24.06.10

In today's lesson, we began researching official websites for artists and bands to grasp a basic understanding of how to present information in a professional manner. We selected the 'pop' genre as it has a wide range of artists that we were familiar with, which as a result led us to choosing Britney Spears. After locating her official website, we analysed in in terms of content, design, colour and technologies to conclude as to how the audience is targeted and addressed. Our findings on this can be viewed here:

Images and Logos - Bright colours; mainly pink, purple and baby blue which indicates female audience. Photos show her looking flawless, fashionable, skinny, ect. Logo isn't particularly a trademark. Images promoting merchandise and Britney products, particularly perfumes.

Genre - Happy, positive vibes in general. Clean and bright. She is expressed to be a role model as it doesn't highlight gossip from the press but focuses on her career.

New Technologies - There are many options displayed in the headers including links to social networking webpages such as twitter, myspace, youtube and facebook. This highlights how her website attempts to target fans from all across the Internet. It also portrays how her audience is young and up to date with technology. Additionally, an app for the i-phone is advertised suggesting Britney is attempting to reach out through devices.

Colour, Style, Layout and Font - The use of stereotypical female colours is frequent, indicating her fan base is primarily women. The style is simple and easy to follow with links that are clearly displayed at the top. The font used is basic and nothing that is associated to Britney. The font is also quite small which suggests a young audience again.

Advertisements - There are advertisements displayed all down the right hand side of the website, featuring perfume, clothing, music, apps and general merchandise. It is evident the aim is to push the products, and competitions such as "win a dress" by downloading the i-phone app works as evidence of this.

Other research that we conducted was accessing fan-created websites. It allowed us to establish the differences between a professional and amateur web page. The main points noticed from fan sites were;

• They concentrate on gossip and news from the press that are based on the private life of the artist than the career.



• They post photos and videos that are not 'official'.

• The posts are not always accurate and post rumours as reality.
  

• The layout is more complicated and often have 'sister sites' to other similar acts.

After learning the differences, we attempted to create our own professional web page for Britney Spears. We took all the factors into consideration and studied her official page closely. This is the outcome:

The skill learnt today was: how to create a professional-looking websites for artists.

22.06.10

In today's session, our task was to create a music video to "The Perfect Day, Elise" by PJ Harvey. We worked in different groups which allowed us to experience team work with different people. The main objective of the task, however, was to practise lip-syncing lyrics to the song. It was quite a challenge as even a micro-second would make the image on screen appear wrong. We used existing clips to construct the videos and spent roughly an hour and a half in total. We are pleased with the finished products and also found it interesting that we approached the task in different directions in terms of narratives and special effects.

Kayleigh & George:

Ashleigh & Josh:

The skill learnt today was: lip-syncing

17.06.10

Today we experimented with cut editing to the beat using the song 'Dance' by Justice. It had a rapid beat that constantly changed which presented us with the challenge of syncing the lyrics to the clips. We managed to create a range of lyric shots with video shots to make the video more interesting and to fill up the minor gaps that were instrumental. We had an hour to complete as much as possible. We decided that quality is more important than quantity and aimed to create a video to a high standard in terms of timing, the content on the screen and how it is presented to the audience. We used items that were already on the macs provided to create this clip and as it was our first time practising, we did not use video footage but still images of the lyrics instead. This was a challenge as it is more difficult than we presummed. We spent most of our time trying to sync the images to the lyrics. From this task, we have learnt from minor mistakes how to improve this techeque. Mainly to ensure the words fit on the screen by creating a still image.

The skill learnt today was: cut editing to a beat