left of my Digipak is what every Digipak contains, a message from the artist, whether it be brief, or 2 pages long. I asked Abbie if there is anyone she would like to thank in spite of her musical talent and I reproduced this message to be put on the Digipak.

Progress while creating my CD Digipak

4 pictures showing some stages within my making of this digipak

Training myself on Photoshop :)

Experimenting with different colour changes

Different effects

'Threshold' - Another effect

Use of the 'Magnetic Lasso Tool'

Adding text to a picture with further enhancements on the text

Photoshop is a widely used photo editing program used in big industries including the music industry. 

Before moving onto making my CD cover and 6side digipak for my unsigned artist, I needed to familiarise myself with Photoshop and its features. Spending a few hours exploring Photoshop, I realised anything is possible! Manipulating a photo is so easy and so effective when trying to appeal to audiences to make it catchy to the eye. The 'Filters' and 'Adjustments' menu offered many ways to make the chosen photo look more colourful, interesting, enhanced and so much more. The Magnetic Lasso Tool was one of my favourites. It allows you to cut out particular parts of an image more accurately instead of freely where you may pick up parts of the picture you don't want. 

After spending a while testing out the features of Photoshop, I wanted to start creating my CD cover and digipak!

CD Digipak Planning

Rough CD Digipak design 
(Front cover draft posted below)

I sketched out a rough CD design in order to make it clear what should go on each of my sides for the Digipak, what information should be on each side, whether it be pictures or producer and production information etc. I showed Abbie (My artitst) this draft and she said she liked the idea of having one colour as a theme to be put on each side of the Digipak and the use of photo's too make it more eye caching. As this was only a brief outline, My idea might still change on what I actually produce on Photoshop.

Music Marketing Strategies and Innovative ways of advertising

Nine Inch Nails - 'Punk' group

There are many innovative ways of advertising in order to gain more publicity and appeal to a wider audience.
Viral ads on the internet are a very effective method of advertising because the advertisers done have to buy space in order to show their product/music/film etc. It is a free method for the advertiser to gain the most out of to promote themself. This links to 'Word-of-mouth' where the target market would find the advert and not vice versa as it is recommended by friends and friends of friends etc. Word of mouth is effective because we are more likely to trust our friends opinion on a product or a first person opinion because we know that they would have tried the product already. Therefore if the product is successful, this will make more people want to buy it, or listen to it (if its music).
Another innovative form of advertising is by the artist arranging free gigs to perform, so that audiences can come along and listen without paying, because if someone has never heard of an artist, they would be less inclined to go to a gig if they had to pay. Buzz marketing is used to promote/advertise a product also. This is started off by a 'buzz' being created by the advertiser who may use fake actors who claim the new product is exciting and works in order to get a wide reception. Again this works by word of mouth because you are believing your social networks as they are your friends or real people infront of you who are recommending the product.
Interactivity has been proven to advertise new products well as this allows the audience to gain a more personalised experience with the new product. For example the band Arcade Fire who released a single which the audience could make based in their hometown via the internet. This made the experience more enjoyable for the audiences who would be likely to recommend it to their friend to try it which in the end, promotes the artist to a wider audience.

'Word Of Mouth' advertising

Nine Inch Nails is a band who released an album called 'Year Zero' and went through several stages of advertising in a very unique way to become noticed by a wide audience. N.I.N sent out clues on the back of tour t-shirts which was hard to spot but when one person did, it caused millions of people to want to get involved. They started by highlighting letters of words on the tour shirt which spelt out 'I am trying to believe' which made hundreds of fans type this into their browser and eventually came to the site www.iamtryingtobelieve.com. Further clues were spread around on other t-shirts that contained highlighted numbers which formed a Los Angeles phone number which fans called leading them to more and more clues as if it was a game. This all involved interactivity which is why so many N.I.N fans got involved and get to the end of the 'task' to find out what it was all about. Some of these innovative ways of advertising included the fans coming across new N.I.N tracks at the same time which links to Buzz marketing and word of mouth - If lots of people are talking about what they are uncovering as a N.I.N's fan, others who may not even be a fan would want to know about it and get involved because of the buzz created. At the end of N.I.N advertising campaign, the last fans remaining were driven to a secret location where N.I.N hit the stage and halfway through riot police stormed the stage trying to cause as much hype and excitement as possible for the fans. In conclusion, 2.5 million people had visited atleast one of the 30 sites of the campaign, N.I.N made top 10 albums in the US, UK, Australia and 3 other countries. From this it is evident that the most innovative ways of advertising can lead to a huge succession however it takes a very smart person to point out a clue as small as N.I.N's in order to start a buzz. This whole campaign engaged people to get involved and follow the narrative and ideas on the album which the fans were rewarded after for their dedication to the band and decoding the clues. These fans now feel special and feel they belonged to a secret society that no one else knew about or could involve themself with.
This case study links to Media and collective identity because the whole campaign reinforced the fans loyalty to the band showing they are a true fan by staying dedicated all the way through to the end, and they belong to the small fan group of Nine Inch Nails.

Andrew Goodwin: Theory of Music videos

I carried out research on Andrew Goodwin who is a Music video theorist who states that we as the audience look out for 5 main things while watching and analysing videos. Follow the slides for more information.