DigiPack: First Draft

We then finished our digipack and added the last two pages, here is the final design.

We added an extra two pages, here was the first one. We though that we need to include a special thanks page to everyone that grace could associate her album with. As on the website I have created a main storyline about the help she had from her family and how well they get on and how much their support means to her. We also thanked graces management. 

We also thought that we have a lot of very successful photos that I took of her during the photo shoot that we could include in the digipack so we can show of what we have done and how good the photos are. We have included a cloning effect on the image as it looks almost effective and faded, and this is what a lot of our effects looks like during our video. 

Tour Posters

This is the poster Emma made to promote Grace Starr's tour.

This is the poster I created to promote the Grace Starr Tour.

Tour Poster Inspiration

Here are some posters we liked when analysing other posters and looking for inspiration for when we create our own. The dates on both are very simple, and i have noticed they both include the year of their tour. I hope to achieve something like this when creating my poster. 

Digi pack Ideas

Here I have created one of the pages for the Digi Pack, the inside page. I went on a website called Funny Photo to create a film strip full of images of Grace. I think this is a fun photo collage which makes fans laugh and feel more involved as these are the sort of photos you print of yourself when you go to a personalised photo booth.

Class Websites Feedback

What went well? 
Even Better If?


Nicholas Alexander: A good website throughout, the pages have a lot of information and include
 what fans wish to know. All social media links work well and take you to the appropriate page so that fans can go directly to the social media account and know its the official page. This website would be even better if in the gallery page the images looked a bit more professional... Maybe do a professional photo shoot with the star dressed up in a professional setting? Also, the image on the home page of 'Nicholas and his manager' the green doesn't look very appealing. Maybe use the green screen affect on premier.

Encoded: The website looks professional, like it could be a real artists website. A good amount of pages and the information is well written and pictures are good. I like the transitions as you change from page to page. Would be even better if the social media links at the bottom of the page actually took you to the artists social media accounts.









Cosmo: I like the images page, looks cool. Also the font and images go well with the artist image. Looks like it could be a real website. Some of the pages look a bit empty, not just images and more font should increase liability and fans will be able to connect more.







Hybrid Beauty: I love this one! Looks cute and professional. The conventions connect with the genre and bands image to make fans more familiar. Would be even better if the tour dates could be presented in a better way, and make it look more professional that just writing. Also, more pages would make it more effective as it would give the fans more of a connection to the band.








The Alleyways: Does look professional, I like how you can click on the play button and it plays the song, images look good and good amount of pages. Even better if the store prices were in pounds.

Alex Echo: I like the images that flip through on the front page, gives the audience an instant view of Alex. Also, the magnet is good as it gives fans a logo to look out for as well as just a name... Like Ed Sheeran and the Paw Print. Maybe if the social media page included links as well as just names, would make the navigation easier for fans to work their way around.






James Couleur: I like how the genre of music, indie, works well with the websites design and all of the images that have been taken. Although the pop up as you first enter the site is annoying, it is a good promotional strategy to get more people to like your page. The merchandise looks very professional and is not too much, it isn't too much for the fans to wear. To improve add links to the social media sites so fans can gain easier access. Not sure if some of the pages are unfinished but a lot of them look empty. 

Record Label

Here I have created my own record label that I think Grace Starr could be signed to. Although this logo looks plain and dark, my aim was to make it remain a mystery, so that when people look at the label they are not aware of what type of artists and what genre of music would be most popular with this label. If this record label was real, I would like artists like Katy B, Calvin Harris, Example and Sia to be signed to it as this is the type of artist Grace Starr is leaning towards.

Competition Advert

Here I created a competition advert that can be shown on TV adverts, for example MTV Hits, or KISS so that fans get a chance to win treats for supporting Grace. I created this using a software called 'PowToon' which allowed me to make a mini movie to create this competition advert.


 

Editing Practise

In today's lesson I decided to upload the trailer I created a few weeks ago and try some editing tools to see what could make our music video look more creative and more professional. I tried a variety of different effects on Adobe Premier to see if they suited our video genre or not. Here are some of the effects I added and think look good and effective. This is a screenshot of the different editing shots I have played around with.

Here is the 'ghosting' effect tool, and I selected this and dragged it onto this particular clip to see what it would look like. I love the effect it has given, as there is a silhouette of a previous clip that is put in front of this lip syncing.

This is another similar sort of effect called 'Echo' however, this one appears much more brighter and brings out the background lights that are shown. This makes the silhouette become a lot more obvious and brings a more brighter feelings to the video.

This is the editing information that I have put the settings on for the Echo effect.

Past Music Genre Trends

Here is a chart which shows the genre of music that was most popular in 2011 and 2012 to see what can be most popular and what is needed when it comes to 2014. Although the genre of our song, ElectroPop/Dance is not included in this chart, the closest Genre to this is Pop. In 2011 the Pop/Top 40/ Current Hits genre held 19.1% of the market share but in 2012 it decreased by 0.3% to 18.8%. This shows the decrease in popularity of this genre, which yes therefore was a risk for us to choose. But as the years go on the trends change and in 2014 Dance is a newcomer and is becoming very popular, therefore our song is a good choice.



Here is an article that was released in 2013, showing the increase of market share that Dance has held.

This is showing that Dance Music is becoming more and more popular, and was highest than when it was highest last in 2006, and in 2014 this market share has increased due to the population of this genre becoming more and more popular.

Current Trends In the Charts

As shown in the picture above, there is a variety of different genres that are in the charts, but from present knowledge, dance music has not always been popular with the UK Top 40 mainstream songs. So this shows that dance music is making an appearance and becoming more and more popular in the music industry. Our song does include a genre of dance, as the song is the type of song that would be played in a club and people would be able to dance to it due to the up tempo beat and fast pace backing track.
However, arguably pop is the most dominant music genre that is in the charts, and this supports our decision on our genre of song which is ElectroPop/Dance. Our song does not have a genre of Pop, it is Electro Pop which is different due to the sound of the track that plays. Therefore this is a sub genre for the genre pop, but it is something different therefore it is bringing something alternate into the charts. With Dance becoming more and more popular, and Pop being the most common, and Electo Pop has not been introduced into the current chart show, shows that there is a gap in the market for this genre of song and shows that our music video/song can be successful in the Top 40 UK ChartShow.

Gaps In The Market

Here is a screenshot of the current UK Top 40.

Gender: As you can see, only 10 out of 40 of the songs are sung by females, and some share the same artist. However, there is 20 of the artists that are male that are in the charts, and this clearly shows there is a gap in the market for solo female artists with a unique voice.

Solo/Group?: Within the Charts there are 9 groups with the rest 31 either singing solo of collaborating with another solo artist. This shows that there is a gap in the market for groups, particularly a female group. However, with the high number of solo artists that are included in the top 40, this shows that solo artists are very popular with the UK audience and they love listening to a single artists music. I think with the current groups that are in the music industry at the moment, the amount of competition varies dependant on gender. It is clear to say that One Direction dominant the boy band market and would be hard for a new boy band to compete. However, in the girl band music industry there is not one dominant group, they all share the equal share. For example Little Mix, The Saturdays, however none of these groups are included in the charts. This shows that there could be a gap in the market for a girl band, but also shows it could be a risk due to there not being one band that has dominated all other bands and may find it hard to compare to previous sensations like The Spice Girls. Due to the dominated male boy band One Direction and there being no dominant girl band struggle, this is why we chose a solo artist.

Ethnicity: Throughout the whole of the charts there are only 4 black artists, which shows there is a big gap in the market for different ethnicities. Besides these 4, the remaining 36 are all white artists. Here is strong evidence that black or other ethnicities are under supplied in the music industry compared to white artists.

Self Reflection

 

Our final filming stages

As previously stated in our production diary, when we collected all of our footage that we planned we discovered we did not get enough footage and just had an inbuilt thought that something was missing. Therefore, we all sat down to talk about what we could add to the video which would not confuse the audience but would still look good in the video and would not look odd shown against all of the other footage we have. We planned what we could film in 1 day due to the fact we needed and wanted to get all of our footage done so we can focus on the editing alone. On the 10th November we concluded me needed more footage, and on the 11th we started to think about what we could film. We come to a decision:

- We are going to do a performance based shoot of Grace Starr singing along like she is performing live on TV.

We quickly organised costume, make-up and setting to try and make our shoot as professional as possible. Here is what we decided our Star to wear.

A Gold Top and Skirt

We went after school to our school drama studio where we had the benefits of professional lights and sound systems to make our performance as good as possible. Charlotte was acting whilst me and Emma was filming. We had assistance from our teacher and two class mates with lighting and filming and also setting up the set. We went through the song several times whilst 'Grace' was performing, we had three people filming at different angels so ensure we had a good shot for every part of the song if needed. We also included different props like a box and set of stairs to make the performance more interesting. The lighting we struggled with, but when we got the hang of how to do it we made as much use of it as we could do make the performance look the best it could.

Audience

To collect information from our audience I created a Survey Monkey so we could be given information about lots of different things to do with music. Here is our survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RZW8KC2

Survey Monkey Audience

We thought that for our music video we decided it would be a good idea to make it drug and alcohol awareness to show teenagers the effects of these sort of things and how they can be pressured into certain things and the possible outcomes for these decisions. Our target audience is older teenagers about 13+ due to the explicit useage of drugs and alcohol we include in our video. However, we want the gender to be both male and female due to both of them being dragged into these sort of things and we can spread the message as wide as possible. Me and Emma created a survey monkey to ask about audience questions and peoples expectations for a female music video. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RZW8KC2
By doing this we find out information from our possible audiences and see what they like for when we advertise Grace as a pop star. Here are the answers we are given.

Merchandise

 On the website that I created for Grace Starr, I added a merchandise page so that fans can buy things to do with Grace Starr so they feel more involved with her. The merchandise says 'I Love Grace Starr' so that when they go to her concerts they can wear her clothing and feel like a true fan. I had to personally create these designs using a website so that we could have personalised writing on the products. Whilst looking at other celebrities merchandise, we have seen that a lot of them include this type of design.

Here is Ellie Gouldings' merchandise on her website, and I have noticed that she includes merchandise stating her albums name so this also promotes her album to people that see the tshirt that fans are wearing and they might not have heard of. Therefore I am going to go back to the website and design some more merchandise with the album name on. Therefore I went through and added more stock than is designed specifically for her album promotion.

Merchandise Inspiration

Here I have looked at some other female artists merchandise so I can make a rough idea on what to create for our star.

Social Media

Social media accounts are created so that people and stars can interact with their fans and spread the word about upcoming tracks and albums so more people become aware of them. In the photos below we have shown that we have created facebook, twitter and instagram account so that we can inform fans on things that Grace is up to and upcoming events and singles. This enables fans to also communicate with Grace Starr so they feel more personal to Grace herself. We upload photos to instagram to fans what she has been up to and what she is doing at that moment in time so fans can see.

Font Research

When thinking about font, we have looked at a whole different variety but we decided that we want it to be like a handwritten kind of font so that it looks as though she has written is herself so it is more personal to her audience and fans. My favourite font is the last one as it makes it look like it has been written and shows a connection to her fans.

Lighting Inspiration

We found this video and really liked the use of lighting that is used. Although all of the lighting looks very good and very professional, your main attention is still focused on the star, and that is what we need. We want to be very creative when it comes to our video, and the use of lighting in this video is very creative. Therefore when filming we are going to ensure that we take lighting into consideration.