Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 3 - What have you learned from audience feedback?

I have chosen to answer this question using Wix, here is the link to my evaluation question 3-

http://nicolasuzanneevans.wix.com/evaluationquestion3

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Website

http://nicolasuzanneevans.wix.com/xena

Website Progress

My Website is still a work in progress at the moment but these are some images of what it looks like currently:

The Homepage- Following the pop conventions it has a major image of the singer to attract its audience. The font is the same as the Digi pack to keep continuity and a sense of brand. 

News - I am happy with the content on this page but I feel that at the moment there is something missing from it.

Gallery - I am really pleased with the photo-strip gallery it looks professional and allows there to be a variety of artist images.

Music - This page is completed, it is a main page where as the one specifically for the album is a sub-page dedicated to the new album. I included a previous attempt I made at a digi pack cover as the cover for an EP I thought this was a good idea as artist do usually offer free downloads on their websites.

Xena The Album - This page is also complete, I have included several key aspects such as the video, the album cover and also a way for fans to listen to some of the songs that will feature of the new album. 

Online Store - I am happy with the store as I have created a range of products to show the artist's diversity. I need to change the font to the brand font that I have used on every other page. But other than that I believe this page is complete. 

- I still need to fill in the events page. 

- I also need to create a Bio page for the artist. 

Completed Digi Pack

Here is my completed digi-pack, this was a big challenge for me as I hadn't used Photoshop before. This took me a long time to complete but I am happy with the outcome. As the software I used was new to me I am glad I spent extra time on it to insure that I finished it at a standard I was comfortable with.

Final Front and Back Cover For Digi Pack

Front of the Digi Pack-

After going through several different ideas I finally decided on this one. It is modeled of a previous attempt that I documented. The like the simplicity but the effectiveness. The black background to contrast the colour also helped to the link the back cover making it more of a continuous theme.










Back of the Digi Pack -
I loved this photo that we took on shot but didn't know how to make it more effective. So when I decided on the front cover it gave me the great idea to make the colour stand out against a black background.

Final Music Video

Digital Impact On The Music Industry

Whilst researching into the music industry, I found this info-graphic on how much the digital world has effected the music industry. I found it very interesting to see how much of an effect it has had on music. Not only on the way we consume music but also the way we purchase it.

This has helped me to think about the importance of the digi - pack and website as they are a key part of music consumerism. I also believe this will help me when I come to my evaluation with thinking about audiences.

The Music Industry

Pop Website Research

I have researched into the top female pop artist and what there websites look like, so that I can create a website that fits our genre. Looking through these websites has pointed some things out to me that seem to be key to a pop website. 

1. The artists's picture must be on the homepage and in at least two of these examples they are the background of the homepage.
2. Hash tags are very popular and almost all celebrities/stars have them, so the artist needs to have a link to their twitter account in plain sight.
3.  Most of the websites are very clean with the exception of Miley Cyrus. But each is crafted to its specific audience and fans.
4.  Pop ups - Almost all of these websites had a pop up of the artists newest single.
5. The websites aren't complex, they are easy so they can be navigated around with ease to find what ever they are looking for.
6. Social media is a key part of music videos its a way for the artist to get known by more people and therefore most artists have at least 3 social network links on their websites.
7. The URL is almost always the artists name. 

Inspiration

One of the inspirations we took from the original was this -

They have I Love It written on their hands in a black marker and we though this looked really effective so wanted to try this ourselves. We tried this with the powder paint but it didn't really work so when we were using the glow paint we attempted it again. This is what we ended up with -

Glow Paint Editing

We finally got our last shoot finished and started adding the glow in the dark shots to the rest of out video and it is looking really good. The glow in the dark shots came out a lot better than we expected, the pink was especially effective on her lips and we have used it on a few over lapping shots too.  The overlapping shots was something we had planned to do but we are all so pleased with the outcome as it doesn't look amateur like we expected it might have. 

Animatic

Here is the animatic for our storyboard, we worked from this when we were filming although there were quite a few other shots added that were improvised on the day of shooting.

More Album Art

We have decided on a name for our artist that isn't the original artist's name Icona Pop. As a group we decided on Xena as it is a shorter more pop style name. The style I have used her allows the image to be used multiple times and keep a sense of how important colour is to the video. I used a grunge style font to keep with the costume choices we made when filming. It also makes it more appealing to a younger audience. 

A lot of female artist have the name of the album as well as there name on the cover but use a specific font to make their brand more identifiable. In the cover I have created I have chosen only to use the name to establish her as an artist. Although the name of the album is included its a lot smaller than the artists name and it also is usually less visible. For example on the Jessie J album cover it is in white font below her name and on the Lady GaGa album it is placed on her glasses but neither of which draw a massive amount of attention to the album name. 

Artist Name

Today we decided to change the artist name from Icona Pop. Here are a few ideas we had -

We decided on Xena as it was the most powerful name and it fits the genre were as some of the other names were more floral and natural matching the indie genre not pop.

Influences to our video - Glow Paint

I have been researching into videos that have influenced our choices with the glow paint section of our music video, here is a list of the videos and why they have influenced us.

Glow Paint Influences from nic96

Glow Paint Outfit Ideas

Idea One - 

The way we plan to film this means that you won't really see a lot of the outfit the focus is more on the glow in the dark make up and how it looks against a black background. I think this outfit is more sophisticated and has class to it with the added jewellery to make an effect. Although personally I prefer the second outfit idea.

Idea Two - 

I like the idea that the outfit is all black but I feel that we should have some colour in the outfit as the video focuses so much on colour I think it would look in consistent. The best colour to use would probably be red, even if we use the darker red it will still stand out more than a just black outfit. The jewellery isn't so much of an issue and neither are the shoes all though as this is more fancy than the other outfits that we have used we want her to wear heels to compliment the outfit as well as to showcase how important this part of the video is.

Goodwin Theory

Andrew Goodwin in the "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" (1992) stated that there is a way to analyse music videos. This theory consists of 6 rules for analysis -

1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.
3. There is a relationship between music and the visuals.
4. The demands of the record company will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which reoccur in their work.
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of female bodies.
6. There is often inter-textual references.

The relationship between music and visuals, as well as lyrics and visuals can either be -

- Illustrative (Not a literal meaning)
- Amplifying (Adds a new layer or layers of meaning to a song)
- Disjuncture (Contradiction between lyrics and image)

Digi-Pack Attempts

I have created some rough ideas for a Digi-Pack on my phone using Pixlr Express. After filming in London we took a couple of shots that I thought would look really good as the cover.  These particular shots were taken at the Southbank Skate Park.

The first image I have colourised, saturated and played with the contrast to create a bright and vivid background to fit with the ideas we have in our video.I love the text I used on this as I believe it fits the pop genre perfectly I would like to use a font type like this in my actual piece. I also like the fact that the graffiti pops in the background.


















The second image tried to make more to the Pop genre as I felt like the graffiti might give the impression of rap or Hip Hop. The amount of colour is to match the amount of colour in our video and the pink looks nice and feminine. The font doesn't stand out as much and this is my least favourite of the two but it was nice to experiment before creating my actual piece.

                         

1950's Re-Shoot

We have reshot the opening due to issues we had whilst editing. We were unhappy with the way the footage looked when we were trying to piece it together to create a believable 1950s setting. The first shoot was fairly rushed as well so this time we were careful to make sure that we had ample footage to play with. In this shoot we tried to use more realistic props and professional in comparison  to what we had done before. We also developed the opening more than we had beforehand, including the addition of dialogue.

Crucial changes we made to our opening - 

1. We made an adjustment to the outfit that Katy was wearing, we removed the cardigan to give the more natural effect as she is in her own home. It also makes her look more vibrant as the dress is red with the original white cardigan it took away the effect of her dress. 
2. We also made a clothing adjustment to Taran, the outfit he is in is more formal now and the hairstyle is more fitted to the time period we are looking at. This change in outfit definitely makes a difference to the way the shot feels when you are watching it. 
3. Change to several props, we added a more old fashioned looking radio that look better in the close up we are using it in as well as also changing the cake we used to a bigger size so that when it is thrown it makes more of an impact as well as having several more angle of it hitting him so that you can see the whole scenario. 
4. As I mentioned before we added dialogue which we will use subtitles for as we aren't sure whether or not the dialogue will be effective on its own. We can also have a go at finding a suitable font for this. 

Although we have made a massive improvement to the original footage we had the opening we now have is longer than and takes more time from the song, which is only around 3 minutes long and we have a lot of footage to fit into it. 

Powder paint video

Filming with Powder Paint was so much fun. We were so grateful to all our friends for getting involved and getting messy. This is a video I took of a shot that we thought of whilst we were at the location filming, I really love this shot and we are going to colourise it to emphasis the use of powder.

Powder Paint Filming

Today we filmed the powder paint which was so much fun to do. Although the weather wasn't very nice we managed to shoot before it rained which could have caused an issue with the paint becoming liquid.  We shot at The King Centre Park in Chessington as this was easily accessible for all the people we asked to help us out as well as being a large open space that allowed us to throw the paint around. Unfortunately we were unable to film any where else due to needing permission to use the powder paint, so we were unable to use the desired destination we had planned which was Painshill Park. But this didn't seem to cause an issue the field was a decent backdrop for the shoot and we didn't have a problem with continiuity.

The powder paint worked better than we had expected it too and looked great in shot. Once we have colourised the paint clouds it will fit in to our film in the way we want it too. By making the colour more vivid in editing, we will hopefully be able to make the setting look warmer as it by the images it can be seen it was very dismal day.

Experimenting with Wix

Official Website for Icona Pop 

First I looked into the original website for the artist. Their website is very different to their genre of pop, the lack of colour and simplicity makes the website very plain. The homepage displays the logo for the group and a video to their new song. There is also links to a blog, their other music, videos, live and merchandise. I wanted to research into this so that I could see how the original artist portrayed themselves and how I would do this differently. This also gives me an idea of how to utilise the website to sell the artist and also make the it more realistic to an actual artists website.

Experiment Using Wix - http://nicolasuzanneevans.wix.com/iconapopdesign

Here is my initial design, this is my first time using the site therefore I did run into a few hiccups but having experimented with the designs I am happy that when I create the real website I will feel more confident. This is just a prototype of the home page. I have used a completely white background to hopefully make the colours more vibrant. I may not use this in my actual website as it isn't very eye catching as I hoped it would be. The image within the centre circle is a paint splatter which links to the key ideas we have in the video. I have also added one of my ideas for an album cover to this to promote it on the home page. I want to work on the logo more and make it more relevant to our genre. I liked the font choices I made as it is feminine enough to match the artist as well as matching the genre of pop. It also is the sort of font used for soft grunge.

Glow Paint Mood Board

I have created this mood board with the idea of our glow paint party in mind. We want it to be as colourful as possible and have bought a lot of stuff to accommodate this. Although some of the glow in the dark items have been difficult to get hold of, we have managed to get most of the items we wanted. I believe this will be great fun to shoot as we will be working with silhouettes focusing on the shapes and colours in the dark.

Powder Paint Outfit

We are looking at filming the powder paint outdoors in a natural environment, so Katy's outfit needs to stand out especially against the background setting. The look we are going for is grunge clothing and jewellery but bright vibrant make up. We want her make up to match the colours of the paint powder we are going to use. The bright colours also look good with her complexion, therefore it will complement the outfit. This idea is to showcase her bright inner self which is nothing like the housewife from the beginning.  

The only issue with this outfit is the current weather if we are filming outdoors it will be very cold and this may show in her performance. But we have picked Wednesday 19th to film as the weather is supposed to be warm and not rain. This should hopefully make it easier to wear this outfit outdoors in February.

Making Powder Paint

In our first attempt to make the powder paint to use for filming we made it ourselves using cornflour and food colouring. This had its benefits:

• Cheaper than buying actual powder paint 
• More accessible for us as students without a real budget
• Easy to make
• We could choose how much we made/used

A big issue with this way of doing it was that we were not able to get a vivid enough colour as the colour would dull down any food colouring we used. For instance we used a red food dye but the final result of the dried powder was a pink despite how much food colouring we had added.


The other issue with this is that we made it a while before were able to shoot the powder paint due to our volunteers having commitments and needing them all on the same day. The powder did not keep very well and therefore had to be thrown away before we could us it.

We ended up using actual powdered paint bought from an art shop in Kingston although this was more expensive, it did end up looking a lot better as the colours were more vibrant and the powder was finer therefore was easier to throw.

Editing So Far!

Here is a rough cut of what we have edited so far we are reshooting the opening and colourising some more of the current shots. But for our first rough cut I'm happy with how this looks. The most difficult thing so far for me has been lip syncing due to the fast pace of the song its been challenging to pair shots with the song to an exact second.

Album Art Part Two

  One Republic - Native (2013)
The album is named Native and therefore it denotes that they are looking at more natural style in their music. The group is a pop rock band comprised of five members. Their are five animals portrayed on this cover this could be representative of each different member. It represents how different each member is as well as them being indigenous to different countries.

This art work is simple yet powerful. The colours as well as the use of the overlapping animals helps to catch the eye. Fans of theirs will understand the cover more than people who are looking to purchase only one single. The font is also representative of the group. It is their trademark style so they are easy to identify.

                                                                          Mylo Xyloto - Coldplay (2011)

This album is a concept album by Coldplay. The group is an alternative rock band. The key theme of this album is a happy ending to a love story. The album is supposed to be different to its predecessors it has more of a "stripped-back" sound. The cover was meant to be an explosion of colour unlike their album Viva La Vida. The artwork is composed of song lyrics and key themes of the album. It was created by the band in their home studios.

The cover only shows three sections of the wall and inside the booklet the whole wall is shown. The artwork was so successful that they went on to sell canvases of it. The font is different to their usual trademark it is a new graphic design made especially for this album.


The Truth About Love - Pink (2012)

Pink is a pop/rock artist and this is shown clearly in the artwork. Its theme is love, relationships and break ups. It also deals with feminist issues. The artwork is very basic but within in the pop genre album covers tend to feature the artist. This image shows her as a confident woman with attitude as well as class.

The colours are complimentary to the image as well as the font style. Her trademark is still used in her name using a ! as an I. The font is outlined in colour which is eye catching and would be something that we could use when developing our digi-packs.

Editing progress

We have been editing our current footage and currently we have filmed and edited up to the point in which we want to add the powder paint party. The powder paint we plan to film during half term. We have tried to use a lot of quick cuts and colourisation to make our footage as close to the genre as possible. The editing has so far been an interesting process as we have been experimenting with different effects to create the desired look for our footage. 

Also the work we have done as group has been very effective due to the amount of ideas we all have. The collaboration of all of our ideas has been great to allow it to be more flexible than we had originally    anticipated. The collaborated ideas has also meant that we ended up with shots that we hadn't storyboarded and different effects that we hadn't really thought about before hand.

London Outfits - Soft Grunge Look

London Ideas -
We want these outfits to be in the style of soft grunge. Soft grunge is a lighter version of grunge which includes more feminine colours and aspects. The clothing is layered as well as being soft colour palettes teamed with blacks. The trademark for this look is really the Doc Martin boots.

Outfit 1 -

Final product - 

1950's opening shoot

We have started shooting our opening to the music video but we have shot it only a test footage and we plan to re-shoot it again after we have got all the major filming done. We wish to re shoot as there are shots we wish to change although the idea is staying the same.

This is the ideas that we had before the shoot -

We want the opening to show the female lead singer as a 1950's housewife who is tired of the same old boring lifestyle. We want her to seem to fit into her surroundings until the camera takes a closer look at her she will be wearing Doc Martins to show the element of a modern girl trapped as a housewife. 

We are filming in Katy's kitchen as it is less modern and we dressed the setting appropriately - 

This is an image of how we dressed the setting and we chose a darker colour scheme from the traditional 1950s. As many kitchens were either yellow or white, luckily the walls are white. But we chose the blue table cloth to show the male dominance in the situation. As well as the it clashing with the female's outfit, this is intentional. It shows the clash between the two people. As her partner is of an older generation.

For the opening we have picked up on the lyric 

"Your from the 70's but I'm a 90's bitch" 

We want the age gap to be clear. So we chose the 1950s look to make that clear, as there is a bigger change because it is an older time period.

Costume ideas - Housewife

Housewife (1950s Look) -
This costume needs to be quite stereotypical and fit the time period we are trying to portray. We wanted to make it as accurate as possible along with some tweeks to make it slightly more obvious that this is not the time period she belongs in.

Ideas -

Final Product -