Directors' Commentary

Once finished, we sat down to record a commentary on how some of the effects in the video were achieved and the reason we put certain shots there.

Our Mobile site

Scan using a barcode reader on your phone!

As part of our website marketing campaign, we wanted to create a QR code to allow for more interactivity between the fans and the band, and to utilise increasingly popular smartphone technology. This could then be placed on the normal desktop website, as well as on our album cover so fans who purchase it can get more than just the CD. Fans can simply download a barcode reader for their smartphone and scan the code, instantly taking them to a link of our choice.

To do this, Jess used a website called kimtag, a QR code generator which allows you to add your own links and profile information so that the mobile site your QR code leads to is personalised.

We also created a touch mobile version of our website using Wix, as nowadays so many people own phones with internet capabilities: in the third quarter of 2011, 26% of worldwide mobile communication device sales  were smartphones.

Teenager are particularly prolific users of this technology, so we knew we had to target this market specifically, and all three of us personally find it frustrating when a site does not have a mobile version so it does not work properly on our phones.
Here is a short video of us demonstrating our QR code and mobile site:

Colour Grading

Styling and the overall look of the video was very important to create the correct glam rock/ pop rock genre characteristics. We also wanted to ensure there was a strong colour scheme running throughout, predominantly that of black, white and pink on the website. For the music video, we wanted something similar to the retro, lomographic style created by  filter-equipped camera apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, providing easy ways to take pictures and upload them via photo-sharing websites like Tumblr and Flickr popular with our core target market of teenage girls. Inspired by a music video by British band The Vaccines (in which the whole video is made from Instagram photos) we experimented with the idea of doing parts of the video in stop frame still photographs.







However, we eventually decided that this wasnt necessary since with the correct grading we could create a similar effect. We used the Adobe After Effects plug in -SA Colour Finesse to up the magenta and gamma, crush the blacks and create a high contrast and vibrant and edgy look. We also decided to put a radial blur and vignette on the edges of the video to give it even more of an artistic and stylistic edge.

Here is a video showing how we achieved this:




However, when we re-exported back into Adobe Premiere, we noticed that it looked a bit washed out so we corrected this by using the ProCamp tool to increase the contrast.

Competition

To promote our band and brand sucessfully we decided to run to a contest on the website to encourage fan participation. We began by brainstorming ideas, researching popular contests on social media marketing sites to inspire us.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2009/11/11/five-great-twitter-contests/

We decided that Twitter would be an ideal platform for our contest as it is popular with our core target audience.

Twitter Users

http://mashable.com/2009/09/09/twitter-teenage-girl/

We agreed that a symbiotic relationship with a well-known brand would be a great idea as the partnership would be mutually beneficial and we could have some fun with our campaign. After looking through some magazines we found a perfume called LOUD by Tommy Hilfiger, a well known brand popular with young people.

"LOUD was created through an open exchange of ideas - a creative collaboration of the best talent in music, fragrance & film. Put simply, it is scent remixed."

Their ad campaign happened to be black, white and pink, matching our strong brand image, and they used popular celebrities like Daisy Lowe and The Ting Tings in their adverts.

We thought that The XYZs would be great brand ambassadors so we decided to create our own version of the magazine advert to use on our website as part of our competition and marketing campaign:

This meant that we could place the advert on the competition page of our website without ruining our colour scheme.

Then we decided on a prize that would appeal to our core market:

• Hang out with The XYZs on the set of their Tommy Hilfiger TV ad shoot
• A signed copy of their debut album 'Exhibit A'
• An exclusive Loud by Tommy Hilfiger gift set worth £45

Using the brand name LOUD we thought up our twitter competition idea:

"Upload a video to YouTube of you (with up to three friends) shouting "HEY! STRIPPER!" in a public place... the more extreme, the better. Try and think outside the box; this competition is all about making an impact, having fun and being LOUD.

Once you've uploaded your video, tweet the YouTube URL to @theXYZs including the hashtag #XYZLOUD. You must be following @theXYZs and @LOUD_Hilfiger to enter."

We then said that The XYZs will pick their three favourite videos and post them on the website, where fans will then be able to vote for their favourite. 

Incorporating this idea of being outspoken, and using a tricolon for emphasis, we came up with a tagline -

"So, get creative, get outrageous and most importantly, GET LOUD!"

To keep the campaign realistic we ensured to post a link to Tommy Hilfiger's website and of course a photo of the fragrance, so we are advertising their product.

This competition would be fun for our fans to enter, and it is a really simple idea and doesn't require too much effort, as perhaps covering a song or making a whole video message would. It also utilises social media, which of course is very important in targeting young fans in 2011. We would hope to get them involved, especially with the voting stage where the best ones would be posted on our website, and it could even go viral as people search YouTube for these funny clips or people shouting... it even serves as free advertising as they are shouting a line from The XYZs' song!

Whilst researching other artists' websites, despite looking at at least fifty, hardly any of them seemed to have a competition or symbiotic relationship similar to ours, so we felt they were missing a trick. The most similar one we found was on Ed Sheeran's website, where there was a competition to win a trip to Legoland - this is of course a partnership between the arist and a brand, like our campaign. There are links to the Legoland website so both parties benefit. It uses new technlogies, as entrants must film themselves building a Lego house then upload it online; similarly, our competition involved YouTube and Twitter. It also links to his song which is called 'Lego House', just like our competition involves shouting the lyrics to our song, 'Stripper'. It also heavily involves the artist himself, as it says  'Ed will be watching them all', and we mentioned that The XYZs themselves would pick their favourites for our competition, plus the winner gets to meet Ed, plus win other prizes, in a similar way to our prizes which involve hanging out with the band, plus more.

It is simple to enter, fun and interactive, which is why we believe it is a great example of a music artist competition involving a symbiotic relationship with a seemingly unrelated brand.

Merchandise

For our band's website we created a selection of merchandise for fans to "buy".
First of all we designed women's t-shirts, taking inspiration from other bands' merchandise and creating clothing that we ourselves would like to wear. We looked at several artists' clothing stores popular with young women:

We started with basic t-shirts with our logo on, creating a clear brand image - people would recognise the logo. We then created a 'Stripper tour' t-shirt, a souvenir appealing to those who will go on our tour and want to remember the day. The next was a t-shirt with a black and white photo of us, as people often like to see the band they are a fan of. We also created some lyrics t-shirts with lines from our song that we thought sound good on a t-shirt - "I am a voyeur" and "Don't touch the girls". Our personal favourites are the more creative 'XYZ' t-shirts, with the gold writing and and pink and black alphabet versions, as they are nice even as standard t-shirts that you might find in any shop, but they also represent our band.

Not wanting to discriminate, we also decided to create a smaller range of men's t-shirts. As our band is quite girly, we wanted cool, masculine t-shirts that males wouldn't be embarrassed to wear. The top-selling music shirts and hoodies on play.com were in fact Men's, mainly rock bands, proving that men do wear band merchandise, not just teenage girls (though One Direction were unsurprisingly close behind!)

We took inspiration from band merchandise like Kings of Leon and Coldplay, bands popular with men as well as women.

T-shirts were prominently black or grey with dark, simple designs. We liked the idea of lyrics in a subtle font, like Coldplay's, and a sepia print of the band. Basing our designs on these ideas, a black and white version of our classic logo tee, we created our men's range:

From experience and looking at other bands' websites we came up with the price of £15 for t-shirts, as our site is the only place for new, official merchandise, so if a fan really wants one, they have no choice but to buy it from there so they will. After Christmas we would probably have a January sale, slashing the price of some of the lowest-selling t-shirts in order to make room for new designs which would coincide with our next singles.

Finally we came up with some accessories. We knew that calendars were popular with teenagers around Christmas time, favouring ones of their favourite celebrities and bands.

Some of the most popular calendars on play.com at the moment are One Direction, Olly Murs and JLS, all artists with mainly young female fans, plus Breaking Dawn which also has the same core market, suggesting that teenage girls are large calendar buyers/receivers as gifts.

 We also designed some posters, as we know from experience that teenagers love to cover their walls in posters of their favourite artists. Yet again the top selling posters online include One Direction, JLS and The Wanted, re-iterating this fact.

 Some other merchandise included bags and a wristband, a great souvenir for a fan who has attended one of our concerts.

Behind The Scenes Video

We made a short video from behind-the-scenes footage from our shoots to post on our band website:

Utilising Social Networks

As part of our website and promotional material, we decided to create a Twitter page for our band:

We stuck to our website colour scheme, using our logo as the background, to keep a strong brand image across all the advertising platforms. Each of us also made individual member Twitters too, as most bands have an official band Twitter plus personal member pages to tweet from as well, as fans can follow their favourite members, interact with them and feel much more involved in their lives, which we believe is the key to a strong fanbase.

We also made a Facebook page for our friends to 'like':

And a Tumblr page, a blogging/social network site popular with teenagers and music fans, who of course we are specifically targeting. Again we used the same black/white/pink colour scheme, and Odelia designed a layout for the page. We posted some photos from our music video shoots to make it look authentic.

These platforms are all integrated into our official website which is the hub of our online presence and the centre of our marketing campaign where all these different links come together, allowing "fans" to interact with and feel involved in the band in as many different ways as possible.

Photoshoot

Yesterday we had a photoshoot for our album cover. We dressed and styled ourselves differently to the video to show diversity, and decided to go for the more classic look, similar to the Glamour photograph shown in the previous post. We photographed each other for the solo shots and enlisted the help of Chris, our technician, and Eoin, a fellow media student, to take the group shots, though of course we directed ourselves.

Here are some of our favourite shots after editing in Photoshop:

Record Label

We have created a fictional record label for our new band to be signed to called Walkout Records.

It is a sub-division of Island Records, a large record company which is owned by Universal Music Group, a huge global conglomerate and biggest record company in the world.

In America Island is part of The Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the United States as a rock-based record company, and as a standalone company in the UK. So although Walkout Records is a small British label, it has financial backing and stability from Universal. This means that we have the reputation of being signed to a new, unknown homegrown label, making us seem very British and down-to-earth (some bands are accused of "selling out" when they sign to a large label) but Universal gives us more funding and opportunities than an indie label.

Re-Shoot

After viewing our footage after the half term shoots, we were extremely pleased with the narrative footage. However, we realised that throughout the performance, we had some framing issues as we did not realise that our backdrop was too low down, resulting in an ugly dark blue strip and parts of the ceiling were viewable in nearly all of the close-up shots, distracting from us and slightly ruining the beauty shots.

We looked at ways of correcting this in post-production, such as colour-grading and black and white conversion, but after some discussion with our technician, he said that it would be difficult to completely solve the problem, so we decided a re-shoot would be the best option. All the painting narrative is great to use, but we will be re-shooting the performance this Thursday at the school Seward Studio, which was our original plan, as it will be easier to light and frame our shots there and wouldn't mean having to set up the garage all over again.

We have booked the studio for most of the day, from 11am to 5.30pm, so we should be able to film everything in this slot.

Ceiling Issues

After our 2 day shoot in half term we captured the footage and began editing. We were very pleased with our narrative footage, however in the performance shots our band logo was not directly behind the band as we had intended. As the garage we were filming in had a low ceiling it was impossible to film any high angle shots and due to space the composition of shots would always included the grotty ceiling. Not exactly an ideal way to sell an aspirational girl band. We experimented with treating the video so that the ceiling issues were minimised and looked to this tutorial on Creative Cow to hopefully solve the problem.


Advanced Titler & Feathering a Track Matte as a Mask using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

However this would have been very time consuming and highly complicated- we would have had to edit each frame indvidually. After much discussion with our technician and teachers we decided it was probably a good idea to reshoot. Going back to our original idea of having two separate set ups, we decided to film in our school's Seward Studio, allowing us complete control over lighting, space and angles and composition of shots as there was nothing obstructing it.

Watch some of our original footage in this video here:

Photos from Shoot

Thursday 27th and Friday 28th October 2011