Research Of Websites

Different Band and Artists Websites:

Miami Horror: This bands website offers a simplistic structure using contrasting colours. The plain white background contrasts with the brightly coloured orange, pink and blue suits and shapes used to promote their new album. The use of geometric shapes creates a sort of synth-pop 80's feel which is relevant to the bands style and genre, creating a brand identity. These distinct elements work together to create synergy as they from a rather vibrant, fun and uplifting representation of the band and their music. The attention is drawn to the artists as they are featured at the top of the page in the web banner, this is used to attract an audience and indicate the kind of content available to them. They are all looking to camera to make a connection with their audience and draw them in. The use of colour represents the artists as fun and quirky, although their expression contrasts this as they stare to camera with a straight face. They seem to be bending their bodies in an awkward position as if dancing or moulding into different shapes which could be linked to the use of shapes to promote their new album. This is supported by the use of "Buy on vinyl now" written directly below the image. The use of bright colours and shapes are also used as common conventions of synth-pop music and 80's dance artists and this helps to emphasise their 80's influence. The multimedia features of imagery and video enables you to gain an understanding of the bands identity and style, this makes the sites content more entertaining and exciting.The fun and colourful repetitive features on the site represents the artists as happy and rather expressive. The navigational features are placed above and around the artists, these help to guide the user through their content. Cross media platforms are used as a link to their Instagram page is also featured, which enables the user to have yet another connection with the band, providing them a place to communicate with them and view the bands exciting and different life. This creates a greater level of engagement

This bands website appears to be breaking conventions as no images of the band members are actually available, this creates a rather postmodern representation of the artists. Instead they choose to use art and abstract imagery to create a brand identity. from this we can assume the genre is psychedelic pop or rock as the images are twisted, colourful and full of repeating shapes or patterns. The lack of the bands presence on the website represents them as  rather selfless, as if the band is putting the music first over themselves. The navigation links are written in white and are rather simplistic, they are dotted around the sides and offer the users an opportunity to buy their merchandise, promoting their music even further through the use of clothing. cross media convergence is used again here as they have used links to their social media platforms. The logo for both Instagram and Facebook are featured on the left hand side of the website and are something a younger audience will instantly recognise. This enables a level of engagement to be achieved between the band and their audience as they are able to comment on photos and interact with the artists. New social tools allow for new kind of group forming therefore this kind of engagement allows others to express their views and generate larger fanbases for each band. Their merchandise page creates synergy as it links to the home page and the aesthetic of the bands genre and style. The psychedelic theme is carried on and users have the option to purchase vinyls, albums and t-shirts. This promotes the band further through other media marketing forms, this enables their listeners to support their favourite band by wearing their merchandise. The link to their tours page is, in my opinion, very boring and simplistic, although it is easy to read it is not very exciting and the synergy of psychedelic features and bright colours is not carried through here therefore the interest is lost here and i find it hard to link this to the band. 

Peach pit's website is very similar to the first website, the use of contrasting colours and colourful clothing creates a similar feel. The artists are featured in the web banner on the homepage, all are looking to camera, again following conventions and creating an immediate connection with the audience. This offers an almost instant introduction to the members of the band.They are all wearing rather muted colours which draws attention to their faces and the items in their hands. Each of them are holding something in their hands with 3 of them eating or drinking, this creates a rather comedic image and represents them as a funny and more self aware type of band. Their vintage aesthetic of muted colours and grey tones helps to identify their indie and alternative genre of music. The name of the band is in the centre of the image and the navigation links are centred below, ensuring the band remains as the centre of attention. Again, multimedia platforms are used such as video and imagery, they also use cross media convergence linking to their instagram account to further the connection with their listeners.

Principle Photography

In preparation for my music video and website I took some promotional photographs of my stars and band, some on location and others in a studio. These will be used to help create a final star image of my band and be used all over the website to promote the artists and create as brand identity. The images help to capture the persona of the stars and their role within my music video.

I have uploaded my favourite photographs from the shoot to Flickr and I am currently waiting for feedback.


I still have a few more images to be taken on location with the other artists, I am also hoping to take photographs with another model to reach the briefs requirements and provide more multimedia features on my website. I also hope to capture some more candid style pictures of the band and crew to really capture their personality and represent them as fun and relatable for our audience. This will also give insight into the production of the music video.

What I have learnt:

Research of Institutions/ Distribution Channels

Universal Music  Group: 

Universal Music is the largest and most powerful major music label in the world, responsible for 29% of the worlds music sales, it was established in 1999 but was supposedly founded in 1934 by Decca Records. It is owned by the  French media conglomerate Vivendi, a mass media company located in Paris which has activities in music, video, film, television and video games. Universal Music has always been a large and rather dominant company as it is a part of Universal pictures, one of the largest film production companies in the entire world. Because of their big status they began to dominate the music market and proceeded to become the biggest record after they purchased EMI, a former British music company, in 2012. Universal Music group currently has over 7,000 employees, with a revenue of over $7 billion and work with some of the biggest A-list artists such as J-Cole, Kanye West  and Ariana Grande. Universal music group also co-developed Vevo,  a site designed for music videos which delivers ad free content and streaming of similar music content. Universal music group currently own a large range of smaller labels such as Island Records and Mercury Records. A record label such as this one generates with a more mainstream and wide demographic targeting all ages as they have signed a number of recognisable names and are a major record company with recognition all over the world. A big competitor for UMG would be Sony Music Corporation as it generates an estimated revenue of $66.5b with over 130,000 employees.

Here are just a few more.

Youtube: 

YouTube is an American video sharing website, it now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries since it was bought by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. It allows users to share, upload, favourite videos and comment on them which creates a large amount of interaction between audience and creator. The site was created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim in 2005. Most content posted to youtube is uploaded by individuals but larger corporations choose to upload content such as BBC and Vevo. Available content includes TV shows, video clips and music videos. As of February last year, at least 400 hours worth of content had been uploaded and over a billion hours of content is watched every day. YouTube allows a place for media corporations to upload and for bands, singers or artists to upload their work in a safe space for free. Here, listeners can listen to their content and enjoy the visuals of a music video at the same time.  More than half of youtube views come from mobile devices, suggesting their most frequent viewers are younger and more technologically able. User Percentage by Age 18-24 – 11%, 25-34 – 23%, 35-44 – 26%, 45-54 – 16%, 50-64 – 8%, 65+ – 3%, unknown age – 14%. YouTubes target market is the broadest of them all with videos on everry category imaginable its impossible to pinpoint a specific targeted audience. This is great for bands posting music videos because it means they are guaranteed to generate listeners and fans.

Job List

Magazine/ Music Video Decision/Research

1. look at what may be missing in the market right now 
2. Find examples of other fashion magazines from Bauer media 
3. look at conventions and codes 
4. research into androgynous, unisex fashion. 
5. how can this be applied to the TA 
6. look at shot types and different magazine issues from different dates ( autumn addition, summer addition) 

There appears to be a gap in the market for more androgynous and convention-breaking fashion magazines. By using a mixture of more indie, androgynous fashion magazines ( such as INDIE)  and high class avant-garde style fashion magazines (STILETTO), i feel we can successfully reach the desired target audience. 

Music Video 

1. find song, create an idea from this 
2.  think about representations/ intertextuality 
3. relate this to TA 
4. look at their websites

My Initial Response to the Briefs

I have decided to choose brief 4, Music Video. For me i feel like i have the most experience with music video and this something i am comfortable with doing. I feel i can meet the requirements and create a successful music video using the dance music genre. It is well known that dance is a wide genre of music so it is very likely that i will be able to find a song that i enjoy very much without it being a stereotypical club dance song. Using a narrative style with conventions of dance music videos and fast paced editing i believe i can develop an intriguing and successful dance music video.

Statement of intent

  My aim is to advertise high heels through the use of female empowerment rather than the use of sexualisation and objectification. I plan to use my image as a humorous role reversal to shift the ideologies put in place for women. By putting a man in the woman's place within this advertisement, although still slightly sexist, it offers men a chance to experience life in this world of offence many women were and still are expected to accept and live in. By being sexualised and walked all over, women have commonly been used in advertisments to appeal to the male demographic; yet by swapping the roles, this may help to question modern day sexism as many still believe a women's place is "in the kitchen.” So how offended and outraged would men be by a sudden turn of events? My ideal target audience is mainly adult females from 20-50 from demographics A-C  and a preferred reader would most likely be a strong feminist such as Bell Hooks. Her ideologies can sometimes be radical but I feel she would agree with my outlook and find humour in my representation as i aim to empower women and give men a taste of women's ongoing oppression, but aim do it all in a stylistic and light hearted manner. I am going to reverse the image by placing a male model in the same positioning as the woman in the advert, bare skin from the top so he is exposed and represented as vulnerable and easy to walk over as is implied from the original advert. Makeup will be used to cover up any blemishes or red patches, I've also decided to fill in the male models’ brows and use blush to over exaggerate the image and add to the humour, representing him in an almost sensitive and feminine manner which is something most men are opposed to. My choice of background is a yellow gradient as this is most like the original image and allows for a range of font colours to be placed in correlation to the change in shades. The darker yellow colour also creates contrast between the models complexions making them stand out more and draw attention to our product. This also appeals to our target audience as yellow is commonly associated with happiness and freshness and as it is a strong and bright colour. This adds to our representation of empowerment. The colour yellow can be used to represent women empowerment and make them feel confident, something I would like to be associated with the brand. Our male model will be wearing a ring on his ring finger to imply he is taken and perhaps even "owned" by the female in the high heels as this was also implied by the representations and symbolism within the original image. I can picture my advert appearing in magazines specifically aimed at women but also on certain social media sites such as facebook or Instagram as a reminder to both men and women that modern day sexism still appears and is relevant for both genders. This may also appear to remind women that heels can symbolise authority, empowerment and seriousness, they don't always have to be sexualised like the women themselves. Hopefully this would prompt my target audience to purchase due to our preaching of women's rights and clever yet humorous ideologies.

Backgrounds for my advert

Background 1: 

This particular background is very similar to the original, it may be useful to create contrast and the gradient allows me to change the colour of font in correlation to the change in yellow shades. The yellow will hopefully centre the focus on our model and product.

Background 2: 

A patterned background may work better to draw attention to the advertisement and create contrast to add focus to the model and product in centre frame. The yellow colour with the vintage pattern is also very close to a 70s aesthetic which will help to recreate the vintage advertisement and embody the 70s style. 

Background 3: 

Background 3 is a 60s style patterned background in a yellow and mustard colour, although this may 

help embody the 70s aesthetic, I feel this particular background may be too distracting and too far from the original background. 

Background 4:

I thought about using textures and real life images to use as a background while still keeping to the. colour  scheme, I feel the use of honey may not be too distracting but the underlying representations 

of sweetness and innocence may not match the ideology of the advert I'm going for. 

Background 5: 

An abstract yellow graduent may work to modernise the advert, the yellow colours may contrast with the models pale skin tone to help the model stand out as well as our product. However, the use of an abstract background seems too distant from the original advert and the different in shades may make it difficult to apply font in certain colours. 

Background 6:

 Another textured background but this time more simplistic. I felt playing around with textures may help bring the advertisement to life, modernise and rejuvenate the image while also keeping to the same yellow colour scheme and gradient seen within the original. However, I feel this may be too simplistic and overall I feel as if I should use the patterned image, first image or yellow gradient image for my background.