pop websites research

Katy Perry's album is similar to Beyonce's in that it is also very visual showing the news stories on the home page in creative images, and so you scroll the background image of the artist changes. This is typical of pop artist websites as they are trying to immerse you in as much of the star as possible because that is what the fans expect and want. Contrastingly to the last two websites that I have looked at the Katy Perry website is very bright, which is simply due to the images from her recent album being used as the background.
I think for my website I might try to emulate this brightness as it is a key convention to the genre to keep colour and brightness in the work, even in the other websites which had a black theme, they were still bright. For example, the Avril Lavigne website had bright pinks and the artists face was extremely bright due to the contrast and therefore caught your eye.

pop websites research

Avril Lavigne's website is a prime example for less is more, which is typical for the pop genre, generally only featuring an image of the artist on a plain background. Avril Lavigne's website is on a black textured background, this could an attempt to translate her alternative, punky star image. The image of the artist is the front cover of her recent album, therefore creating a linking marketing campaign and helping to subliminally promote her new album.

pop websites research

Beyonce's website is very visual, with the home page acting as a photo news feed. Which as you hover over images it reveals the news story for the image. It has a hidden side menu page that when clicked on comes out to show a search bar and two of the typical pages for music websites, of music and tour. The others are promotional pages, marketing her fragrance, shop and raising awareness for her charity. The website helps to get across the stars image which is so important for this genre, it does this through the images on the home page showing her as the confident, sexy independent woman that she is so well known for being. Showing her personality and caring attitude through the page dedicated to her charity. And her music through both the music page and store, in which when you open the page it automatically plays a video presenting the clothes with one of her songs playing over the top.

Progress

Today we continued editing the footage, moving into the song rather than the opening. It was difficult to find the first clip that we all agreed on as went weren't sure how make the transition between the opening to the main song work well. We finally decided to do more of an establishing shot of  the London Eye panning to our artist, however, this still didn't seem to fit properly. Then Nicola had the idea to jump cut the shot so that it didn't linger as much and so would fit the song more. I feel that this worked really well. We also edited some singing to camera shots and filler location/ having fun shots.

Ideas for glow make-up

For one of the main sections of the video we are planning on doing glow in the dark make-up. Here are some of the sort of styles of make-up we all discussed trying out, that I made on photoshop. Some things that we discussed around this topic were either more simple make-up - going off the less is more theory, or more extravagant as the artist is meant to not care and just want to have fun and so it would seem to suit that she would have over the top make-up on. We were all in agreement the make-up should focus around the artists eyes and lips so as to accentuate her beauty. We also thought it would be good to give it some sort of artistic flare even with the simple make-up so that it still looks interesting and shows off the singers style. We also discussed the idea of using glitter on the eye-brows and lips, however, there were disagreements as to whether this would look too much.  






The first photo is a representation of the slightly more simple make-up with just two colours. Focusing around the lips and eyes. It also shows the idea of having a bottom colour under the eyes as the more artistic, out of the ordinary make-up style. I think if we were to use glitter this would be the best make-up style to use it on.

The second photo shows the more extravagant make-up style with lots of different colours. It is meant to represent the characters more unusual, quirky style. Again the style focuses around the eyes and lips to help accentuate the artists feautres. I do not think glitter would be a good idea for this look as it would definitely look too over the top. For both looks we were thinking of having slight paint splatters around her face and body. This is to make the looks less precise and regimented, and keep up with the whole idea of the video of having fun.

The final look was something that I was thinking would be good for the backing dancers, if we went through with the dance number. I thought it was still important to focus around the eyes and lips, however, the colours are less bright and the design is less feminine, therefore not detracting from the main artist, but still visually interesting.  

These looks were somewhat inspired by the make-up as seen in the recent music video to Neon Lights by Demi Lovato, which accentuate the artists features and beauty in a similar way to what we envisage.

Progress

Yesterday we started editing our footage. We started by editing together the opening scene, however there were some issues with this as some of the shots weren't the right frame or lacked continuity so we are considering refilming this scene. But for now we've just edited together what we have in order to get a vague visual representation of our ideas.

Filming - Issues

We planned to film the powder paint party today. However, due to the majority of people we needed to be involved in the scene being unable to attend, we have postponed filming to the 25th/26th of January in the hopes that more people will be able to make it and that we will therefore end up with a more realistic-looking 'party' (more than 5 people there).

Websites

There are typical codes and conventions for a music artists website. They typically have a home, news, music, and gallery page. On which will be filled with all things to do with the artist. Generally they also have links to social media sites such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook as well so that you can access all information to them easily from the one site. The main function of the website is to inform the fans of what the artist is up to and sell to them, and  to promote the artist to the target audience. For example you might not be a huge fan of the artist but if you went onto their website for a mundane reason and it automatically played their new music video and then gave you a link to purchase the song, you'd be more likely to buy it.

Genre

Each genre has a particular style to their websites. For example the rock genre tend to stick to abstract shapes as the backgrounds or just plan back colours, showing the bands interests and style (Cage The Elephant and The Hives). The pop genre ALWAYS have a large image of the artist, which sometimes flicks through similar images as you scroll down the page, showing how important star image is (Britney Spears). The rap genre tend to have videos as their immediate visual , showing that the music is what they care about/ the message they want to give (Profession Green).

Filming

Today we went up to London to film some shots of our artist lip syncing to the song in front of famous land marks. Unfortunately we lost some time out of the day due to people being late, but we still managed to film the majority of what we needed to get done, only missing out on filming some scenes in Camden due to the light fading. However, these shots can be easily picked up later, so it's not too much of an issue. Further issues included forgetting some of the necessary parts for the tripod, however I don't the we really needed the tripod as handheld shots achieved a better result as we were able to move around the artist and get more interesting shots. We learned throughout the day which way to film the artist achieved the best look, with the first shots having slightly too much movement - to the last shots still being visually interesting but not moving around so much as to disorientate the viewer.

Also during the day we took photos from each location for possible use in our digi-packs. My favorite photos being the ones taken at the skate park by Nicola.

Making The Powder Paint

Today we started making some batches of the powder paint. We decided to make green, blue, orange, pink and yellow. We also mixed pink and blue to make purple.

We decided to make the powder rather than buy it as it is cheaper to make, and also as we are filming the paint scenes on Sunday it would be quicker to make our own than to order online, therefore we'd definitely have the powder ready in time for filming.

To make the powder we simply used corn flour mixed with diluted food dye.

Afterwards we decided to the make further batches individually at home, as the more powder we have the more shots we can do with it, which will enable us to get a wide range of shots to chose from.

We also decided to additionally make red powder. We initially thought best not to use red as it would be too similar to pink, but seeing how clear the colours came out we didn't think this would be a problem.

pop digipack research

The Femme Fatale album by Britney Spears is typical of female pop artists, again having a close up image of the artists face as the front cover, and then a body shot of the artist as the back cover. With this album the artist is still trying to regain her star image, and so is has styled the album in a very sophisticated manner to try to detract from her public reputation. Therefore showing how recording companies try to rebrand and market stars so as to get the best reaction from the audience and sell records.

pop digipack reseach

The album art for Rihanna's Unapologetic album has a voyeuristic nature to it, featuring images of the artist naked (front cover), and nearly naked (back cover). Again showing how important it is for their to be an image of the artist on the front of a pop album as they are the star, they have star image, and then fans want and expect to see the artist. Rihanna's star image is that of a slightly rebellious sex icon, therefore keeping up this image in her album art as it is what the fans expect. However the cover has a different meaning too as nakedness doesn't always reflect sexual objectification, and in this album it seems to more represent vulnerability showing the artists softer side; shes showing her entire body, all of her metaphorical flaws, you can see everything and as the title suggests ('Unapologetic') she is not ashamed. Therefore, yes, presenting the sexy star image of Rihanna that we all know and expect but also showing deeper meaning and context to perhaps what the songs on the album are like.

Pop Digipak research

Again with Adele's 21 album both the front and back cover feature a picture of the artist. However unlike most female pop albums the cover is in black and white with the artist appearing to be deep in thought. This may be to hint to the artists sophistication and therefore appeal to a much wider age range encompassing older audience members as well. Then once you open the case and get the CD it is a bright green clearly showing the conventions of pop by keeping that bright colour, just on the inside as the outside has to appeal to the large audience range of both young and old. The green on the CD links to the green 21 on the front cover, therefore connecting the two in a recognisable style, therefore if you saw just the CD or just the case you'd know which album it belonged to.

Pop Digipak reseach

Although Jessie J's album art for the 'Who you are' album seems quite simplistic, it uses this to make it eye catching and help self the artist. Sticking to the genre the cover features a single photo of the artist, her facial expressions of determination immediately catch the attention of the audience. There is also a strong contrast between the black and white helping to draw attention to the artist and focus the attention of the audience to the CD, which is important for album art considering hard copies would be surrounded by loads of other CDs in shops. The album also includes key motifs of the artist which help the audience to identify her e.g. nails and interesting lip make-up which is key to Jessie J's star image. Finally the importance of the artist is further raised by the logo of her name both being used (calls upon the familiar audience) and the fact that its the largest writing and most colorful thing in the picture, which helps to draw attention to it.  

Pop Digipak research

Katy Perry's Prism is a great example of a pop album. The cover features a picture of the artist, in which it shows her as beautiful and fragile surrounded by nature and covering her body. The cover is very bright with pastel colours. The album cover is particularly effective as it is out of the ordinary for the artist to have a more natural image. This theme is carried out throughout the digipack. The cover uses two texts, one for the artist name and one for the album title. They both seem to contradict the natural picture as they both look quite technological, I feel that this font type is important in confirming the genre.




The album is made using a holographic effect which helps to reflect the ideas of light (in the name prism) and nature. Within the CD you also get a pack of seeds which further shows the meaning behind the album and represents the artist views and attitudes towards the environment. It also draws more appeal to the audience to actually buy the hard copy of the CD.