SnapChat Conversation with my group

While I was designing the Digi-Pack I wanted some feedback to see if I was going in the right direction. I utilised an application called 'Snapchat' which allows me to send an image in real time
to anyone with the app. I sent images of my Digipack while I was creating it and made changed where necessary.

After snap chatting my work so far, I received constructive feedback and decided to act upon this and improve my digi pack. I will then re snap the process and gain feedback as I progress.



Snapchat was very useful in gaining feedback, it was surprising to see that a social tool can be used in  a constructive and efficient way as all I needed was my phone and internet; this allowed me to send an image to anyone who was on my contact list for free and within a few seconds no matter where in the world they live.

Editing of Main Product + Digipack/Website

As our group met 3 times a week in our media lessons, we had a set time to get certain tasks completed such as gaining audience feedback, filming or editing. This allowed us to collaborate our ideas and gain creative criticism from our media teachers.  

We had split the work into equal amounts with Ryco undertaking majority of filming, Elijahn creating the website and myself producing the Digi pack, Photoshoot images and Filming certain scenes. 

This allowed us to ensure a level of consistency between our media products so the target audience can see our products and immediately understand the digi pack, website and music video are part of the same artist - this creates a brand identity. 

Website/Digi Pack Main House Colours

Nearly all artists and musicians follow certain colour schemes which allows the audience to identify their 'brand' among others, our chosen colour scheme is Red, Black, Gold and White. The choice of red, black and white are traditntal house colour schemes for many brand in many industries however the addition of gold makes our products stand out further as it resembles quality and bling - this in an appealing factor to out target audience - Hussein

Artist Brand Identity EZ MAK Character Profile:

Each artist has a unique and identifiable theme and style that audiences relate to. This ‘brand image’ is usually constrained by the genre and props used in the music videos. As our genre is hip-hop/ rap and dance and the album name is ‘Money Flows’, our brand image would be based around wealth/bling. The target audience is also a major factor that the image should consider; our target audience is youth, who would appeal to money, wealth and success.

This leads to our logo, which is one of the main symbols the target audience would see. The main symbols I have narrowed down include; Diamonds, Watches, Cars, Dangerous animals and jewellery/bling.

Website pages

Website 8 Update: some new changes on the website, I have decided to enlarge the name 'EZ Mak' this could help show the significance of the name and allows it to stand out a lot more than it had. i have also brought it slightly down to be able to put a banner at the top for some social media links. I have also added the chat box at the bottom on the screen. I have done this to allow a more 'interactive audience' and create a closer link with the listeners.

From the second photo we can see I have made some additions and changes. I have added the comment box below the news to assume a more interactive audience; the box contains more social media links. I have also decided to get rid of the music box, which used to be on the right of the screen to now become a social media and mailing list box. All the changes I have made allow a perspective of a community and more interconnectedness through the media.

-Elijahn

Website Merchanside

Website 4 Update: I Have now added the Merchandise store to the website, currently I have created 5 products all with the same Diamond logo on it and I am calling it the 'Diamond' collection for obvious reasons. The products I have created are simple but affective as they highly relate to the music genre we have chosen. There are connotations with urban music and 'urban' style clothes. For example Beanies, small pouches and wristbands, these are loosely linked because it its part of the urban music culture and are seen a lot on hip/hop artists.

I have chosen to create the Diamond collection because we had decided that it would be EZ Mak's (our artists) symbol, as documented on my first website creation post. I hope to be able to create more merchandise for the page and update the slide show on the photo above ^  

Update: Created more merchandise for the EZ Mak shop, I decided to make 2 types of headphones for the shop to give a feel of availability and flexibility to the 'brand' this makes it seem more prestige and allows me to 'charge' premium prices. I will update the shop soon and hope to be able to put up the digipak and sell it as an album soon.
-Elijahn

New Website Pages

-Elijahn

Website updates

Website 7 Update: We have decided to change the website background, this is because we thought that the other background didn't fit in with our group and the diamond background went with our branding that we wanted for our group. I have also added a few more pieces of merchandise to the website, these include: A cap and a Hoodie. We still have no photos to put up for our homepage slide but we hope to have the photo-shoot done soon and upload some photos within this month. We also hope to be able to finish the whole website and publish it this month.
-Elijahn

Website Construction

Website 3 Update: I have started to add more content to the website. For example I have created some "latest" news such as: a debut single and a merchandise sale, I hope to be able to create a page dedicated to merchandise to show what is 'on sale' I will be able to do this by creating some artist merchandise through editing photos with Adobe Photoshop.

The current video on the page is not our finished music video product but we hope to be able to upload it within the following weeks.
-Elijahn

Website creation

Website 2 Update: We decided to revert to our original layout choice, we have also decided to keep the background for the website, and this is because we believe it fits in with our music genre. The old website layout did not seem to fit our music video genre and felt more like a rock/alternative style, this one looks more hip-hop and urban which is what we are aiming for. We also like the slide show in the front of the page, which would be very eye catching when we get some photos on to it.

I will be uploading a step-by-step process of the creation of my group’s website. I will be documenting any major changes that may happen and upload update photos of it as time goes on. We have chosen to use this page layout for now. We are still yet to decide on a font so I will be keeping this Default font temporarily. The diamonds across the page were chosen to be our groups symbol as it has links towards their music genre.
-Elijahn

Resolving an Issue: Changing the Song

Filming Shoot - Progress

Update on filming shoot progress:

As the music video requires a range of locations, we have filmed in 3 locations and have enough footage/shots to be able to start our drafts and editing. So far we have shots of parties and some shots that show the main character lip-syncing and dancing, including props and appropriate establishing shots. My group has come together to try and film together to be able to work on the filming and so far we have some material we can use. We also made sure to try and get some pictures of the settings and parties to try and see if we can use them within our other parts of production such as the website and digipak. The next step is to gather product specific shots for our website and Digipack for the front cover and various pages.

Website Font Choices

Font Research for the website:

This is a font mood board that Elijahn (Website designer) had created to allow our group to attempt to choose what style we wanted on our products or just to give us an idea of what type of font we may go for. Here he has put together fonts from 2 different websites, and tried to get modern looking fonts styles to try and link it back to our music genre which is aimed at younger people who like modern style. The style would ideally need to match the font on the digi pack, to ensure a consistent brand identity and theme.
-Elijahn

January Schedule

After December, we have limited time left to complete the final products including the Website, Digipack and Music video. To efficiently manage our time, the filming will be done mainly after school ours whereas the Digipack and Website will be collaboratively worked on during media lessons. This would also allow us to discuss our changes with each other while working on the both so we wouldn't run into many problems during the process. Also as usual most of the editing and filming of the music video would be done in the weekends as that is typically when we are all free. We are also planning to do a photo-shoot of relevant props, locations and the main artists to go on the website and the digipak.
-Elijahn

December Planning Schedule

This is our group-filming schedule for December 2014. We encountered a few problems such as not being able to have our filming group free at times, we eventually ended up having 2 scheduled filming and editing days as a group during the month. In addition to juggling other subject work and research, Christmas made is even harder for our group to come together to film. However we hope to have enough footage filmed during these 2 days and starts to put together a final version of the music video. The next month we plan to commence editing.
-Elijahn

Filming Equipment Obstacles:

Digi Pack Construction No 2

While constructing the Digi - Pack I wanted to create certain effects and edits however had to research how to make them as I was unaware if it could be done. I wanted to make a realistic looking media product and used a variety of techniques to do this. I had struggled to perform all the edits and effects as I am not as skilled as the designers who produce real media products. Along this process I am to maximise my skills on Photoshop by using Youtube Tutorials and asking for advice from experts. 

I used the Text tool to add effects such as shadows, 3d, colour and size changes to make the product stand out and appeal further to the targeted audiences. 

To ensure the consistency between the website I wanted to choose a bold and universal font but at the same time unique. This was a challenging task as it would essentially be part of the overall brand identity and it would be the main focus of the audience as they would want to read the song lists, artist name and other information. After experimenting with online font websites such as Dafont and Photoshop fonts, I came across Phosphate Solid, this was the perfect font as it was both simple and fit our 'look. 

I will now send the font to Elijahn to add this to the website and also incorporate in during scenes of the music video, which will tie all the products together. 

Digi pack construction 3

Update 3: From the initial construction stages, I feel I have made good progress as the front cover has been completed, there are however a few details to add. 

This was a time consuming process as it required me to erase the background of each layer so they don't overlap each other. 

The second issue I had was the sizing of the layers as Digi Pack sizes are square as opposed to an a4 sheet of paper. 

I then found the exact dimensions of an average digi pack and entered them to reformat the pages. 

Digi Pack Construction

Digi pack: The Digi pack will be made along the same theme as the music video and website in terms of the font, colour scheme, actors and props however as the album is called ‘money flows’, identifying symbols such as money, notes and expensive items would be ideal on the front cover. This will conform to the norms of a digi pack as well as act as an identifier to audiences.

Digi pack logo

Images from Filming

The video files were too big to directly upload to Blogger so I decided to take stills of some of the clips taken from our video shoots in a few locations. These are mostly party shots as that is the main location we wanted for our video. I have chosen to use these specific stills because they show good camera work and show some common themes within our genre we have chosen. For example, blur shots, Alcohol and Dancing.
-Elijahn

Group Chat: Update on Filming

Contact Sheet

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Group WhatsApp Discussion