Ancillary tasks - website homepage NEED TO FINISH

Here are some examples of similar band homepage websites from the same genre as Bring Me The Horizon, I have used these as inspiration and to gain some ideas as to how this genre band layout their websites and how it all interlinks.
The most common features on a homepage for these bands are:

• YouTube videos
• Band images, either on tour or photo-shoot
• Advertisement for their latest album or single release
• Tour dates of their upcoming or current tour
• Links to their social media and store websites/merchandise pages

Here are my initial ideas of how I could layout my website including all of the above mentioned conventions of a heavy scream/rock band website, I showed many people my plans to ask which they preferred, three quarters of people who i asked for an honest opinion said that they prefer the layout of flat plan two. Here is the style sheet of how it will be laid out on a computer with details of the colour scheme and house style for the website as I will need more information on my plans to be able to be sure that I can produce the best and most thought about website possible.

Proof that its all me!

Here is a shot of me delegating to a 'hand-double' as I required a scene of my main protagonist rolling a cigarette, however he does not know how to, so I used another male of a similar build to stand in as a hand double.

This shot also shows how I am capable of setting up all of the technical equipment needed to shoot my music video, and how to deal with showing and telling people how I need them to be and where I need them to be

Editing sound

Here is a short video with text overlay to show how I have edited the sound with accompanying screen shots.

Audience reception theory

So how does this relate to my project?

Well... This idea of how the audience may not get the intended meaning of the video is a common thing when I myself watch any sort of video, music or just pure story, through having this personally experience of not understanding the video and getting confused therefore put off from the video itself I must ensure that my intended meaning of my video is clear and must ensure that any other possible readings of my text it still on the lines of what I wish my audience to experience and interpret from the video.

Ancillary tasks ideas and research

As part of the project I have to create two other tasks, I have whittled down the options to either a digipack or a poster for the band and a working website homepage for the band.

Here you will see that I have collected examples of all three types of band documents and have noted of what I like and do not like about these documents and what I would do similarly or differently.                        


                                  

                                                             Here are some examples of a band poster to advertise their latest gigs or album release, I really like the colour scheme for all the posters as they all follow the same sort of idea a black or very dark background with white or light grey text and tag lines like on The Pretty Reckless posters (the first two images to the left). I ideally like the idea of the main image aligned in the centre of the poster with the name of the band either above or below, as it shows the authority of the band (if the name is placed above the image) or shows that the band members themselves rather than just the band name (if the name is placed below the image of the band).
I like that the colour scheme of each band and the photo colours go well together, for example the Black Veil Brides advert (3rd image down) fits really well with the stage makeup of the band as they are famous to have over dramatic black stage makeup all over their bodies. I feel if I were to do this task myself I would incorporate a link between the outfit and mood of my main model (who will be the same guy as my main protagonist) to match the decided colours of the rest of the poster as I feel this coordination within the poster gives a more professional look to the poster.

Here with the Black Veil Brides poster they have the image spread across the centre of the poster with the black background blending into the black of the band members hair. I feel that the use of vibrant colours on the website and the dates allows the audiences attention to be instantly drawn to the key information, I feel that this works well to entice the reader of the poster to buy a ticket, I will be using this method in my own poster as I feel it would work well with the genre stereotype of black and dark colours and to contradict and contrast that can sometimes work really well to possibly widen the target audience of the band.

Here are some examples of digipack's and how they work with the album artwork and the functionality of the digipack to ensure that the CD within it stays safe.

Personally I really like the Linkin Park digipack as it uses a monochrome/black and white filter on the images used within the pack. I also really like the idea that the inside images within the digipack is the same image spread across the three different folds of the digipack. I also like the idea of having inserts within the digipack so the user or recent purchaser of the digipack gets a little surprise as they open the pack for the first time.
The Pretty Reckless digipack differs as they use three different images on one pack, one for the front cover, one for the back cover and one for the CD and the inside of the pack, personally I am not too keen on the use of so many images on one small product so I doubt I will use this technique in my design.

Here are two examples of band website homepages. From having personal experience of creating many websites I knew I was going to create this product first as I am very comfortable with the process and the software to create the website.

The first website for Asking Alexandria had to be zoomed out so you could actually see the majority of the homepage, I do like the content of the website having interactive image hyperlinks on the homepage to guide the user through the website, however I am not too keen on the idea of having to scroll so far down the page to find information, through studies it has been shown that if a user of the website cannot gain information after looking at the page for half a minute they will try another website, and the majority of 'clicks' on a website are at the top where the user is first taken, and through personal use I rarely bother to scroll right down to the bottom of a page, once I have my information I'm done and on to another page. This is why I like the Of Mice And Men home page more despite the large gap at the top of the page (however a recent advert had just been taken down from the website) I feel having a shorter yet wider website shows the reader almost all of the content of the page all in one go, which for lazy users is just what we want, so this is exactly what I will be incorporating into my own website.

My main idea to show that all of these products are linked not only will I use the same actor from my music video yet I will also use the same colour scheme and (hopefully) the same fonts throughout the three different products I will end up creating too.

Lighting

Here is an example of natural lighting from a street light above my actor and the lighter in his hand. I chose to use this preliminary shot as a practise to see how natural lighting can enable an eerie and darker mood upon the shot.

Here is an example of lighting from a lighting rig set-up, I used two rather powerful bulbs upon a 5ft stand one placed either side of the shot here. I decided to use a lighting rig for this shot as it allowed a really dark room (only one window to the right of the bed and only one lamp in the left hand corner behind myself as i took this shot) to look as if it was midday and full of light allowing the audience to see clearly that this is a male environment and is not in the best kept state, the brightness of the room also allows for the clear contrast between the colourful vibe and 'awake-ness' of the room to clash with the all black of sam and his apparent sleepy state.

Here is a semi-natural lighting shot, where there are two small build in spotlights in the ceiling of this bathroom yet there is also a small skylight window to the left of the shot which allowed some more natural 'dusky' light to enter the room.

Here I have used the lighting rig to illuminate the entire bathroom in this scene, I personally feel like this worked  well as the room has completely white walls which acted as four mirrors for the light to bounce off of and to illuminate areas which would normally be shadowed. Here in this shot you can also see the skylight I mentioned previously.