Finished Video

Final Website

Our Website - The Roaches

Final Updated Digipak

Evaluation Task 4 - Video Script

Online Research Into Target Audience, Narrative, Star Image

• we looked for these bands on Spotify by looking at grunge rock playlists
• We used youtube to look at the music videos of grunge rock bands, 
• then used google to research any event that happened to learn of their behaviour and the way they present themselves as a visual image, for dyer explains that this is what a star image is.

Filming Animatic - What we learnt from this

• We used our iPhones to take pictures of our storyboard, we then used iMovie to cut each shot to the beat 
• This helped establish a timeline of shots, and also helped us gain greater understanding of when we should include narrative or performance shots when in post-production.

Filming Our Music Video - How we used the camera more creatively than in AS

• We featured a wider variety of shot choices than in AS, using the same camera, a Canon XF305
• Examples of these are far wide shots, quad shots, over the shoulder shots, tracking and panning shots. 

Editing - How you edited more creatively than AS

• This year we used the programme premiere pro, which is an extremely advanced platform for editing videos of any sort, this allowed us to implement advanced effects into our music video which enhanced its professional qualities and its narrative elements. 
• For example we created a colour shift effect on several shots to enhance our narrative as it looked like the visual hallucinations of a schizophrenic patient. This was done by adding a colour balance (HLS) effect to the shot and changing the hue/saturation levels at different key frames in the clip.
• Last year, we used the programme iMovie. This is less advanced than Premiere Pro, therefore there was limited capabilities in adding effects to individual shots, rather we could only apply effects such as filters across the entire video, which we did by creating a red hue over all our shots. The change in programmes aided us as we could implement more advanced and creative ideas into our music video.

Digipak and Website - How we created a cohesive package that ran along 3 different platforms

• We created a cohesive package than ran along 3 different products to effectively sell our star image to the alienated youth. 
• For example we used Befunky software online, this allowed us to adjust the colours of our images and thus we could conform to the conventions of grunge rock bands, and by using these same colour adjustments across all three platforms we were able to build up our star image of rebellious and dark emotions, therefore we created a cohesive image across the platform. 

Evaluation Task 4

Evaluation Task 3

Evaluation Task 2

Evaluation Task 1

Feedback on our Website

We asked all three of these women the same simple question 'What did you think of our website?'

They all gave really positive responses bringing up important features of the website.

In the first video response she noticed how the black and white colour scheme match the rock genre, which was one of our key focusses when designing the website so we are really happy this came across. Secondly the fact that there was links to social media was also praised, this was another important aspect of the website as a new organic band its important for us to utilise social media where the majority of our target audience constantly use so we can build our fanbase and increase our popularity.



This second video of feedback, was also full of praise for the website but for different reasons. Again she mentions about the colour scheme which is positive to know that people are noticing this and making the link to the rock genre. However, she also explains how easy the website is to navigate and use which is the most important part of any website that all the links work and its easy to use. This will also increase the likely hood of people buying our merchandise if its easy to access. Furthermore, the fact she mentioned the font standing out also is nice to here as we wanted the font to stand out from the black and white background and bring the attention to the important part of the website.



Lastly, this feedback video also gave us something different to think about. She pointed out that our website had all the important features that she wants to see on a band website including the shop to buy merchandise and links to social media. Not only does this highlight that the website is clear and easy to use but that it makes people want to use it and the fact she noticed that we had a shop is very positive as that will hopefully be a strong way to generate income as the band grows through selling merchandise.




This is negative feedback that we received. The negative response was directed towards the website being bland and not standing out through the black and white colours. Although this was intentional to fit the rock genre and the dark themes we do acknowledge that the colours might not stand out enough.

Development of Our Website

Wix was the website engine that enabled us to make our website. With having no prior knowledge to wix, I tackled it hands on and kept learning new tools and animations to use throughout to simply spice up the website and make it more appealing to the alienated youth and a smoother transition from different aspects of the site. We went for dark colours as it connotes anger and darkness as we are reaching out the disengaged members of society.

This was evident on our homepage as we included black and grey as the main colour tones along with a band photo to promote the organic aspect of ourselves and sell our star image to this isolated youth. Furthermore, we included blog posts so our fan-base can connect with us and are notified to what offers we have in store for them to allow them to buy into our star image even further. We also felt it was imperative to include our debut music album to again reiterate the importance of allowing our star image to buy into our organic band. This was not only increase our fan base but also strengthen our music ability to sell music on a national scale.

 
The 'About' page we felt really gave us a chance to explain our band members, information about their age and name and also go into detail about the tough past experiences our lead singer has experienced. We wanted to highlight the stigmas and importance related to mental health. This is a key aspect of our band that we wish to promote not only in our music but also in our debut album and of course our website. The page explains how our lead singer has experienced mental health issues that are discussed in the song Lithium, we feel that this is important to express and highlight the struggles of the lead singer which are ordinary problems this makes the band resonate our target audience who may have experienced or have family members who have had mental issues. As a new organic band we want to build a real fan base who through our music relate to and appreciate us as a band and this is achieved by not just singing songs about general aspects of life but issues that we have gone through and ordinary people go through everyday. This page highlights this fact that we are just ordinary people who have problems and express them through our music.

The 'Media' page was vital in enabling our fan base to expand on a national scale. We knew that with modern innovative social media, our organic fan base could grow exponentially if we set up accounts with Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. By opening accounts with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it allowed us to interact with our social following and also keep them up to date with photos, tweets and posts. The replies our fan base receives from the accounts are all actual band member replies which promotes the trust and relationship between the band and the fans. We included our music video and album sale on our media page too so our fans could be shown, if not seen already, our music video and have a chance to buy our debut album so they can buy into our star image further. We received a lot of fan messages which showed the support of the alienated youth and how we have touched them in a way that they can relate to us.

















The store was an essential part of creating the website well as it has allowed us to really allow our fans connect with us by being our merchandise. Whilst merchandise will also be sold at the concerts, it is a fundamental aspect to ensure our bands make a living of providing music to the world. We felt the design choices of classic 'The Roaches' on all the merchandise was vital in really capturing the fans and also when they were it, the chance to open our band to new members who also feel disengaged from society. This will not only widen our target audience but also increase the money for the band to allow them to grow. The merchandise we kept minimal as we felt we didn't want to over-power our fans with too much choice. By keeping it simple allows them to buy into our star image and come time, more featured items will be listed like for example our tour hoodie of our debut tour which will change when we go on our next tour to make each item of clothing memorable.



The 'Contact' page we felt to keep minimal as it is appears more professional if we were to be contacted regarding to play at a party or an event. That is why we have been concise in saying how to contact us and who to contact regarding what enquiry. This page was more related in terms of a professional aspect if we were to play at like a festival as oppose to our fans reaching out to us as they can do that through our social media followings.



The EPK we created was vital in the creation of our website. It includes informative content of our band such as the music video, a musical biography about the band and more. EPK's are seen as a modern approach to a promotion of ones music and our EPK certainly gives our website important and clear knowledge of our organic band. This makes it easy for future record labels and potential bookings as to what sort of music we produce, content about ourselves and why we are The Roaches.


The 'Tour' page was again taken in a minimalist approach as we already have informative content throughout our website, we felt that the tour page should simply show our fans when and where we are performing on our tour. We connected our account to BandsInTown which clearly shows where and when we are performing during our tour making it clear for our fan base to know. By going on tour, we will be able to sell our star image as an organic rock band to the disengaged youth and allow the band to grow by going on more and more tours.


We also changed the scrolling settings to parallax which is when you scroll up and down, the background stays in the same place and all of the images stay individually to give it a more professional and efficient effect. Using wix, allowed us to apply this to all pages.

Website 1st Draft Feedback

First Draft of Website

Link for our website

Approaching our website with little to near no experience, we took it hands on. With the current access to modern technology, the website we used to create our website was wix, and included images of our lead singer as the focal point for our website. Whilst he is included with our band, we feel that he is the star image and helped reach this out in several ways. Our first attempt included 4 pages with a smooth interface and background. Whilst we may keep our core of the 4 pages, we are going to alter the backgrounds, possible album covers etc. However, this was our first attempt and we will carry on to make improvements until our website is exemplary.

With our idea in mind, we wanted to capture our lead singer, Riley appearing as the icon in all the aspects of our website with a variety of different photos. Our favourite photo is where he is in a white jumper with the words 'hate' written all over it. This collectors Supreme item really portrays the image we want in order to reach out to the alienated youth who feel disengaged from society. The album covers came along really well as we have one with a mysterious feel to it as you can't see behind the cover but you can see a drummer. Then to also have an element where you can actually see the singer, we chose to have another cover where he is in a skull tee shirt to resemble his mental struggles he carries with him on a daily basis.

We chose to place our tool bar and font positioning in different directions to avoid confusion with our audience. Furthermore, we went for a rather rigid font colour to hold an aggressive tone to our viewers.

choice and placing of the font
choice of image and how it sells the artist
choice of colours to reflect the genre of the artist
pages - why you had different pages to sell the artist



Here our screen grabs of our website, go check it out in the link at the top of this post!

4 Websites Analysed and Compared to Our Artist

Nirvana official website

Nirvana's website is perfect to sell there band and genre of music. The website background is black which is the colour that best represents the rock genre. However this is contrasted with the yellow of all the writing to help that stand out on the website. Furthermore, the website includes a front page that is designed to push there music across as the most important thing with a link to their music videos as the first thing presented. They have pages that who all their CD covers, a timeline of history of the band that helps show fans or general people the history of the band, a page of all their videos and merchandise. This website would be perfectly suited to our artist who is similar to nirvana, the colour schemes and the layout are both what we would like to represent on our website. 

The Ramones website 
Again this website is very similar to that of Nirvana's this is because they were similar bands within the same genre of music. They also have gone for a predominantly black and white theme which connotes the rock genre because of the dark colours and used a pink colour to highlight the name of the band to make that stand out. Both Nirvana and the Ramones being similar and old bands the websites have similar features. The Ramones website also has a timeline of the bands history as that is important as an old legendary band to remind fans or show new interested people about what the band was like. As an old but legendary band they also have lots of merchandise on sale as their brand and star image is still very appealing and fashionable to many teenage youths that regularly wear those sort of clothes.  Similarly to Nirvana's website this website also captures what as a band we would want our website to look like following similar colour schemes and layout that are clearly popular with the rock genre. As a new band we would have to do more promotion on the website and not things such as timelines but really push new shows and now songs to gather a bigger audience.

Biffy Clyro website 
Biffy Clyro are another band from the rock genre who we are trying to take inspiration from and where they differ from Nirvana and the Ramones is that they are a current band who are still performing and making new music. This shows when analysing all three websites instead of a timeline or an emphasis on all their old classics which the other two websites focus on Biffy clyro are focusing on promoting their new music and their upcoming shows and tours. This is something that our artists website is going to be centred around, as new band we need to promote the tours and new music to grow the fanbase as a new organic band member. Out of all three websites this is the one which we believe should be most similar to our artist. They have also gone for a very similar colour theme with a black background which is usually the colour of choice for rock bands to represent the genre of music. Another important difference is their focus on fan interaction as a modern band which is something that we feel is important to include on a website.

Justin Bieber website 
Justin Bieber is a pop artist and not a rock artist and when analysing websites its important to look at other not just in the rock genre to see what they do differently and why. The biggest difference is evidently the colours of the website they are a lot more bright and less harsh then those of the rock bands. This is because his genre of music is more colourful and a lot less deep and the target audience of young teenagers mainly female are attracted to bright colours and not dark and unwelcoming. However, its is very likely that if you saw his website 5 years ago it would look even more colourful and appealing more to females, because as he has grown up his star image, style and music have adapted slightly to a more cool style to which has grown his male fanbase which is why the website is very unisex. Although our artist is very different  to Bieber in genre and star image there are aspects such as promoting his music and shows that we can take inspiration from, however the colour scheme of the website will be very different and be more similar to the first 3 websites.

Record Creation

Along with creating a digipak, we also created a vinyl album in order to better adhere to the long tail theory. Chris anderson explains that once an artist establishes a star image, thus creating their brand, the music industry will start to create a range of products directed towards their target audiences. For example CD digipak covers are crucial for displaying visual information of the artist before the music is sold. Therefore, with the resurgence of vinyl sale sin the last 3 years, we decided to enlarge the access to our bands brand through an authentic vinyl album.

This is the Album Artwork.

Digipak Update

The main/only change was that we added the copyright details at the bottom of the back cover;

The reason for this update firstly was because we had forgot to do this in the first place when creating the digital, and also because by adding these details we make the digital seem more realistic. It now has a more authentic feel to it.

Feedback on Our Digipak

To receive feedback on our digipak I sent it out to a classmate on iMessage and asked him to send me back a message with their thoughts on, 1. Their initial thoughts on the artwork, 2. What type of band they were given the impression of from the digipak, 3. When relating to a grunge rock band, if our digipak suited our genre. Their answers followed this pattern of three answers. I then screenshot the message.

I also took video feedback of two classmates regarding the same questions

We received some really helpful feedback from our peers as they confirmed our aspirations of the digipak being a grunge rock bands album, meaning we created an effective album targeted at the audience of disengaged and rebellious teens

Furthermore we received written feedback in an email from a classmate:

How we adapted according to this feedback and why:

• We disagreed with the comment on the size of our title and it remained the same as we felt that being small it conveyed the message of not being the centre of attention to better associate with our target audience. This is because they don't like being the centre of attention and therefore find similarities in the cover and themselves
• We agreed with the advise regarding the catalogue number, barcode, and copyright information. Therefore we added these adjustments to a more final version of our digipak to increase its authenticity and professional look
• On the other hand we once more disagreed with a point, this time being about the difference in colour. This is because it had the purpose of conveying a message of rebellion across to the audience. By only one image being in colour we suggest how the band is rebellious as they are in this picture and it is rebelling against the conventions of black and white pictures that are used in the rest of the digipak.

Finished Digipak

This is our finalised digipak, we used the digipak template to house all four images + the album spine. Please take note that officially the top two pictures, the inside cd cover and the inside front cover, would be upside down so that when it is produced it folds into place, however we chose to keep it right side up so that it is easier to view on our blog. 

N.B. The image becomes clearer when you click it