Feedback on Website, CD cover and Music Video so Far

Feedback on CD cover and website:

• They both use the same fonts with bold white writing. - It is Clear that they both use the same pinks. The graffiti of the album cover clearly matches with the music video
• Likes the shatter glass on the album cover because it shows that a relationship has broken up, which is very clear
• pictures used are good because it shows she is a synthetic artist
• I like the vignette on the website because it shows she is the star image and is very effective 

Feedback on music video:

• it is really good, I really find the spray paining effective, especially the extreme close up where she sprays the camera
• Really good lip syncing
• The street location is really good, where she is throwing his clothes and also the time lapse of the car The edited background of the graffiti in the studio is really good, allows it to all link well

Research Into Established Artists Websites

Lily Allen

Lily Allen is an already established artist with a similar style music to our artist 'Dani'. We have looked into her website in order to see what is necessary to have on a website and what it consists of to help our artist become for successful.

• Lily Allen has a very simple artist website which features a small picture of her and her newest single. This shows us that, due to the fact that she is an already established artist, it is important for her to sell her music rather than herself, however, since Dani is an upcoming artist, we know that it is important to sell herself and her star image as well as her music, in order to create an image for herself and build up and audience base
• Lily Allen has used a black Background in order to make the Single cover and the title of the song to stand out, and to allow the audience to focus specifically on her music. We will use this technique when creating our artist website as we need to make her stand out, therefore we will use a black background to ensure that Dani and her music are the main focus on the website homepage
• The font on the website is very retro and stands out due to the white colour. The retro font suits lily Allen's style of music and so therefore we know that the use of font is going to influence the making and star image of our artist as the font can tell the audience what style of music to expect. For Dani, we will use white writing in a bold font to express that her music can suit everyone.
• Lily Allen is placed in a small picture within the centre of the website homepage, However, she is with another person and is not looking at the camera. This could connote the idea that she is rebellious and does not need to sell her star image any more as unlike other artists, she is not selling herself as the main product. Additionally, the rebellion is also seen as the other person in the picture is smoking. This is unusual to put on a website as they would usually want to attract as many people as possible, but Lily has her own fan base and so does not need to act innocent. We cannot do this for our artist, as she is new to the music industry and so needs to be the main attraction on the website and look innocent in order to attract as many people as possible
• There are no other tabs on Lily Allen's website which shows that the main way in which she earns her money is through the promotion and the selling of her music. Additionally, she has clearly placed the links to all her social media pages which tells us that she can sell herself across a range of platforms and connect with her audience directly. This is important to keep her audience interested and to make them feel connected with her.

Overall,  By Researching into Lily Allen's website, we have noticed essential things that we need to include when creating one for Dani. For example we need to include:

1. a plain background, in order to focus the attention on her music and her star image. This is important for Dani in order to be successful and build a large audience base as she is a new artist and so therefore it is essential to sell herself as well as her music
2. We need to have a clear font, which should be white in order to stand out. The font can tell the audience the style for the artist. Our artist is quite innocent and so therefore, she should not have a font that could indicate otherwise
3. We need to have clear links to social media as it is important for our artist to promote herself on other platforms and connect personally to her fans

Beyonce

• Beyonce is the biggest, well known women artist, so when looking through the design of her website we are looking at what an established artist website consists of.
• Beyonce's website has an overall colour of black in order for everything else to stand out

• Beyonce has the ability to draw the attention away from her image and show pictures of other people. For example Michelle Obama, and it isn't even her website. She can do this, however the website for Danis cannot include other people because we have to sell herself to the audience, emphasising the importance of her star image 
• The font on Beyonce's website is white and is very bold, drawing the audiences attention. Therefore because Dani is an upcoming artist we need to try all techniques in order for the appearance of the website to stand out. Therefore, the use of font is going to influence the making of our website because we are going to use a bold font and make it white. 
  
• Beyonce doesn't even have an appearance of her website, which reinforces the idea that she is so big in the music industry. Although, Dani is not well known like Beyonce is, so her star image needs to be sold as well as her music because this will attract her target audience. When placing Dani on the website we will make her central, so that she is the focal point 
• Beyonce has 7 tabs, which are all clearly labelled. She has a tab dedicated towards social media links. This is to sell herself across a range of platforms and engage her global audience across her several media platforms.  2 of these are focused on her clothing line 'Ivy Park' and her merchandise. This is because in the 21st century music artists are making less money from their music, so they need to find alternative ways to make money, which she is doing through clothing. Within her merchandise tab, Beyonce has a section dedicated to accessories. This includes accessories like, coffee mugs, phone cases and bags. As Dani is upcoming, she will also need to make money which is not from music. So, Beyonce's idea of accessories is going to be included in our merchandise. For example, phone cases which can be aimed at our audience and can have several designed which can attract to the audience. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Due to Beyonce being an international, world wide artist, she is able to target her website globally, with no specific audience. Her popularity is wide spread which guarantees her success and allows her share any information instantly. We know this from her website because she shows us a variety of people from her family on her home page, reinforcing the idea that she is not the main focus because she already has this established name to her. 

From looking at Breyonces website it has given us an overall impression what is needed for a successful artist. Her website is going to influence the design of Dani's website because we are going to use a bold, white font to attract her target audience. Beyonce sells phone cases which is another merchandise which we can include because this is an accessory which shows Dani has a variety of products on her website. It Is necessary to have a merchandise tab because it is known that in the 21st century artist make less money from music so rely on merchandise. 

Account of Shootday 3

For our last shoot day, we arranged to film in school as they have a studio which was available for us to use during filming. In order to prepare for this, we picked a date and time where all members of my group and Dani had a free period in order to make sure that we did not disrupt our school day. We set up the studio in advance with a black curtain and a fan for effect. This enabled us to film quickly and efficiently.

Our singer Dani, rehearsed in advance to make sure that she knew the lyrics to the song and so that she could lip sync professionally. This allowed our shoot day to run efficiently as we did not have to waste time for Dani to try and learn the lyrics

Our Animatic was very helpful and allowed us to prepare for our shoot day as I allowed us to visualise our final product. It also saved us time as we knew what shots and camera angles we needed to film and where to place them within our final footage.

Although we prepared very well in advance, there was a few issues that arrived on the day. For example, we had planned in advance to use a green screen, however Dani was wearing a Khaki Jumper. From this, we therefore had to improvise and use a black screen which we will edit within the music video

Overall, filming went really well as we managed to film all of the shots we need, we managed to film with a range of different shots such as high angle, low angle and wide angle which makes it easier for us to edit as we will not run out of footage and so therefore we will not have to re film or re use shots throughout our final music video

The majority of the shots that we filmed were planned in advance when we created our shot by shot list and animatic story board. On this day we followed our story board exactly, which was another advantage of our advanced planning. Because, of this we did not feel that we had to improvise any shots as we had enough footage for our final product

On the day of filming, we managed our actress very well as we followed our story board, allowing us to tell them exactly what they needed to do. Dani (our actress) was very cooperative, allowing our shoot day to run efficiently

As we filmed in school, there was no problems with the location, as we had all the equipment already available to us such as the lighting, cameras and the microphone. The school is a safe environment, meaning that there was minimum risk to ourselves and the equipment.

Some of the shots of which we took worked better than expected, for example, when filming Dani front on with a close up, it looked very professional as we were able to capture her star image due to the fact that she was staring directly at the camera and was the only person in the shot. This worked really well as we could clearly see her lip syncing

As a group, we managed our time very well and we filmed the footage in a short amount of time. This was due to our advanced planning and good cooperation from our actress

As a group, we all worked really well together and took on equal roles to make sure our shoot day went as smoothly and as well as possible, we all took turns filming and controlling the lighting and all added equal amounts of input. This teamwork allowed us to get a good range of shots such as the variety of angles which we could choose from and use when we begin to edit.

Account of Shootday 2

For our second day of shooting we arranged to film after school in order to film the parts of our music video that will take place in the ‘boyfriends house’. In order to prepare for this shoot day, we carried out advanced planning to decide our location as we needed to film in a spacious bedroom and on a quiet street of which we would not be disrupted by cars. This planning immensely helped on our shoot day as we were able to film quickly and efficiently as we knew exactly what shots needed to film in each parts of the location

Additionally, our singer Dani rehearsed in advance in order to make sure that she knew the lyrics to the song and so that her lip syncing would be in time with the music.  Our advance planning helped with the shoot day preparations as we chose our song, much in advance before this shoot day and so therefore giving Dani a lot of time to learn the lyrics and practice her lip syncing. This also allowed our shoot day to run efficiently as we did not have to waste time for Dani to look over the lyrics

Before, our shoot day we created an animatic of our story board in order to visualise what our final product will look like. This prepared us for our shoot day as we knew what shots and angles to shoot and how to fit them in time with the song.

Although we prepared very well and in advance there was a few things we could have done to make sure our film day ran more smoothly. For example, we could have chosen a less busy street to film the clothes throwing scene as we had to stop multiple times in order to let cars drive past safely. This therefore took a lot of time, which was unfair on Dani as it the weather was cold and she was not dressed warmly enough. Additionally, we had planned to do a tracking shot, however the ground outside was too uneven and so therefore the footage did not look professional as the footage was shaky, therefore we had to adapt our plan to make it more fitting and professional looking.

Overall, our filming went really well as we got a lot of shots from a range of different angles, which makes it a lot easier for us when editing as we can choose the best footage to use in our final product.

The majority of our shots we took were planned in advance and wrote down in our shot by shot list and on our story board. However, on the day we did improvise and include additional shots. For example, we filmed still images of our actors in different positions as we agreed as a group that it would look very good and professional to place them together as jump cuts in order to show that a lot of time has passed.

On the day of filming, we managed our actors very well as we knew exactly what to tell them to do and where to place them as we followed our storyboard thoroughly which allowed our shoot day to be efficient as we did not waste time figuring out as a group what to tell our actors to do. 

Overall, our location was very good as it was spacious, this was helpful to us as it was easy to move the camera around and allowing us to get a lot of different shots. The only problem that occurred was when we were filming in the street which was quite busy, so we often had to stop filming to let cars drive past. Because of this our filming of this scene took longer than expected.

Some of the shots of which we took worked better than expected, for example when filming the still images for our jump cuts it looked very professional and we will definitely use it when editing our music video. Additionally, we also filmed a shot of Dani throwing a PlayStation down the stairs. This worked really well as we managed to capture the whole thing, which looked very dramatic

As a group, we managed the majority of our time very well. However, we filmed the scenes with Benjy first as we had a specific time in which he had to leave. However, by the time we were ready to film the outdoor scenes it was too dark and so we had to come back the next day a film those specific scenes in daylight.

As a group, we all worked really well together and took on equal roles to make sure our film day went as well as possible for example, we all took turns filming and taking control of where we wanted our actors to be positioned. We all came up with additional ideas of shots we could film and made sure that we were all in agreement all the time so that no arguments were caused. This teamwork helped us get a range of good shots which we could use when we were editing.