media

1. Question 4: How
did you use media
technologies in the
construction and
research, planning
and evaluation
stages?
The Website

2. Research and Planning: Website
– To create the website for the band, we used a site called “Wix.” It is a cloud-
based web development platform that allows users to create HTML5 web sites
and mobile sites through the use of their online drag and drop tools.
– We used Wix as it is very easy to use, and meant that the quality of the website
was much better.
– To understand the purpose of a website for a music artist, we first researched
why websites are so important in the online age:

3. Research and Planning: Website
WhatsApp
– To communicate throughout the process of creating the website, we used apps
on our phones like WhatsApp.
– WhatsApp enabled us to send photos, videos, links and voice notes to each
other so that we would know about upcoming meetings and deadlines.
Without WhatsApp, we
would have been a lot
less organised.
Using this software
meant that we rarely
missed a beat, and this
ultimately meant that
we were highly
satisfied with the work
we put in at the end of
the process.

4. Research and Planning: Website
Pintrest
– Pintrest is a social media site that allows users to share photos and create mood
boards around different topics.
– For our website, we used Pintrest to create a mood board based on costumes
for the band in the music video shoot, as well as for the photo shoot. We also
used it to find ideas for hair and makeup ideas, too.
– Because everyone could access Pintrest easily, we were always able to see what
everyone else was planning or thinking.
– I found that Pintrest also gave me links to different websites that gave me
inspiration when creating the website for the band, so it was very helpful.

8. Research and Planning: Website
YouTube
– Because YouTube is so easily accessed, we used it to look at tutorials for Wix
about how to use it.
– Obviously YouTube is the home of music videos. This meant that we were able
to research other videos in the indie-rock genre to compare general
conventions that we needed to include in our own video.
– Not only did we look at other band’s videos, but we also looked at our song’s
original video so that we knew exactly what not to do. If we did the same thing
in our video, we wouldn't be able to obtain top marks. Watching to original
video greatly excited us because we realised out concept was a lot more
exciting than the original. This only spurred us on to greater heights in terms of
what we wanted to achieve, and we wouldn't have been able to realise our
potential without YouTube.

10. Research and Planning:
Why do artists/bands use websites?
– To use online media to promote themselves
– To advertise new and upcoming stuff,
– To sell tickets and music
– To update us with new information
– To sell merchandise
– To promote their star image
– To advertise their tour and
– To immerse their fan base
– To find out more about the artist (About Me)
– To use online media to connect you through
other media platforms
– To connect directly with their fans/target
audience
– To create an image for themselves
– To be known internationally, addressing an
international audience
– To be easily accessible
– To reach an already established fan base
– To receive feedback from their fans
– To promote their already existing social
media
– To make them look more official

11. Research and Planning:
Themes
– After understanding the reasons for an artist to have their own website, we
started to look at different themes and colour schemes for the website that not
not only suit the artist and the genre of their music, but that also entices the
artist’s target audience. These were the themes we originally looked at:

12. Research and Planning:
Comparing
– To help us create a website that it true to the indie-rock genre of our band, we
researched and compared factors of famous bands and their websites.
– By doing this we were able to achieve a realistic website for our band that was
true to the conventions of an indie-rock music website.
– The websites we looked at used different colour schemes, so we couldn't copy,
we had to come up with our own. However, the home pages all had photos of
either the band, or their album so we had to replicate that in our website.
Similarly, all of the websites we looked at used a typeface that was easy to read,
so obviously we used a font that was kind on the eyes.

13. Production:
Our Website
This is the website I made for our band “Nothing to Kings”. I
used the photos from the photo shoot as they were really
good I think they worked really well with the style of the
website I had chosen.
I used different buttons like "Download on YouTube" and
other things like "Location", "Info" on the top of the page as
navigation for the audience to get around the website easily.
I used a grey font for the titles on the homepage because
white didn't show up, and black was too harsh in comparison
to the photo. I also lowered the opacity on the photo as the
faded effect fit the genre and style of our band really well, in
my opinion.

14. Production: Editing
– We used a DSLR camera in our photo shoot for the website as it takes pictures
quickly and worked well with the flash we were using. The quality of the photos
were outstanding, and meant that very little editing was needed before using
them in the website.

15. TheBand

16. Jonty: Drummer Charlie: Bassist Ashen: Singer Alec: Guitarist

17. Production:
Editing

18. Production:
Editing

19. Post Production:
Creating the
Website
When creating the website for our band, we used a varying software to help us
create a really aesthetically pleasing website. The piece of software we used the
most was Photoshop. We used Photoshop as it is quite easy to use, and there
are lots of tutorials to follow if you need help. Also, the results from using
Photoshop are very slick and professional, which helped our website look
professional, which is an added bonus.
There are lots of different tools that you can use to edit
your photos on Photoshop. We used:
Eyedropper: selects a colour from an area of the image
that is clicked, and samples it for future use
Magic Wand: The magic wand tool selects areas based
on pixels of similar values. One click will select all
neighbouring pixels of similar value within a tolerance
level set by the user.
Slice: The slice tool can be used to divide an image into
different sections, and these separate parts can be used
as pieces of a web page design once HTML and CSS are
applied.