Updates!

For up to date information on our process ensure you check out all our blog posts as they may have been refreshed.
Thankyou.

How our evaluation is coming along.

Well, as a team we've gone over our work in detail and scripted our evaluation so we will be able to talk fluidly when it comes to filming.
We're planning on stretching out a bit and seeing if we can use the green screen for this. This way we will have tested our abilities that little bit more an given ourselves an added experience.I'm filming our location shots today, so that it will be as if we are giving the audience a little tour backstage as we talk to them about our work and if all goes to plan we're going to film ourselves as a group with xx T-shirts on in the auditorium in front of the green screen.
But that's not all. Of course the audience needs to know what we're talking about when we give examples, so we'll ensure they can follow along by adding a little snippet of our music video, stills, photographs of us working on our media products etc etc as and when we talk about them, we're planning that they'll appear in the top right hand corner next to our heads, but we have got a lot cut out for us and that isn't really a priority, so we'll see how things go.
We're bound to run into problem areas, but just you know, this was our aim.

The Music Video

Here is an incomplete version of our music video for you to compare our finished version to, you will also begin to understand the development of the video and where we were going with our piece.



Here is the completed music Video: planned, shot, uploaded, set to music, edited, lengthened, shortened, gamma enhanced, colour corrected and tainted with a cold blue wash. Enjoy and please give feedback!!!

Ancillary Text: Website: Complete..(Almost)

Over the last week I have been working on designing our website for one of our ancillary texts. First off I looked back at the research we had done as a group on other bands/artists websites. I concluded that the best type of website for our ancillary text would be a minimalist website with a simple and effective layout. I took inspiration for this idea from Crystal Castles website, which is very minimalistic.

Home:

The homepage for our website is very a homage to the xx's current website with our version of their logo as the main focus point of the homepage.

We have tried to create continuity throughout our website by having "THE xx" written in the bottom left hand corner of each page. This is also interactive; when you click on the band name; the song "Islands" plays. This is the same throughout each page on our website and we hope it brings consistency to our website and makes it more realistic.

Gallery:

The gallery gives the public a chance to see images of the band that they would not have seen during the music video. We have used a slider to make accessing each picture easy and smoothly. We have also chosen to frame each picture with "grungy" ragged-looking edge. We believe that this will fit with the stereotype of other bands, especially in the indie genre.

Bio:

Short for biography, this page gives it's reader a chance to learn about the "history" of the band and how they came together as a group. This biography is fictional and written by Hannah and I. We tried to make the history of the band as realistic as possible, without copying THE xx's real history, by saying they dropped out of university. We did this because many other indie bands have also dropped out of university to form a band, such as "Foals".

Links:

We added a links section to increase the verisimilitude of our website as links to external sources such as "Myspace" and "Facebook" are very conventional things to find on a band website. These links are important as they give the audience a chance to find out more information about the band and support them in different ways (E.g: becoming a fan on Facebook.)

Shop:

Finally, we decided to create a "Shop". Bands usually incorporate this to increase sales in merchandise and give the band free advertising via shirts and posters. This should increase the realism to our website as I designed many "products" such a "Islands" t-shirt, a "xx" poster and a "Islands" Hoodie. We also have put our other ancillary text, our Digipak, in our shop. However, unfortunately I have not yet got a picture of the finished design but will do soon in the coming days.

To visit our website follow the link below:

http://www.wix.com/ruaraidh_j/islands

Digipak Layout

This is the layout of the digipak. Below is the final one, the one above is trying to figure out which way the layput goes.

Booklet

I'm thinking that I can make a booklet afterall, as we have a couple of images left over, that didn't fit into the real digipak, can be put into the booklet. As the only lyrics which we have put into the digipak is of 'the island', I think that I could use the lyrics of the other songs over these images in the booklet. Anyway, here are the images for the booklet.

Digipak Pages and Progress

Here are a couple of the pages which have been created. After miscalculating the number of pages which we have within the design of the digipak I have chosen to use the pages for the booklet in the digipak itself. The digipak includes; Biographies of the seperate band members, photographs of filming, and a couple of lyrics from the songs... Here are the pages before attaching them into the style of the digipak.



Front Cover
Hannah at lake

Hannah positioned at lake

Hannah Biography

Dan at lake (guitar)

Dan at lake positioned

Dan biography

David at lake (lead male)

David positioned at lake

David Biography

Ren at lake (bass)

Ren Biography

Photos from filming

Lyrics of the Islands

Mock up of Front cover (not going to use, as the image isn't the best)

The back cover