official Website

Helloooo,

After a very hard work on completing the website, we officially finished the website!

Moji did the majority of the website but I have helped with...

• Choosing the themes of the website
• Completing the biography
• Help to choose the merchandises that could be on sale of the customers and the prices
• the covers for the website

During the completion of the website, we had feedbacks from both our teachers and friends. We explored what our Star should be represented as and how we would portray her to the audiences. Because we wanted Abby (Star) to be seen as reachable and "girl next door" therefore we had to think a lot of the colors, the images and the font used. 

I found out that by including a little biography about the Star makes the audiences connect to her easier as some can relate to her or may have the same interests as her. 

The biography that I have produced can be easily read by anyone and any type of audiences. The first few sentences I have written mainly about social media. I feel that this era, audiences use so much social media therefore I have include about social media sites that the Star uses to connect with the audiences and her friends. Also, tell a little bit about how many followers she has so visitors of the website will know how famous is she or how is she going to develop over the years as an Artist. 

The merchandise sold in the website are basically another source where audiences can purchase official products that they could collect as a collection. Moreover, Abby also worn some of the shirts and sweaters to further promote her products. This can be seen clearly on the digipaks.

performance shot finally!

Hi Blog!

We finally shot our performance shot!
Today at noon-ish Abby and I we decided to take our performance shot. The lighting was great and we managed to take only 5 takes of our performance shot.

Obstacles
There were many obstacles during our shoot, Including...

• The wind of the location --> It was quite windy therefore the Star's hair was hard to control during each take. Also, because the wind was very unpredictable we had no choice but to do many takes and try to get the best out of the takes that we did. However, by the 3rd take, we decided to put a chair that was pretty stable directly where the wind came and just on the side of the Artist so it blocks some wind out of her face. It worked pretty well and the wind more calm therefore the shots look more candid and the artist's hair wasn't blocking her face most of the time.

• The lighting --> Because we took the shot at noon, the sun was very bright. The artist (Abby) herself has a tan skin color, therefore when the sun shines directly onto her, she becomes even darker and is too contrast. However, we fortunately found a white background where there was some shade. the lighting was pretty good and we were able to experiment around a little to find the right lighting. 

• The shots --> Abby and I, we had some discussions of which shots we should have used. I suggested her a still mid-shot using a tripod. However, Abby suggest a mid-shot or close-up where we didn't use a tripod so it looks like the camera is moving slowly with her. We ended up using mid-shot of the Star with her guitar and not using the tripod so it looks smooth. 

The 2 photos above, shows the lighting and shot differences. The first one on the left is the first take while the one in the center is the last take we did. You can see clearly that the first one the lighting is not as bright and made the Artist look dark. While the second one is more bright and the shot is more close up to her face. The Camera is also more tilted forward so it looks more focused on her face rather than the guitar.

Overall...

Our last scene taken was a scene to remember... it was really fun this year to be able to be the cameramen and try new things that I didn't know I could take before. 

At first the thought of filming the scenes was too challenging for me because I have really bad skills for taking pictures and video. But after Abby and looking at some tips on the internet, I was able to perform better and received some compliments from my friends:)

music video - without performance shot

Music video - without performance shot

During the editing of the music video, as I have mentioned, Abby did most of the editing while I have helped to look for any errors or improvements as well as some editing. 

In this music video draft, I have experimented and filled in the blanks that I felt that we can use instead of the performance shots. 
Because of exams and the different time schedules we had, we weren't able to take the performance shot earlier together so I have decided to do some editing myself as well to develop and improve my editing skills.

Music video - Draft one

Hi blogggg,

Abby has finished editing her fist draft of the music video. However, this does not include the performance shot yet because the performance shots that we have taken before the lighting was not as good because the artist and the background did not go together as well therefore we are taking another performance shot soon!

Some of the shots are not all in as well so there may be black scenes. Therefore, we can fill in later on when we film another performance shot or other shots that may fit in later afterwards.

Artist biography - website pt 2

Artist Biography - Abby

Helloooooo, 

after the plan and discussions about the biography, during the term break I have decided to help our team by helping Moji to do one of the parts for the website which was the artist biography. 

I started off by looking at different famous artist websites such as Rihanna's, Demi Lovato's, Beyonce and much more to get some inspiration to write for my own artist.

I have use some intertextuality from some of these artists that I have mentioned and I have tried to put some of my ideas into it as well to make my artist different and unique than other artists.

Here is the masterpiece that I have written for my artist...

"Abby is a student, an athlete, a singer, and a guitarist. In addition, she has high followers on social media, with followers over 2 million Twitter followers, 3.5 million Instagram followers and over 7 million fans on Facebook.

It’s hard to believe that only a few months ago, Abby was just a normal teenage girl who's very passionate with singing. Abby began her journey by doing covers with her brothers and friends and posting on social media for her friends to see. With just a few days, the cover videos especially “Say you won’t let you go” became the biggest hit. Within a month, she was contacted by a big music company “Republic Records” which have many big artists and bands in their company. Such as Ariana grande, DNCE, Hailee Steinfeld, Drake and much more. The record label was struck by her unique singing techniques and her ability to attract many groups of audiences at once. As she signed her contract with Republic records, she made more covers with other artists before her big fame with the song “Starving”.

Outside her singing career, her interests in doing sports is also outstanding. She has been representing her school in competing in football, touch rugby, athletics and softball competitions.

To support her singing abilities as mentioned above, she has been playing guitar as well. She have been learning how to play guitar from her peers, her brother as well as self learnt."

website - biography

Today in our lesson,

We have discussed about the website and the majority of the time, we talked about the biography part of the performer.
It took us sometime to think about the ideas of how our artist became a star because we want it to be realistic as well. I felt that Abby life (real-life) can be related to our coursework and therefore I felt I could snip some of her real life situations.
we have decided to start our biography by telling how our artist "Abby" started off a normal student in school and loves to sing. Therefore her and some of her friends started to do covers in different locations. With these covers, she posted on social media for her friends to see. But as people viewed the videos, they realized that she was better than they imagined and shared her videos all over social media which became a sensational hit. She then was discovered by a big record label "Republic Label" which many artists such as Nicki Minaj, Demi Lovato, Drake and much more are also in.

We also wanted to put information about her family life and about her hobbies as well. Because I believe that if our artist has many interests, this will attract more audiences as the artist and the audiences may have the same interests and can connect with each other better. Also, this can tell what kind of artist she is just by knowing her hobbies or family life. 

cover of songs - website

Hellooo,


Today Abby, Moji and I, we decided to shoot some cover of songs. This also can be used as our marketing strategy to promote the artist herself but also this can help other artists to give a shout out to our new artist as well!

Today we shot 2 songs which were "Say you won't let go" - James Arthur and "Sunday Morning" - Maroon 5.

It took some time to shoot each clip because there was a construction going on and there were really loud sounds of the construction noises in the background. But in the end, we managed to finish filming 2 songs and maybe we will be shooting more during the week.

Today I have learnt that taking covers are not as easy because sometimes it takes time for the performer to nail the lyrics and because of other unpredicted sounds/ noises it takes more time and patient is needed while taking the covers for music videos.