Website- Key Elements

The website is made up of a few different elements that go further than just using the pre-set add ons in Dreamweaver.


The most noticeable one is the use of animation that was made in Adobe Flash. The title, menu system and banner were all made giving the website a more exciting feel, the animations give the website a less static feel. Interactive features like this keep the user more involved in the website and are less likely to move from it. A music artist's website must do this to keep the user on it long enough to convince them to buy their music or watch videos. Another element, that can be seen above, was an input area for users. This is for a username and password, which is where users would log in/sign up to the band's website gaining them access further information, a less dedicated user could not reach otherwise, this is a common feature of band websites.

As well as this we have an update list shown above and the image below shows the album advert animation that was included on the website.

Website Devlopment

This is another draft of our ancillary task of making a website to accompany the promotional video. We have picked out several flaws, including the text seeming to amateurish and the overall layout not being aesthetically pleasing. Furthermore it was lacking some essential website links, such as a log in page, gallery, etc.


Firstly the logo that was created for the album artwork, was used on the website to maintain a band identity.


From the offset we had collectively decided to include the video and below an album advert in the remaining space on the right hand side. The initial idea for the album advert came from an album advert that was seen on the band Two Door Cinema Club's' homepage. Their advert features a close up of the main image on their album artwork which features the crowned cat, this is adjacent to the name of their album which fades in and out to show the band's name, the name of the album and where you can purchase it.

We took inspiration from this concept, and tried to apply to our front cover. Initially we thought about doing almost an exact copy with the Television to the right of the advert featuring a blurred image of the band, and then the album name ('acolyte') and then 'out now' fading in and out. However seeing as though the image was a television in itself, we decided to manipulate this, and feature all the information and images on the static television screen itself.

Although it is not visible here upon entering the website the television turns on, then becomes static before a picture of the band appears with the title 'acolyte'( which you can see below on the image at the bottom) this then fades into the words 'out now' and this repeats itself if you remain on the home page.

In addition from the existing website research we did, Sam decided to add conventional links, such as; Gallery, Bio, Releases and a sign up section. Consequently he included a log in section below the links tab, where existing members can post comments on updates if it was an existing website.

Furthermore a criticism of the previous home page was that in the updates section each update wasn't clearly separated from each other as they were all in white. In contrast we changed the colour scheme of the updates to match the links tab. The date of each post is in blue and the information is in green, moreover any links are in white, so it is easy for audiences to navigate their way through the page.

Digipak, final development

This is the four panels of our final Digipak, we have themes running through all of the panels, so that you can tell they are all linked, just like a magazine, we have a house style. Then below is the two 3D viewings of the Digipak.

Digipak Development- New Front Cover idea.

For a new digipak idea we took inspiration from The Horrors- Primary Colours album artwork, we liked the blurred image and the gold/yellow hue that covered this image

We did a photo shoot with a mock band for our new digipak. The design came from inspiration on the shoot. We saw an old TV and it reminded of us of our previous idea with a TV screen, that we planned to use for our video. We however developed the band shoot into the TV creating a collage of band image, vintage television and band name. We really liked this development, the glow was added to give it a more electronic feel like the glow from our previous digipak. Here is the finished product, with the original pictures we used below it.








Furthermore here is the revised back cover and inside cover. To fit into the motif of our album artwork. The grainy image that is actually the band with the animal masks on, these masks run through our music video and therefore we thought it was fitting for the album artwork. The back panel is a close up of the band, I believe that the close up gives the viewer some confusion in what the image is. This theme also runs throughout our digipak and our video.











The final image below is the inside cover where the CD will sit, this is influenced from the front of our Digipak, we took the idea of white noise from a TV.

Album Artwork- Draft 2

here is another draft of our back panel.



this is the side panel above, and then here are all the panels together.

Album Artwork Development

The next stage of development for the digipak, was to look at the different panels. Next we looked at the back, sticking with the theme of simplicity, and the colour themes of black with a strong outer glow, highlighting the text this is what the back of our digipak looks like.



Above, is the simple white text on black and then below is the back with the outer glow. With the outer glow we also added a touch of noise to give that sort of shy grainy effect.

The Influence from Existing Products.

Warning- The video contains nudity, sex and violence.

Smack my bitch up from dwayne koh on Vimeo.

The Prodigy's controversial video for their single "Smack My Bitch Up" was a great influence to us. We unintentionally came up with similar themes of unravelling a mystery person at the end of the music video, it was only after we realised the similarities that we decided to relate to this video. The hidden conclusion in this video is very similar to our hidden conclusion, however the Prodigys way of presenting the story is a lot more controversial and impactive, as well as being quite abrasive and rude. However this is the brilliance of this video. They cleverly used the technique of Point Of View filming to hide there protagonists identity, as well as causing the viewer to assert stereotypical views of assuming the lead would be a male down to the actions they take as well as the band being male dominated. We have decided to try and effectively use this technique to our advantage to succesfully hide the identity of our secret lover.

Website Development

this site is more simplistic, however I think it is too simplistic, we need to replace the current delphic logo with out newly created one, and also need to change some of the colouring and layout, to make it look more professional and more futuristic to fit in with the theme of our band and album artwork.

This was our first draft of our website, I feel that it has many faults, the images of the people are not good enough, the site looks to cluttered and it looks very amateurish, not fitting in with themes we have been striving for thus far.

Lyrics and Song Structure

Above shows the lyrics and our notes for the way we interpreted these lyrics. This showing of lyrics gives me the opportunity to explore some more of our ideas. Particularly the intro, during our meetings we had discussed this intro many times. Originally we were going to use these electronic voices and make the people in the video lipsync these words. However to create a theme of disambiguation in the video, we thought we could work with the editing to create a sense of loneliness for the main character, he will be placed central in the shot, while others are around him dancing, he seems to stick out, looking odd against the crowd. This crowd of people will be cut in and out of shot, edited in time with the music however, hopefully creating a really slick effect. The rest of the lyrics will be simply lip synced. In the verses we will create the effect of conversation between him and another. The lyrics he lipsyncs will look like he is talking. setting up the "meeting stage" between the two. The chorus will be lip synced towards the camera at this stage, putting the emphasis on his doubt and regret.

First Response

After talking through our idea and avid discussions, we put forward the idea to our tutor. The presentation went well and was well taken by our tutor, the main response was that it had lots of potential as an idea. This really pleased us and we were thrilled to be able carry on developing it. The one thing that she made apparent to us was to really consider our setting, due to the fact that if it was the wrong place it would look shabby and not up to the standard we could really achieve. Now that has been made clear we have further discussed our options for setting, we felt that an average house would look to unprofessional and cause it to seem like the "convenient" and "cop-out" option. We got some options for houses that we thought we might use. [insert photo here and talk]

We spoke about our next steps, we have decided to properly think out how we will film the rest of our video, with all the various ideas we have thought about and put them down into one storyboard. Which will then most probably be made into an animatic.

Development of idea and song

This video shows the track that we have chosen to use for our music video. It is a live version of the song and this helped us create our idea. The song itself was the main influence but i found the lights and band name to be quite influential on the image i have for lighting and the way we film it. Obviously this is all to come but it is benefitial for us to think about it early on so we can really develop the idea. The next stage after getting our intial idea was to really develop the video. In the few meetings that followed choosing our song we came up with ideas for setting and situations. We aim to focus upon one main character (male) who is at a party, set in either a urban house/flat or somewhere more bar/club like. the reasons for this are too set up the meeting of a person. It is ambiguous however who this other person is. The situation is set up in this party like situation to help us hide the identity of the person who our character desires, there is suggestion to them sleeping together, made through walking upstairs and dropping of clothes. This act leads the protaganist to doubt his actions and regret what happened, this is the basis for our video, however the narrative will not be straightforward and will be mixed and rearranged to emphasise the erratic mind of the character. We will use the electronic style of the song to influence the style of camera work and the "aa ee oh oh aa ee" sections of the song will be amplified through such stylistic features such as our editing. Also we will be using the bridge to our advantage, the convenient pause then section following (2:56) could possibly be used as an effective way of presenting a montage of the images, then culminating in our final scene of unveiling the mystery "lover". I think this will work really well and give it the finished feel, closing the narrative.