POST 5: MY PROJECT PROPOSAL/RESPONSE TO THE BRIEF

After completing my research and planning in posts 1-4, I have developed my proposals in response to the brief. This includes my proposals for my artist (discussed further in post 6 as well as below), my music video (post 7), homepage (post 8) and other webpage (post 9), my digitally convergent brand and my independent production company.

These proposals were all inspired by real media, i.e. real dance artists and their music videos/websites, but ultimately brought together by my ideas, ensuring she has a unique style in addition to being similar to the successful artists already in the industry.

My Fictional Dance Artist & Choice of Track

My artist 'FRNKE' is a single female dance artist, with a sassy attitude and stylish fashion sense that allows her to stand out. I chose the demographic of a single female artist as this fills a gap in the dance genre market, which is saturated with male DJs. As well as this, the female artists that are in the dance genre are often paired up with male artists, which in my opinion sends out a negative portrayal of women's independence in an age where a female artist is as successful with a male one as she is on her own, taking the examples of Dua Lipa and Anne-Marie being paired up with male artists like Marshmello, Calvin Harris and Snakehips.

My artists' branding is on the right-hand side, with my bold font used prominently in both of my products. The logo will feature at the beginning of my music video and frequently on my website, with my artist's name conventionally also working as a button linking to the homepage. The font will also be used for titles on my website to convey consistent branding.

I have chosen the track 'High Five' (originally by Sigrid) for my music video and FRNKE's first single. My reason for choosing this song ties in with my planned portrayal of FRNKE as an influential role model for her "culturally sophisticated 16-25 class AB demographic." This song and its lyrics allow her to display to her young target audience that she can relate to their struggles, as she is similar to them in working out her place in society and deciding to block out the negative people in her life and tell them directly: "that high five is all you got." The lyrics send out a very powerful message of empowerment against adversity and reveal how the artist's character develops through the song as it builds up through the first verse and pre-chorus to the beat drop in the middle of the first chorus and gets more upbeat, allowing me to utilise conventions of the dance music genre in these upbeat sections. You can listen to the song here.

Proposal for my music video, homepage and other webpage

I intend to use intertextuality to keep my target audience engaged and entertained in my music video by referencing classic chick-flick films of previous decades, Heathers and Mean Girls, to subvert representations of teenage girls in popular culture. I propose to cut between memorable scenes from the films in the narrative to performance shots of my artist lip-synching and dancing in her girl group. This ensures my music video also follows the conventions of the dance music genre, which often features upbeat group dancing sequences as well as CU shots of the artist. I plan to use varied mise-en-scene, with different studio lighting or interesting exterior locations introduced in different segments of the song, to keep my audience engaged and interested for the whole three minutes of my music video. In my planning, I will create storyboards to visually present my ideas.

My homepage and other webpage will work in synergy with my artist's social media pages to portray my artist's brand identity as a whole rather than the part of her style that can be observed from her music video for her debut single. I will take a wide variety of stills (both on location and in the studio) as well as other audio-visual content to fill these two pages of her website and make them visually-striking. They will also use many promotional techniques to encourage audience interaction such as competitions, brand tie-ins and linking to her social media accounts, all of which I have seen utilised on real-media to solidify my artist's brand. My second webpage will be a news page, where I will display the latest events associated with my artist, along with similar promotional content with plenty of links to external sites. Before creating my website on Wix, I will draw flat plans of what I plan to include on my pages.

Digitally convergent production with a consistent and connected brand

I propose to create a digitally convergent production through synergy across my music video and online platforms. For example, I will utilise a consistent colour scheme and artist branding (logo) as well as featuring photography and audio-visual content of my artist with consistent portrayals of her personality as a musician.

I am using a case study of dance artist Sigrid's brand identity to display how I can keep my target audience engaged through synergistic branding. In all four examples the artist's name is spelt in the same way, using the same font and capitalisation. In three of the four, a circular sticker look is used, although variations in colour and the use of a drop shadow that has been used in just the music video could be utilised to make them more interesting to the audience. The consistent colour scheme of pale pink, soft blue and red are also repeated across her platforms. Furthermore, the artist's icon images for both her Twitter and Instagram accounts is the same image, which is in fact the focal image from her most recent single, seen in the Instagram post below. A different focal image is used for the tour poster although Sigrid looks very similar in both, with her long brown hair in the same centre part and with minimal make-up. This would allow her audience to understand that this is her key style and brand identity and as they become her fans, expect her same look to be continually portrayed.

I intend to use this research in my planning and production of my products in order to create an equally digitally convergent brand for my artist.

My Independent Production Company
I have created my own independent production company who will produce my music video based on their vision, including their interpretation of the lyrics of my track and style of my artist. My artist would enlist a small independent production company rather than a larger corporate firm as FRNKE is a new, rising star and therefore her record label, Universal Music Group, would not invest exuberant amounts of money into her brand when it is still small. Not only this, but a larger production company is more likely to rigidly stick to the conventions of music videos whereas a smaller one is likely to be more creative and experimental in its style; qualities that the music video format already reinforces and encourages.

My independent production company is called 'London Klutz Creative,' the logo can be seen below. The company specialises in music video production and also works on other video projects, including commercial TV advertisements or short films, similar to the company 'London Alley' that influenced my ideas when creating mine. My choice of a unique, fun font and the company's name reinforces its place as a small, independent production company in a saturated market of independent and larger, corporate firms.

My Time Plan
In order to achieve all of the above, I need to organise my time effectively to ensure I am pleased with all of my media products by their deadlines. I have written out the main goal and specific tasks for each week to keep me on track day-to-day but have also numbered the weeks and planned for the whole duration of my NEA to allow me to see the big picture of the overall project.