Website Idea Draft 1;

For my initial website idea I was going to design a preview page with a click through link the artist's main site, but I felt the idea was too simplistic and uneffective as it would only look to be promoting the new video, not the album. So I decided to compromise with a combination of the two webstie ideas; full site and promotion page. Whilst the new album cover is the background for the webpage, the navigation abr is present at the bottom of the page .

Website Analysis;

Upon first deciding to create a website as one of my ancillary texts, I wanted to use the technique of having a redirect page before the full site homepage. I believe these pages to be a very unique selling point for an artist as they are very promotional of something new and up coming. For example, the Counting Crows and Lady Gaga website screen shots (pictured above) both start with an initial page, one promoting a new album due for release, the other promoting a mass amount of tour dates. Both pages have click-through links which lead to the full website which I believe to be a very powerful and unique selling point for the artists as it highlights what is most important for the artist at this moment in their career.

I also looked into seeing artists full websites to assess the conventions of a musicians web page.

I chose to look at R&B artist Rhianna and pop-punk rockers Fall Out Boy as both of their homepages are significantly different to each other.

Rhianna:

Rhianna's web page is a very animated page with numerous alternating slides to it which reflects how herself, as an artist, is moving on in her career and the character of her music as her career is animated and she continues to release new singles which are different from the last. However it is also very simplistic; having an almost entirely white background and very little text reflects that she and her music are straight to the point and free from complications. The page navigates with images/videos and click through links to the contents of the site. The pages change automatically as you stay on the page, the picture of Rhianna in the centre changes as well also reflecting her motion filled personality. As well as the alternating pages on the animation, there is also a more simple form of navigation at the top of the page for ease of use of if the site is not compatible with certain browsers or flash players.

The language involved on the page is very minimal due to the lack of text but its simplicity communicates quite well for the audience. The website contains no negativity or gossip features on the artist as it solely promotional based. It shows the artist is different outfits and poses which reflects her individuality and boots her appeal as she is shown to be quite diverse.

I believe although a few of the images of the artist are quite provocative, the website appeals to a vast range of audiences including the youth from about the age of 12 and up. Rhianna is a very popular artist in the music charts and has an extremely large fan base already consisting of a number of different ages. The website does not exclude any audience and is not overtly offencive to anybody however the images could be deemed as having sexual connotations.

Fall Out Boy:

Fall Out Boy's (FOB) web page is a lot more content filled than Rhianna's but it is also very static in comparison to Rhianna's animation. The page is a simple page with numerous click-through links to other pages of the site. However, the sites home page does not include a lot of information about the band. the main features of the page are a few blog posts some dating back to 2010, links to the bands social media pages (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), links through to the band members other projects (as the band have now broken up) and a large photo of the band themselves. The page does have a navigational bar to go to different pages on the site but it is very basic. I believe the simplicity and lack of detail on the site is due to the band ending in 2009 and  no longer needing to access the site. The page does link through to the fan community site however.

Editing Update;

I have re-edited my music video to have better lip sync and smooth out the cuts, there is still a lot more to do but I have been away to New York on a college trip this past week so have been unable to do much editing.
I am planning to re-shoot the opening scene of my film as soon as possible and should have almost finished editing after the half term holiday.