Poster and Website Analysis

As part of our marketing construction campaign, we carried out some research into posters that we could produce. We looked at some examples from current artists similar to us and within our own genre, these included Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (a similar double act) and the Arctic Monkeys, who we have taken plenty of inspiration from also for our website.

  Whilst producing this poster research we also added some more brief website analysis to go with the extensive planning we undertook for our own site.

Following this research it led us to plan and produce our own poster. We wanted make something similar to the Macklemore display, bold and clear. He is the focal point of the poster which you can see is reflected in our own poster, where we as the two piece are the main point of the poster. We have also added some posterize effect and played around with some other effects in the software Adobe Photoshop, which allowed us to produce the desired look for our poster.
  Despite taking inspiration from these other posters in the slideshow above, we wanted to set our own convention of media by sticking with our crisp, slick monochrome theme of the encoded 'brand' this is reflected perfectly in the final poster we see below...

Live Performance Risk Assesment

This is the Risk assessment for the filming of the performance which will happen after school on Friday the 24th of October. For Health and Safety purposes we wanted to fill out this risk assesment. Doing this also made us think more about what could possibly go wrong in the performance and helped us to plan around these problems incase they do occur.

Editing Outline Adobe

We are going to be editing our final footage and produce our final music video using the software Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 which is a highly technical program and allows us to really experiment with our ideas and bring our planned videos to life really well.

   The picture below shows Max beginning the editing with some of the test footage we shot earlier in the week. As you can see the program CS6 is opened and in full use. Below is a a more detailed example of how the Adobe premiere program looks when in full use.

Merchandise

Below I have displayed some of the items of merchandise we have designed for Encoded. We chose to come up with these sorts of merchandise after investigating how some similar artists and bands like to advertise there act and make themselves more appealing to there desired audience. On this occasion we chose Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to observe (a two piece american hip hop band, who we are big fans of). Despite taking inspirations from some of there merchandise themes we did not want to completely steal there ideas and wanted to challenge the conventions of perceived media products by designing our own. We therefore came up with our own design T shirts, hats bags etc displayed below. These are to be made available on our website as well as on sale at our live shows in order for our fans to be able to access them easily.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' Merchandise page

Website Planning and Construction

WEBSITE LINK: http://encodedmusic1.wix.com/encoded

In order to help raise the profile of the band and contribute to the accessibility of the group during the marketing campaign we have produced a website accessible to the fans and the public.Whilst reading this please feel free to open up the website via the link above In order to make it available for you to easily follow as well as exploring the many features of the site for yourself.
  Each Page of the website has been designed very specifically to tie in with the desired themes of the group as well as to make them as appealing as possible. Below I have highlighted each stage of the planning and design process as well as the constructions that have taken place. We used the website design program 'WIX' to construct our actual website domain and area. This program allowed us to achieve the exact plan that we desired after doing some further research into the program to uncover the various features it had to offer. As you can see further down during the construction stage this was highly beneficial.
  Immediately below is the very first designs that we came up with on how exactly we wanted our website to be layed out. Although it lacks any aesthetic color plans we wanted to stick to the them of our crisp,bold, black and white color scheme. Each page has each feature clearly labeled as well as some of the content that each of these shall include.

Home Page

The first homepage design seen here includes various feature to make it appeal to our fans. After studying the Arctic Monkeys website which we took a huge amount of inspiration from for our own, we wanted to make the home page very bold and clear so that a user/ fan can clearly see links to each area of the website, and make it easier for them to locate the link that they desire. One of the most important features that we came up with is the countdown clock, which makes it into the first actual construction of the website. We thought that this interactive moving feature would really bring the home screen to life.

     As you can see below not all of the original design made it into the first construction of our website. First of all we kept the top menu bar almost exactly the same as can be seen above. We also included the countdown bar in the same location, However we decided after playing around with different ideas to scrap the side pictures and use one of  our best posters as the background for the hole website, this picture as seen below is black and white edited so it sets the tone and the encoded theme for the rest of the website. We also decided to add more information to that of just the band and tried to turn it into more of a news feed similar to that of the arctic monkeys which can also be seen below as a comparison.

Arctic Monkeys News feed style home page...

Band Page
 The second page of our website is titled the band page. On this page we wanted to give a little bit of background information about the band and there personal life. We did so as we felt that it would give an insight in to there lives and make a personal connection with fans as we are a new fresh group starting out.
  As you can see we originally planned a very basic page with info and in depth background on the personal lives of the band. We also wanted to carry over the same menu bar and countdown clock to make this a constant throughout the website.

  However we quickly realized  during the construction of the website that this would not be enough to fill up the page, therefore to the right of the bold biography box we have added a live link to our instagram page which displays any of the current pictures that the group are uploading. This is also comes with a URL touch link which allows you to jump straight to the instagram website if so desired.

Gallery Page
Next up we have the gallery page which on paper was always going to be the most simple page on the website as we wanted the images to speak for themselves. We have achieved this by keeping the page extremely simple with just the slide show of images in the middle of the page with the same background and menu bar at the top. This as can be seen below was not on the original first draft draw up however we felt that it would be too bare without this. We therefore added these features to fit the theme of the rest of the website whilst also adding more depth to the page.

Here we can see the gallery webpage as it stands after the first construction. It really conveys the crisp structure of the hole 'Encoded brand' as such. We also plan to add many more pictures and images into the gallery than there is as it stands. This will take place after another photo shoot which we have planned in the near future.

UK Tour Page
The next page on our original plan was that advertising our first UK tour to promote our debut album 'Open Spaces' and the first chosen single 'Call me Ishmael'. At the group meeting we discussed this as being one of our crucial pages and that we wanted to make it stand out. We did this by linking the album in with the countdown clock which is present throughout the website counting down to the release date of the album. When asking people there opinion on the website first construction this was one of there favorite features (see website feedback post).

Only a couple of fundamental changes were made from the original plan to the first construction. Once again we added the standard menu bar at the top of the page to accompany the title and countdown. Also we added the video announcing the Tour which is really now the focal point of the page. It also plays automatically when you navigate onto the page so it draws the viewers attention in straight away which is a real benefit, almost acting as an automated advert system. The video can also be found on the home page further down the news feed style area.

Contact Us page
This was the final page that we planned in the original meeting and draft. It consisted of an area by which members of the public could get in direct contact with the band and make us feel a very like able and approachable act. This is important when starting out as a new music act as it helps to gather support quickly, backing this up with our accessibility on social media we believe it will help to kicks start the group on the right foot with the fans,

The original plan was pretty basic on paper but the structure once again coupled with the crisp and professional finish using the wix software help to create another very easy using stylish looking page. The only changes were the adding of the top menu bar and the countdown clock. As you can see below the final style was very effective.

After completing these parts of the website we felt that it was necessary to add some more pages to the website in order to make it complete. After researching some other websites as well as our older research pages we decided that we needed to add a page of information on the album and also a shop/ merchandise area on the site.

Album Page 
We decided to insert a page specifically on 'Open Spaces'. We felt that it was such a big part of the project that it needed it's own area specifically on the website for fans to access. As I said earlier we also linked it in with the countdown clock which was an extremely popular feature with some of the early feedback we received. After researching further into album pages on various websites we found that it was a popular feature throughout many artists websites. For example, the Kasabian website which can be seen below, has a page dedicated to all of there albums.

Although we took inspiration from including the album page we did not want to base the design of the page around any of these pages as we wanted to make it completely unique and themed with the rest of the website. This was the following design that we eventually made and came up with. As you can see its sits with our theme, including a picture of the album cover as well as some bold information about the album and its release.

Shop Page
The second and final page we decided to add was our shop and merchandise page. We found that this was an ever present theme throughout every website that we visited. We therefore decided that it was essential to incorporate this into our site. Some examples of inspiration can be seen below as the merch section of size records website and the shop section for kings of leon site.

Once again we wanted to source our own design into the page rather than taking any design inspiration from current sites. The other key factor to consider is that we are going to add plenty more merchandise once produced to the section as the current supply is very minimal and we will certainly be improving this as soon as possible.

Costume Plan

We have been planning the costumes for me and Max wear throughout the video. We have decided on going for quite a plain indie look, coming from our influences including the vaccines and the Killers. Below is a collage of the sorts of styles and looks we were going to try and achieve with our costume.

Inspirations for our video

We found this video 'Little Monster' by Royal Blood which really sums up the sort of performance style video we are trying to achieve. However we'd like our video to develop much slower and steadier than the speedy drop on this one.

Weekly Planning Sheet sample

Below is a sample of the weekly planning sheet which our group produces in order to map out the tasks and duties which each member of the group will be taking responsibility for during the commencing week. As you can see the table involves many different tasks from blogging right the way through to painting props for filming.

Risk Assesments

In order to carry out the filming process safely and efficiently, as part of the planning process prior to filming we produced risk assessments for each location. Below I have inserted the risk assessments for filming in the forest location and the drama studio, the two most hazardous locations for filming. By carrying out the risk assessments we minimize the risk of potential incidents occurring and allow us to take the necessary precautions.

Costumes for our live Performance

For the performance part of our video we have had to plan exactly what costumes we are going to be wearing during the performance.

For me it will be a simple plain white T shirt, with a Checked pattern shirt over the top. This will be accompanied with jeans and plain white trainers. here we have tried to incorporate the simple crisp look we have wanted to create with the Encoded trademark however the checkered shirt still allows us to keep in touch with our 'indie' roots.

My Costume plan

We are trying to achieve an almost identical theme for max, except he will be wearing a simple short sleeved plain white shirt. He will also be wearing jeans, this allows us to look very similar and complete the encoded look but still gives each of us our own costume identity.

This is the look we will try to achieve for max except with a white shirt.

Encoded Live Show/ Performance video plan

Below I have inserted the plan for our live performance part of our video, we have taken inspiration from groups such as Mumford and sons (the fairy light idea) as well as looked to challenge the conventions of stereotypical 'indie' bands by including stage visuals such as confetti. The idea is relatively simple and crisp but I believe it will be extremely effective and professional once completed.

Prop list requires for the shoot:

-artist outfits ( to be decided)

- Encoded back drop

- Lights x 3

- Confetti

- 2 x Leaf blowers

- 2 x Black Sheets

- Guitar

- 2 Mic stands and Mics

- potentially drums subject to group decision.

Halfway Presentaion

Here we have the presentation that we delivered to the class at the half way stage of our project. Please only watch from 00:00 to 6:34 as this video also contains the other presentations from the class.

Permission Letter to use Song

We sent this letter to Atlantic records in order to get permission to use the song 'Call me Ishmael' by Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, as the soundtrack for our music video for our band Encoded. This was to avoid any potential complications at a later date involving copyright.

Digipack Research and plan

During the construction of our digipack we undertook a lot of research to gather ideas and inspiration for our own. During this process we examined packs from both modern day artists as well as those from years gone by. We liked the aesthetics of many of the older covers including the one we used for our main source of inspiration, that of 'Ballyhoo- the best of Echo & The Bunnymen, which can be seen below.
   We used this as a template and inspiration for our digipack and as you can see the Encoded digipack puts a modern unique spin on this design as well as showing key similarities such as the open space pictures of the clouds in our digipack, and the setting sun in that of the Ballyhoo's.

  

Below is the concept construction we designed from our research. It allowed us to create a physical copy of ideas and gave us a basis to work from when designing our actual digital copy.

Shooting Schedule

Below is the shooting schedule for our group. The schedule clearly states the date, what scene were going to shoot, whether its inside or outside, shot number, the location, characters and the props and special equipment required for the shot. This is a document that we can refer back to regularly if we are unsure when we are scheduled to be filming.

Weather Forecast for shoot number 4

As our fourth shoot was conducted at an outside location, the weather was something that we had to carefully take into consideration when planning which day we were going to go out and film. For one of the shots we planned on getting the sun coming through over the artists shoulder to creating an interesting natural light effect. We therefore required an early morning shoot as the sun was rising in clear sky conditions.

We therefore decided looking at the week we had scheduled to film, early on Saturday morning would give us the best chance of capturing the desired shot. As well as the forecast sunny conditions, the early morning rain would help to aid the shimmering light affect due to the water that would still be left around on the trees and other forest plants. This is something that could work to our advantage.

Pete Fraser Talk

Today we attended a talk with established teacher and media guru Pete Fraser. This was an extremely interesting and helpful experience, in which he talked a lot about the industry and drew on his experience as a teacher in order to advise us the best ways in which to achieve the highest grades possible in our coursework. He showed us ways in which not to be to cliche and to challenge stereotypes, as well as advising us not to use too well known a song during our project as the examiner would be constantly comparing us to the original production.  

Storyboard

After much discussion, debating and planning we have come up with an initial idea for our music video. We have produced a storyboard for the video idea which is displayed below. The initial idea centers around the two band members and their day and preparation in the run up to a Live show or performance based ending to the video. This idea will allow us to be very flexible with editing and shooting schedules as it does not require lots of travel and can be filmed in and around the groups availability. The storyboard below outline the initial plan and sequence of events how they are going to occur in order during the video.

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Narrated Storyboard

As a continuation of the basic photo based storyboard that can be seen earlier on in the blog, we have produced a moving narrated story board to help us and the viewer create more of a visual interpretation into what we want the desired final music video to look like. This can be viewed above.

Stealomatic

Here we have created a Steal-omatic for our chosen song 'Call me Ishmael', the video is a moving mood board which displays influences for each of the planned stages of our storyboard from current and established music videos. The video plays to our track and includes artists such as Royal Blood and One direction in the Stealomatic.