R+P Post 23: Planning my web pages

After having a group meeting, we researched existing artists' websites to start planning and drawing out what we wanted our own website to look like.

Key conventions of websites:

• Key pages such as Home, Tour, Music, Store
• Purchasing opportunities such as music on iTunes or merchandise such as a t-shirt
• Social Media Links e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
• Interactivity e.g. subscribing to a newsletter

These websites below inspired us to plan our own.

This arty graphic design we thought was very urban, cool and edgy. It was quite attention grabbing and the clean white and grey theme of their website balanced it out.

We decided to draw out a flat plan on paper however this was not very helpful so we decided to digitally create a rough draft to help us visualise the end result.

R+P Post 22: Planning my promo shots

These are a few real album covers we looked at to decide our outfits as well as poses. These three stood out to me.

Then to help me decide specifically what we should wear I created a moodboard of ideas inspired by Rihanna's style.

This lead to us planning three different outfits for our promo shoot:

• A denim look
• A classy look
• An individual look

To check with each other what to bring to our shoots we decided to confirm on our Whatsapp group chat and sent pictures of our outfits to each other.

We also decided to try out makeup ideas at my place. Thakshana is doing my foundation below.

Our denim look will be a street but also casual and cute look where all four girls will be wearing at least one item of denim. Flannel shirts as well as check patterns are also quite popular as well as sneakers and boots. This is one of our end results.

Our classy look will reflect the prestigious side of D4MES and we aim for it to be a cross between black tie and clubbing attire. Below is what we looked like when shooting.

Our last look will be the girls wearing an outfit which portrays their own individual style and reflects their personalities. Monigal's would be tomboyish and casual, Gigi's would be stylish and girly, Shana's would be smart and mature, Angel's would be smart and slightly grunge.

R+P Post 21: My key shots storyboard

We created our key shots storyboard in a timeline format which was really effective.

This is the key for our storyboard showing the different shot types.
We used post-it notes for each of manoeuvre and colour coding. This meant if a shot was wrong we just had to take a post-it note off and redraw and replace it. If we changed the position of a scene in the song we just had to rearrange the post-it notes. So it was easy and convenient to make our storyboard in this way.




Below is a breakdown of our key scenes:
1. Silhouetted
2. Individual
3. Group dance
4. Love shots
5. Dinner scene

R+P Post 20: My music video timeline

After planning scenes and shots for our music video we made a timeline to put our ideas together.
This was useful in the following ways:

• It helped us time our shots and decide how long they should go on for
• After making one we knew how many shots and scenes we needed to create and shoot. Then we could start making further useful documents such as a storyboard and shots list.
• It helped us somewhat visualise the whole music video to see if it flowed nicely.

Here is a one minute extract of our timeline.

Although it was simple it served as a nice basic draft of what our music video would become and included the scene details and shot types. The rest of the timeline followed the same format.

R+P Post 19: My influences and vision for the project

The next step in our project is to create a stealomatic that puts together all our ideas and best conveys the kind of music video we want to create. A stealomatic is basically a visual, moving pitch of our music video. We made one which contains references to roughly ten real music videos we liked to hopefully represent the style and feel of our own.

This is the list of the music videos we took references from.

• F(x) - Red Light
• Beyonce - Naughty Girl
• Little Mix - Move
• Calvin Harris - How Deep Is Your Love
• Fifth Harmony Worth It
• Zara Larsson - Lush Life
• Rihanna - What Now
• Pia Mia - Do It Again
• Neon Jungle - Trouble
• Emeli Sande - Heaven

I think that a stealomatic is a really effective mode of presentation as it highlights the style of direction, content and creative process our music video will embody.

R+P Post 18: Analysis of my track's lyrics and instrumentation

Red planet's lyrics are very sexually orientated but in a way that gives power to girls and doesn't demoralize or objectify them. Rather it portrays us girls as the dominant ones who know what we want from our lovers.

Analysing our lyrics and instrumentation in detail really helped us to come up with visual ideas for the music video and also picture how we should act in scenes with our guys. It helped us pinpoint the main themes of the song which includes love, passion and female empowerment. We also decided that Monica should do the rap verse starting with "Blow me out of this world tonight" as she had the tomboyish style and personality. We thought Thakshana should sing the starting verse as she would be good in conveying the lyrics on screen with her guy. She has the potential to create sexual tension. Me and Gift decided to share the remaining verses according to what we thought would suit us best.

R+P Post 17: My chosen track

Our chosen track is Red Planet by Little Mix:

Red planet was written by Autumn Rowe, Tionne Watkins (also known by her stage name T-Boz), and Jon Levine (from left to right below).

The song was released on 19th of November 2012 as the 10th track on Little Mix's album 'DNA' and produced by Jon Levine (above).

Little Mix is a British girl group who first performed on X Factor, winning the eighth series. They debuted with their DNA album which was released in the United Kingdom via Syco Music. The album was co-written by Little Mix who have stated that they were involved with the development of the album as much as possible. The album is a mix of pop and RnB records with elements of pop rock. Their songs' lyrics promote empowerment and explore relationships as well as heartbreak. Little Mix has become very popular in the US with their albums lead single 'Wings' gaining fame in Canada, Belgium, New Zealand, the US and other countries.

This song is copyrighted so we had to send an email seeking permission to use it for our A-level project. The email is down below.

Here's a list of what I like and dislike about the track we've chosen.

R+P Post 16: My band or artist

Our band D4MES will be a four girl team who are between the ages of 18 and 20. We've grown up in London where we met each other as friends and discovered the same passion for singing and performing.

• Dames - a British title given to a woman with a knight rank. We aren't literally dames but the defnition gives us a classy edge and British identity. By adding the number 4 we've made it more fun and street.
• "We're street but we're prestige street. We're classy but it's 2015, we're fresh-breaking negative stereotypes of these north London streets" (Monigal)
• D4MES - British Pop RnB girl group of four formed in 2015.
• We all grew up in London, went to the same secondary school and became friends after discovering each other's passion for music
• Our look will be urban, street and chic
• We signed signed with Soho Records after a talent scouting manager saw us performing at a gig in North London.

Profiles

Inspirations for our identity and image

Dance on my own - MO

What I liked about MO was their band image and song style. They're very street which is conveyed by their trendy casual but sporty outfits. They are a diverse group and their songs promote female empowerment like Red Planet does. This video is a performance based one so they can be seen dancing but they don't really have a routine they just have fun and look cool doing simple moves.

R+P Post 15: My Record Label

Our record label will be called Soho Records. The name has an urban city street vibe to it which will reflect D4MES identity as singers who grew up in London.

• It is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group (UMG)
• It will be based in Soho, London
• It will have been formed in 2012 so it is fairly new and small with only 12 artists signed to us but who are doing well in the UK charts.
• We seek out young British artists who have the potential to flourish in the mainstream music industry and expand their career. Genres include pop, RnB and EDM
• Although Soho records is still a small company, we like to focus on each artist's success and try to create a friendly, free and relaxed atmosphere which aims to bring out and develop each artist's creativity.
• D4MES, our first ever girl band and latest signing is planning to hit the charts with their debut single Red Planet. We hope that they become very popular with the UK audience and hopefully also with international audiences in the future.

R+P Post 14: My Target Audience

Core target audience

• Girls and young women

We're a girl band so we our music would appeal largely to females especially as we promote female empowerment. There has been a boom of female artists in the last five years who have become very well known and popular. Examples include Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Iggy Izalea, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Adele and girl bands such as Little Mix and Fifth Harmony. These women are known for being strong individuals so I'd like our band to give off the same vibe and create a similar star identity.

Secondary target audience

• Pop and RnB fans

This can be fans of both genders but fans of RnB will be skewed towards the younger generations (10-30) since it was more recently found and developed.

In general, we will be targeting mass audiences with a mainstream approach as our music will be of two of the most popular genres at the moment Pop and RnB. Although our audience may be largely female - they are our core audience as we want to promote female empowerment.