Summary of Conventions: (Used/Developed/Challenged)
- Dance Like we’re making love: Used technical conventions of close ups and long shots
- I Bet: Used technical conventions of extreme close ups and image manipulating editing (mirror effect)
- Just Fine: Developed conventions of Jump-cut editing, changed entire positions of artist and used editing style on dancers too.
- Say My Name: Challenged the conventions of immediately showing the singer by instead building anticipation
- Umbrella: Challenged conventions of showing the artist immediately, however developed the star image of mystery and sexiness through silhouettes
- Work: Used conventions of illuminated lighting to create a fun and engaging video
- Beautiful Liar: Used conventions of set design such as the poles surrounding the artist to depict them as confident and powerful in such a large design. Developed this to fit into our main theme of illuminated lighting by combining set and lighting together.
- Bootylicious: Used symbolic conventions of a simple but colourful set design, but developed this with darker colours to create a more mysterious video than Destiny’s Child’s. Seen in more modern videos such as The Weeknd’s Starboy. We challenged the conventions of colourful and light sets commonly seen in 2001, and updated them to a more modern convention. Additionally, challenged conventions of makeup and costume by instead using black and white costumes rather than bright costumes.
For evaluation task 2, we explained our creative decisions which affected our artist's star image, our target audience, and how all 3 products combined to create an effective music campaign. We brainstormed our ideas and bullet pointed, which we then elaborated via recording a video of us. We have edited the video with overlapping images and clips to demonstrate our points further. This kept the video engaging and interesting as there was something to watch in addition to listening to our points.
In conclusion, we created a music campaign which allows our artist to connect to her fans. This supports Dyer's star theory paradox as she is absent and present at the same time, as well as being ordinary and extraordinary. Through our connected products of music video, digipak and website. We constructed our star to appear sexy and fun to appeal to her target audience.
From our focus group, we learnt that our social media buttons were not clear to access. We thought about how to make it more user-friendly for the audience, and experimented with placing the icons around the homepage. We found that placing them in the bottom right corner maintains the aesthetic we wanted for all different internet browsers. One particular problem we found was that internet explorer did not support our fonts and layout. We attempted to compromise our layout to fit all, however we had no luck and therefore must warn our users that internet explorer is not supported.
We also added a lightbox to immediately hit the audience to check out her latest album Hallucinations as soon as they go onto the website. This is used in multiple real media products such as Ariana Grande's website, where the website redirects the audience to a lightbox selling merchandise and tour dates, before continuing to the main homepage. This enhances the synthetic image of our artist as she wants the audience to buy her album and create sales.
We began to add on side pages to our website such as Music, Tour, and About page.
These pages are important in selling our artist's star image. She is both extraordinary by producing tour tickets but ordinary by connecting to her fans via her about me page. For each page we added a different background image from our music video behind the scenes. This made the website look colourful and fun, whilst maintaining Nand.C's mysterious star image through the continuation of silhouettes.
For the music page, we immediately introduced the consumer to her latest music video to her single. The concept of pushing sales and attention for the artist's most popular single is frequently seen on real media products in R&B. We then added a media player onto the music page where fans can see and buy her singles individually. As Are you that somebody is the only real song, I created some blank mp3 files to give the illusion that you can play her entire album.
We added a buy section which allows fans to purchase her merchandise. She is synthetic and a star commodity, meaning that her focus is on generating sales and selling her image rather than her music. This is particularly important for an up and coming artist who needs the press.
We created a collaboration of a jewellery campaign called Gemini Jewellery x Nand.C. We took a picture of a ring close up and added Nand.C's autograph x Gemini Jewllery's logo over the top. We explained that Nand.C has recently collaborated with the Jewellers to sell to her fans. This presents her star image as girly and feminine through the diamond ring, but confident in that she appears to be doing good business with other serious companies.
This enhances Dyer's star paradox that she is extraordinary and ordinary at the same time, as well as being absent and present to her fans.
We created an about me page which gives basic background details about Nand.C. We wrote this in first person as it was written by her herself, connecting more with her fans and appearing to be more ordinary.
We added direct social media links such as an instagram feed onto her page to direct the audience to her media platforms. This is important as social media has become a crucial role in creating a star image, as theorised by Henry Jenkins who claimed 'if it doesn't spread, it's dead'.
We created a separate tour page as this is one of the most crucial elements to our artist's success. In the online age, artist's now make most of their money from concerts and tours.
We used the programme BandsInTown to create tour dates along with the venue and an additional RSVP and Buy Tickets button.
We used WIX, a free online platform which allows us to use templates and add gadgets to create our website. We began by creating the homepage. We were inspired by Kelly Rowland and Mary J Blige's homepages as we thought that these were simple and effective.
We wanted to create a small slideshow presenting the singer's star image. However, as WIX doesn't support this feature for the background, I instead created a photoshop gif where the 5 images blend together.
I duplicated the image 10 times and changed the opacity of each one from 90-10%. Underneath each duplicated layer, I put a duplicate of the second image underneath. I then placed this into an animation and set the delay to zero, except the original image which I set the delay to 3.5 seconds. This creates an animation of the images blending together, revealing the second image. I continued this process with all the images. For the final image, I rounded it back to the first image to make a continuous gif.
We wanted to create a small slideshow presenting the singer's star image. However, as WIX doesn't support this feature for the background, I instead created a photoshop gif where the 5 images blend together.
I duplicated the image 10 times and changed the opacity of each one from 90-10%. Underneath each duplicated layer, I put a duplicate of the second image underneath. I then placed this into an animation and set the delay to zero, except the original image which I set the delay to 3.5 seconds. This creates an animation of the images blending together, revealing the second image. I continued this process with all the images. For the final image, I rounded it back to the first image to make a continuous gif.
We also decided to add the 'Hallucinations' album in the centre of the homepage, with the social media links directly underneath. This introduces the consumer immediately to the album as its the first thing they see and therefore generate sales. This was important for our artist as she is synthetic, thus focusing making money through her sales and star image.
However, the links would not fit comfortably underneath the title, therefore we placed them at the bottom of the page.
The design is simple and clean to not overwhelm the audience with information. This is similar to Mary J Blige's design where she equally puts her album title at the dead centre of the homepage to generate sales.
We used the Marzo font, as it was simple, clean and relaxing. It matched the pop R&B genre as it had an edge of fun and wasn't boring. We continued to use this for both titles and main bodies of text.
We used the Marzo font, as it was simple, clean and relaxing. It matched the pop R&B genre as it had an edge of fun and wasn't boring. We continued to use this for both titles and main bodies of text.
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Ella's Hurtwood House Media Blog
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